Hurricane Ike was the third most destructive hurricane to ever make landfall in the United States. When it hit Galveston, Texas on September 13th, the winds were nearly 125 miles per hour. Before it was over, the storm caused extensive flooding, demolished buildings and left millions of people and offices without power for weeks. Luckily, organizations such as the National Oceanic (News - Alert) and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began tracking the hurricane as soon as it appeared on September 1, 2008 as a tropical storm west of the Cape Verde islands. The minute by minute updates helped residents and businesses make disaster preparations.
Thousands of people fled the coastal areas of Texas. Energy companies such as Shell Oil and Anadarko evacuated workers ahead of time. Even communication providers like T-Mobile and Sprint prepared for the storm by setting up response teams and back up service sites (Reuters (News - Alert).com.). Executives with facilities located in and around the projected path of Hurricane Ike all faced the same dilemma – how to continue operating and servicing customers not affected by the storm.
Virtual Contact Centers Offer Service Without Interruption
Most companies have disaster recovery plans, including how to restore data systems, get employees back to work, or reinstate utilities. But most of these plans focus on what to do after a disaster, not during one. When small, local businesses are faced with impending closures, their customers typically are affected as well, and therefore recognize the reason behind any service interruptions. For organizations with national operations, however, closing the impacted brick and mortar facility means customers who may not understand or appreciate the disruption caused by the disaster will experience interrupted service, busy signals and long wait or hold times. This experience can adversely affect your brand, damage loyalty and even cause your customers to switch to a competitor.
In our highly competitive, 24/7 society, providing business continuity during disasters such as hurricanes, blizzards or earthquakes, is an incredibly compelling advantage of the virtual customer contact model. With unrivaled geographic diversity and an advanced technology infrastructure, home-based customer contact solutions offer superior business advantages and provide important peace-of-mind in times of crisis.
Advantage #1 – Customer Care Professionals (CCPs) are Always Available
Virtual call centers recruit, train and manage employees across the United States. This dispersed workforce allows virtual centers to re-route calls to employees in unaffected parts of the nation. This helps maintain proper staffing levels and deliver uninterrupted call resolution. In contrast, when employees are unable to reach a physical call center, the only option is to shut down the facility and let calls go unanswered.
Advantage #2 – Extra Resources Provide Help When It’s Needed Most
Home-based, virtual call centers have access to the largest, skilled resource pool in the nation. The virtual nature of this model allows them to increase the number of customer care professionals (CCPs) available to answer phones within minutes. Rather than forcing unscheduled employees to drive to a brick and mortar based facility, home-based CCPs can simply pick up their headset, log on to the computer and begin taking calls immediately. One call to a home-based partner provides immediate access to the extra resources you need when you can’t service your customers in-house.
Advantage #3 – Network Connectivity is Consistent
Just as the workforce is distributed with a virtual contact center, so to is the IT infrastructure. Any reputable virtual center will have state-of-the-art Tier 1 data centers in multiple U.S. locations. Each data center provides a highly available solution with uninterruptible power supplies, backup generators and multiple electrical feeds from local power grids. Connectivity to these centers is also covered through relationships with multiple, reputable providers such as Global Crossing (News - Alert), Level3, AT&T and Verizon. Should unforeseen events sever connectivity to one area, virtual centers can seamlessly re-route connectivity to another network. Customers in unaffected areas will not experience any service interruption.
Virtual Call Centers in Action: How One Company Maintained Business Continuity During Hurricane Ike
Faced with the likely closure of its Houston-based call center as well as the evacuation of most of the staff, a national Fortune 500 financial institution began looking at ways it could continue providing the high quality of service its customers had come to expect. While some of the calls could be re-routed to the company’s other internal centers, there were simply not enough customer care professionals (CCPs) to handle the remaining high volume. In addition, these calls could not be handled by just anyone. They required someone with extensive financial knowledge as well as experience with their existing systems and processes. Luckily, this company was an existing Alpine Access partner, which meant it had experienced employees already trained on the company’s procedures.
On Friday, September 12th, just 24 hours before Hurricane Ike was predicted to hit Texas, the company called Alpine Access. Alpine Access was asked to find as many additional customer care professionals as possible to answer calls. Through phone calls, email and instant messaging, Alpine Access tapped into its existing resource pool of employees asking for help. The response was immediate. In less than one day, Alpine Access was able to flex up staffing by 22% over the originally scheduled hours.
With a unique blend of planned and solicited extra hours, Alpine Access’ employees provided the much needed support to effectively handle the call volume from customers unaffected by the hurricane. It is estimated that service levels that weekend were twice as high as what they would have been without the extra resources. In addition, calls were answered within an acceptable 30 second timeframe and the company maintained its reputation for consistent, high-quality service.
Be Prepared
The beginning of a new year is an appropriate time to evaluate existing processes and plan for the future. While no one can predict what our country may face this year, I’ve always found it helpful to follow the scouting motto of “Be Prepared.” As you have read, the consistent availability of staff, extra resources and infrastructure make the home-based customer service model well-suited for providing business continuity. Of course, that is only one of many compelling reasons companies are turning to virtual contact centers to handle their customer service needs. I encourage you look at how your company can benefit from outsourcing its customer service to a work-at-home model, because providing quality service at a reasonable cost is essential even when the sun is shining and there’s not a cloud in the sky.
Christopher M. Carrington is President and CEO of Alpine Access, Inc. a Denver, Colorado-based provider of call center services using home-based customer service and sales employees. Carrington has more than 25 years of business service experience. Alpine Access clients include J. Crew, Office Depot, the IRS and a number of Fortune 100 financial institutions.
Christopher M. Carrington, President and CEO at Alpine Access, writes the Home Agent Happenings column for TMCnet. To read more of Christopher’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jessica Kostek
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