Tag: Technology

By 2025, 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely—an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels, the study revealed. And when it comes to supporting busy season seasonal staffing with a virtual, work-at-home workforce, there are many things a call center needs to get right. From a highly supportive onboarding process to extensive training and ensuring an active and engaged team, companies need to provide the whole package for their employees while meeting or exceeding service levels for their clients. 

In parts one and two of our blog series, Three Pillars of Seasonal Staffing in the BPO Industry, we discussed best practices for contact center technology, recruiting, training, and retention. In part three, we focus on the third aspect that is a new critical component of seasonal staffing: Work-at-Home. 

Supporting Work-at-Home Employees for Seasonal Staffing in the BPO Industry 

Work-at-home employees in the BPO industry face many unique challenges, including isolation, lack of office socialization, and distractions at home or from family members. On the other hand, they have some distinct advantages such as greater flexibility for time management and decreased stress due to the short commute to their at-home desk. 

BPO companies can improve their seasonal, virtual staffing by fostering a culture of employee engagement and communication. To do this, they need to engage employees in the same way as their onsite counterparts: supporting them with technology while ensuring a positive work-life balance, career development, and engagement. 

Here are three ways to achieve the high level of support that your work-at-home employees need. 

Onboard Early 

Building a solid onboarding process is crucial for cultivating a cohesive, productive, and engaged workplace. Yet, according to Gallup, only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job onboarding new employees. Additionally, 76% of new hires felt less equipped to do their job compared to 85% of tenured employees. In other words, new hires need extra support when they work remotely. 

Onboarding is more than going through a logistical checklist: computer, check; headset, check; internet, check. It’s making sure your new team member gets onboarded as soon as possible, has the support they need, and is engaged early and often. 

Essentially, you want to mitigate the potential of stress and confusion from the get-go. This ensures your newest members feel valued, are well-prepared, and are ready to head into training knowing that their new company has their back, even from afar. 

At iQor, many of our work-at-home employees have their entire recruiting and onboarding experience through a secure virtual work-at-home setting. And when it comes to being hired for a busy holiday season, it can be intimidating and overwhelming to hit the virtual production floor without a physical support system present. To put our employees at ease and help them feel their best for our client’s customers, we provide extra time and support resources: 

• Prepare Employees’ Setups Early. We onboard our call center agents one to two weeks before product training. This gives new employees plenty of time to transition into our culture, form relationships, and prepare their equipment setup. 
• Bring Your Own Device Support (BYOD). With our private CX cloud and secure remote worker technology, employees can quickly turn their personal device into the same, secure, compliant desktop they’d find in the physical call center environment. 
• Increased Service Desk Staff. We add extra staff to our service desk to help our new seasonal employees through their onboarding and BYOD setup, so employees always have the support they need 24/7. 

Develop High-Potential Employees into Frontline Leaders 

One of the biggest challenges BPOs face in managing the high influx of seasonal employees is ensuring compliance and quality. At some point, the amount of employee to management support ratios becomes too unbalanced, and seasonal employees end up feeling lost, confused, and undervalued, leading to a dip in customer satisfaction and struggling KPIs. And in a virtual environment, it’s even harder to keep up that one-to-one connection. 

We sought to solve this issue by developing our year-round employees into leaders that could provide extra support to seasonal employees. As discussed in Part Two: Recruiting, Training, and Retention, we begin developing high-potential frontline agents for leadership roles around two to three months before a seasonal ramp. Our leadership training programs teach frontline employees vital leadership skills, including performance management, increasing engagement, and best practices for managing a virtual workforce. 

Always Remember That Engagement is Key to Supporting a Remote Workforce 

When it comes to a virtual customer service workforce, engagement is equally, if not more, critical as engagement within the physical call center. 

According to the Harvard Business Review, 62% of employees believe working remotely positively impacts engagement, yet only 5% are likely to stay at their company long-term. 

