Handling a Crisis: Choosing the Right Contact Centre for Your Business
If your company faced a disaster or a cyber breach today, do you know how you would communicate with your customers and key stakeholders? Or how you would handle the influx of calls that you would receive?
Today’s businesses rely heavily on new-age technology and tools for smooth operations. But with advanced technology, also comes the risk of sudden power outages, cybersecurity breaches, system crashes, and a lot more. These potential crises can disrupt operations, create confusion for customers, and even threaten the survival of businesses.
From natural disasters to system failures, the ability to effectively manage these situations is important for businesses to function smoothly. And that is why many companies have a disaster recovery plan (DRP) in place. These disaster recovery plans will include strategies to minimise the impact of crises and to create a roadmap to swift recovery.
However, many businesses don’t consider the overwhelming number of calls they may receive or need to make when a disaster strikes.
You can maintain customer satisfaction even in challenging times by choosing to partner with a call centre that is aligned with your brand values and communication needs. But how do you evaluate which contact centre is the right fit for your business?
Read on to learn more about what to consider when selecting a contact centre for your DRP.
Experts in Handling Emergencies
Establishing effective communication channels during emergencies is crucial. Choose a contact centre with experience in managing crisis communications, managing communication flow efficiently and relieving pressure on your resources.
Carefully consider the following:
What experience does the contact centre have in handling emergency situations? Check for customer support experience and the ability to provide short duration contact centre coverage during a crisis.
How fast can the call centre stand up a team to handle or make calls for you? When disaster strikes, you need a partner who can have a team up and running as quickly as possible. Many call centres require 3 or more weeks to get a team set up and ready to handle calls, by which time your emergency will probably be over. Make sure that you find a partner who can do this much faster for you.
What are the available dispatching methods? Are they equipped to transfer directly while the caller is still on the line? Do they hang up and reach out to your on-call staff? A thorough understanding of how they work will help you plan accordingly.
Ability to Handle High Call Volumes
During crises, customers often flood businesses with inquiries. Ensure the contact centre can provide sufficient staff to handle these high call volumes.
Consider:
How do they manage spikes in call volume? It helps to have experienced agents who are adept at handling the overflow of calls during a crisis.
Understanding a contact centre’s ability to scale ensures zero disruptions to your customer service during peak demand periods.
Reliable Crisis Communication Plan
Choose a contact centre that integrates with your existing systems. Contact centres tasked with upholding exceptional customer service standards usually have advanced tech support to ensure an uninterrupted flow of communication to and from customers and stakeholders.
Key inquiries:
Do they use premise-based or cloud-based systems? While premise-based systems operate locally, cloud-based systems offer remote accessibility, crucial for maintaining operations during unforeseen events like system crashes or power outages.
Do they employ remote, work-at-home agents? Having remote agents in their team mitigates staffing concerns, meaning there are more agents to handle spikes in call volumes during peak periods. This, in turn, always ensures a smooth flow of service to your customers.
A thorough evaluation will give you insights into a contact centre’s preparedness for crisis management, aligning solutions accordingly.
At Forrest Contact, we assist organisations during crises by providing all-around communications support that includes:
Emergency Hotlines
We establish a dedicated emergency hotline manned by trained contact centre agents who can provide information, assistance, and support during a crisis. This hotline can serve as a centralised point of contact for your customers and stakeholders seeking guidance and information or reporting issues during a crisis.
Employee Assistance
We also offer support services to employees impacted by the disaster. These include disseminating information on available resources and any other assistance that they may require. During a cybersecurity breach, for example, our team can keep your employees informed on your plan of action.
We cannot prevent disasters from happening. But we do provide you with continued communication support every step of the way in the event of one. