Virtual Call Center Agents During the COVID-19 Pandemic

If you have a business continuity plan and a call center, chances are good that your plan involved ramping up home-based agents in case of a weather emergency, a power outage, or a pandemic disease. With the latter on our doorstep, companies that have put a home-based agent framework in place are reaping the benefits of that pre-planning.

While many businesses are facing a catastrophic loss of customers and workers, the pandemic’s fallout is likely to drive high demand for business services such as call centers, particularly those that support healthcare, government, logistics, shipping, travel, essential retail and more. For companies unprepared to support customers during a critical time, the current situation is leading to long wait times and dropped calls, which is preventing calls and customers from getting help at a time they most need it.

Things call centers need to be doing in the wake of the pandemic and in the coming months include:

Extending business hours. It may no longer be enough to take calls from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday. The rhythms of normal life are going to be upset in the near future, so consider adding more shifts or keeping someone on call at all times.

Changing schedules and adjusting forecasts. As with business hours, normal 9:00 to 5:00 hours for call center agents may need to fly out the window. Ensure you have an agile call center scheduling and workforce management solution in place so you can make changes quickly and easily and ensure that peak calling times are covered, even while they’re changing.

Working from home. With a good cloud-based contact center platform, agents can work from anywhere they have a computer and a high-speed Internet connection. They simply need to log in to begin taking or making calls. This way, your operations can continue even if your state is under “shelter in place” rules.

Offer schedule flexibility. In the near term, some agents may be sick or quarantined, or they may be caring for an ill child or family member. Ensure that sick agents are getting the time off they need. A call center scheduling solution that allows agents to swap shifts as needed can go a long way toward providing both flexibility and coverage.

Use automation. A lot of calls will be about routine issues: what are your hours now? Are you open? Where can callers find their account information? What are your company’s routine or special procedures in place? These calls can be fielded by virtual agents or “bots” designed to infer callers’ needs and route them to information, leaving human agents for the more complicated calls that require a human touch.  

Edited by Maurice Nagle