This gap offers an opportunity for companies to be creative in boosting their engagement efforts. Being a genuinely engaging employer requires a strategic approach and long-term commitment to your workforce and company culture. In other words, you may need more than virtual happy hours and occasional one-on-ones. It’s in your best interest, too, as a business. When organizations invest in their remote employees, they see happier, more productive employees on board for the long term. 

Try out some of these employee engagement activities to keep your virtual seasonal workers engaged from day one:  

• Be neighborly. Welcome and check-in on WAH employees with goodie baskets, care packages, and food delivery services. 
• Photo contests. Drive competition, creativity, and comradery with themed photo contests. Some examples include Father’s Day, Pride Month, and July 4^th.  
• Monetary incentives still go a long way. You may not be able to give physical gift cards or vouchers, but digital versions with a thank you message send the clear message of a job well done. 
• Theme days. Video conferencing fatigue is real. Keep it fresh and engaging with theme days. Incorporate their favorite sports teams, fun hats, and superheros, so team members can show off their personalities. This activity has been particularly successful for our one customer care program for a major airline client, resulting in 100% participation rate. 
• Respect boundaries. Show you care by setting healthy boundaries around employees’ schedules, assignments, and performance expectations—check-in on them to chat about their families, hobbies, workload, and mental and emotional health. 
• Ask for feedback often, and listen! A simple weekly survey is one way we stay on top of our employees’ happiness and engagement. Continuous feedback allows us to make positive impacts quickly, resulting in more personalized retention and engagement strategies. 
• Leave the work-talk at the office every so often. Conduct weekly touch-bases where work talk is off limits! At least for part of it. Put employees at ease and just chat. We found that casual discussions foster inclusiveness, engagement, and comradery.  
• Celebrate success with virtual awards. One study found that employee recognition is a top driver for employee engagement. Use your employee communication platform to allow team members to congratulate and call out their coworkers in real-time. We do this through virtual “high-fives” and host year-round iQor Recognize Awards. 
• Offer a mix of remote and in-house work options. Research shows that employees enjoy a mix of remote and in-office work. Gallup found that the optimal engagement boost was when employees worked from home 3-4 days out of a five-day workweek. Going into the office helps employees feel connected to their coworkers, build relationships, and collaborate. At the same time, the majority of the days spent working remotely helps employees stay focused, productive, and less stressed.   

Designate an engagement team and plan events early so you are always prepared and have creative ideas flowing throughout the year. 

Bonus Tip: Get Your Clients Involved! 

Want contact center employees to form a deeper connection to the client they are supporting? Collaborate with your client to provide a welcome video so employees can connect with a human face and develop more of a brand connection. iQor found that programs where clients collaborate and increase their visibility into the contact center, resulting in higher retention and engagement and better customer experiences. 

A contact center that wants to support peak seasonal staffing with a virtual, work-at-home workforce has to address all the details covered in this article. From providing an excellent onboarding process and extensive training to ensuring the team is engaged and active, there are many things they need to get right to succeed. No matter what strategies you put in place to support work-at-home employees, remember to show how much you value their dedication and provide creative solutions that reduce stress, encourage engagement, and build strong company relationships.  

Are you ready for the next big holiday or promotional event? Let us help you optimize your seasonal staffing needs with digital CX tools and irresistible people to give your customers the best experience.   

Learn more about iQor’s seasonal staffing solutions.  

For most businesses, it is a normal expectation to bring in extra support for seasonal staffing. This is especially true for call centers that need to increase staff to meet the demands during peak holidays and event-driven periods. But for this hiring process to be successful, companies need the right combination of technology, people, and recruiting and training strategies so they can manage high call volumes without sacrificing quality or their bottom line. 

In this three-part blog series, we dive into the details of what the right combination of tools, people, and strategies looks like so you can partner with your next BPO partner with confidence.  

In part one, we focused on CX technology. In part two, we’ll dive more into hiring, training, and retention strategies.

This blog post shows you:  

• Best recruiting techniques to find the best-fitting employees fast 
• Best training strategies and tools to increase speed-to-proficiency 
• Innovative retention strategies for contact center employees  

Let’s dive in. 

How to Recruit, Train, and Retain Employees for Busy Season Contact Center Staffing

To bring in as many candidates as possible, your BPO partner should be able to recruit as many qualified call center agents as possible — fast.

Recruiting: When you need to hire right and hire fast

Go Big on Referrals

By far, the biggest candidate pool for iQor comes from employee referrals. Referred employees are more likely to stay throughout the season — and longer– because they know what’s needed and expected.

Year-round, we encourage referrals through our Talent Referral Incentive Program (TRIP). TRIP is a unique rewards program that provides employees with cash incentives for bringing in employee referrals.

Referred employees can account for as much as 60-70 percent of our seasonal hires for seasonal events. Some of our programs will hold “resume parties” where employees invite their friends and family members to see what iQor is all about.

Here are three other ways iQor hires right and hires fast: 

• Leverage Pool of Candidates and Social Channels. At iQor, we draw upon our existing pool of pre-qualified candidates and our recruitment automation platform. We use social media channels like Facebook to find and engage candidates automatically. We build relationships with our employees so many come back year after year while others to continue working. So when one client’s peak season ends, iQor is able to allocate employees to another client who is in need of additional support.
• Automate Pre-Screening. From there, we send an automatic mobile link for our customized pre-screening questionnaire. If the candidate meets the criteria, our recruiter reaches out to them within the hour via text message and phone call. 
• Track Candidates Like They’re Your Best Leads. One key difference in our recruiting process is that we track candidates like we would sales leads. We then staff our recruiters accordingly to contact every pre-screened candidate and ensure we get them set up for interviews as soon as possible. 

Once the candidate finishes the final round of interviews (in-person or virtual), they are extended an offer. In combination with our private cloud technology, this recruiting system instantly allows your company to ramp up agents in any location. 

iQor deployed this methodology for our eCommerce client and successfully hired 1,500 customer support experts in just two months. 

Training: Proactive Development of Next Generation Leaders to Support the Influx of Seasonal Hires

Around two to three months before a seasonal ramp, iQor begins developing high-potential frontline agents for leadership roles. These new leaders will serve as team leads, trainers, and subject matter experts to provide additional support for the large number of new employees. This helps reduce burnout, mitigate stress, and aid in speed-to-proficiency as employees dive into a call center environment experiencing some of the busiest times of the year.

Some of our award-winning leadership development courses include:

• PeaQ Performance Qoaching (PPQ) training. PeaQ is a coaching leadership workshop that aims to coach and develop current iQor leaders with a focus on driving team performance and positive engagement in both physical call centers and work-at-home environments. Participants learn how to identify and coach to an agent’s root cause behavior using multiple techniques.
• sQholar program. The sQholar program is a series that provides a clear path to leadership roles through training and skill development. sQholar’s are trained to be supportive, they learn how to build trust and provide constructive feedback which will result in less turnover, increased retention, and highly engaged team members leading to higher Net Promoter Scores, client satisfaction and increased ROI.

Retaining: Seasonal Contact Center Employees 

Now more than ever, employees expect more from their employers. So, reducing turnover will take more than a few performance-based incentives – it’s going to take an employee-centric approach that celebrates successes, promotes transparency, and shows proof that the company values and appreciates its workforce. 

Here’s what we found are four sure-fire ways to increase retention for peak seasonal staffing: 

Use employee-centric data analysis 

At iQor, we track retention by many attributes, including recruiter, lead source, work type, geo, and many more, to analyze winning retention combinations and where we can tweak areas for success. Our recruiting teams also employ a simulation and talent prediction toolset better to understand a potential recruit’s strengths and characteristics. We have found that better hires coupled with increased employee engagement result in improved retention.  

We utilize a recruiting analytics tool to enable operations and human resources to report on each recruiting source, applicant, hire, and retention rate at 30 and 60 days, by location and the program. Sites identify successful recruiting sources and will target future recruiting dollars in those areas. This analytics tool allows us to predict future turnover to take proactive steps to improve retention and identify our best employees for better-targeted marketing. 

Celebrate success 

We celebrate employees’ achievements and top performers through regular events such as giveaways, contests, and celebrations to foster a team spirit and create positive energy. We also incorporate retention bonuses and provide extra resources to support resources through their coaching and development. Currently, we host our global iQor Recognize Awards, where employees and leaders can nominate fellow iQorians throughout the year for their exceptional work and achievements.

One of our favorite ways to connect with employees is through our Engagement Champions, who plan and lead activities that engage and recognize employees. These individuals are outgoing, charismatic types that help energize teams, reduce stress, and create a welcoming environment through acts of kindness and genuine care.

Surveys 

Surveys are great tools for gauging contact center agents’ level of satisfaction and helping you find out the best ways to improve their work environment. 

Every week, we survey every employee through our employee portal with a simple five (5) – star question “How’s life for you at iQor?” The results are confidential and roll up to provide each line of business a score between one and five. The trend enables us to measure the impact of change and identify opportunities for more engagement and retention. 

Keep work-at-home an option 

According to Gartner, seventy percent of customer service and support employees want to continue to work at home (WAH) at least once a week after the pandemic ends. Despite growing concerns for the future of organizational culture from some service leaders, Gartner’s data indicates that WAH has not posed too great a challenge to organizational culture. In fact, most customer service employees who work remotely say that organizational culture has remained relatively unchanged – and more than 7 out of 10 think it’s improved since their shift to WAH.  

At iQor, our work-at-home solution allows the onsite experience to be easily mirrored at the agent’s home and improves agent performance and retention. 

Finding the best-fitting employees fast, building a solid talent pipeline, and retaining employees throughout the busy season can be a challenge. Organizations need to go beyond the standard practices and start using automation, data, and employee-centric strategies to better impact their contact center operations. If you’re outsourcing seasonal staff during peak times, look for a partner that can imbed this mindset across recruiting, training, and retention strategies so that you can navigate spikes in customer care volumes with confidence in your teams and your bottom line. 

Are you ready for the next big holiday or promotional event? Let us help you optimize your seasonal staffing needs with digital tools and irresistible people to give your customers the best experience.   

Learn more about iQor’s seasonal staffing solutions. 

For most businesses who partner with a BPO provider, busy seasons require the extra support of seasonal staffing. This is especially true for call centers that need to increase staff to meet the demands during peak holidays and event-driven periods. But in order to successfully get through these busy seasons, companies need the right combination of technology, people, and recruiting and training strategies so they can manage high call volumes and increased customer interactions without sacrificing quality – or their bottom line.  

In this three-part blog series, we dive into the details of what the right combination of tools, people, and strategies looks like so you can partner with your next BPO partner with confidence. 

In part one, we focus on CX technology. 

The Right Technology for Busy Season Contact Center Staffing 

When it comes to keeping up with seasonal staffing, organizations need CX technology to manage call volumes and easily scale their customer service teams. We found that there are five key technology solutions every contact center should have during peak holiday and event seasons: 

1. Workforce management (WFM) solutions to automatically manage seasonal staffing and scheduling. 

2. Interaction analytics that can record 100% of interactions and provide insights in near real-time. 

3. Intelligent IVR solutions that can automate low-level inquires and allocate calls to the right agent with the necessary skillsets. 

4. Chatbots and self-service tools to speed up the customer journey and improve first contact resolution rates. 

5. Cloud-based infrastructure that enables dynamic allocation of digital tools to agent workstations. 

Workforce Management Automation 

Workforce management (WFM) solutions allow call center managers to create schedules, track staffing needs, and schedule shifts with ease. 

For peak interaction volumes, the ideal WFM tool for seasonal staffing should be able to: 

• Automate scheduling based on real-time call and staffing data 
• Monitor staff variances 
• Identify near-term operational challenges 
• Provide full visibility into performance and reporting 
• Automatically analyze data to know what type of coverage you need at a given time 

Call center operations can quickly adjust call routing to account for busy periods or staff shortages by monitoring staffing variances in real-time and identifying near-term operational challenges. Automated WFM tools can also automatically communicate with contact center managers and frontline employees to reduce overstaffing, meet service levels, and adapt rapidly as staffing issues arise. 

The most rewarding benefit of a WFM tool is that it provides increased productivity and employee morale since intelligent scheduling prevents burnout. This leads to an improved customer experience over time. 

Interaction Analytics 

A contact center without interaction analytics during peak call volumes is like a pilot flying blind. Interaction analytics, also known as speech analytics, is a critical tool needed to analyze performance metrics during peak call and message volumes and busy times of the year. It helps teams identify and respond to trends, optimize customer service levels, and maintain quality assurance. 

The right speech analytics platform will include features such as: 

• Recording of 100% of calls 
• Automatic speech recognition 
• Live chat analytics 

VALDI is iQor’s proprietary speech and interaction analytics platform that uses cloud computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. It mines every available recorded interaction between agents and customers. Interaction analytics software like VALDI helps analyze audio data and provide immediate feedback on customer tone, sentiment, emotion, and even the stress in a customer’s voice. 

Another advantage is that it can provide agents with a distinct edge in cross and up-sell efforts. Contact center employees can leverage data captured during a call to identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities. Organizations can analyze the data further to identify which types of scripting or conversations lead to more sales for a positive impact on your bottom line. 

Intelligent IVR 

An Intelligent IVR solution is a phone automation system that automatically connects customers to the right customer service representatives. This solution eliminates long wait times, reduces abandonment rates, and improves contact center efficiency. 

The right IVR solution for busy holidays and seasonal rushes will include features such as: 

• Personalized routing of calls to the right agent based on call type, skill, and availability 
• Support for multiple languages with text or spoken prompts 
• Integration with CRM systems 
• Automated pre-recorded messages can help centers manage high call volumes 

Automated pre-recorded messages can help centers manage high call volume periods where staffing is usually stretched thin. It also reduces the risk of overstaffing. 

Chatbots and Self-Service 

When high call volumes occur, chatbots are an essential tool. Chatbots provide instant responses and self-service solutions without any human intervention from a contact center employee. 

To get the most out of a chatbot solution during peak call volumes, look for features such as: 

• The ability to take customers through a series of steps on their own with no human intervention 
• The ability to generate automatic responses based on a set of predetermined criteria 
• Conversational AI to learn, remember and respond to customer input 

Chatbots also allow agents to focus on more complex customer interactions. The chatbot can be programmed to handle routine, low-value tasks or questions. This frees up staff time which can be crucial when busy seasons are in full swing. 

Cloud-Based Infrastructure for Dynamic Allocation 

At iQor, we use private cloud technology for an effortless connection into our secure MPLS network. With dynamic allocation, you can launch your support teams to any scale you need. Whether it’s for voice or non-voice interactions, the right cloud-based solution should be able to push the required tools to an agent’s desktop seamlessly — no matter where they are in the world. 

Contact centers are the backbone of any company, providing customer service for anything from sales to support inquiries. But when it comes to holidays and event-driven volume, frontline employees are put under extreme pressure to meet demands year after year. Tools like automated WFM solutions, interaction analytics, chatbots, intelligent IVR, and more can help mitigate the risk of under and over staffing, burnout, and dips in customer satisfaction. 

Are you ready for the next big holiday or promotional event? Let us help you optimize your seasonal staffing needs with the digital tools and irresistible people that give your customers the best experience ever. 

Learn more about iQor’s seasonal staffing solutions.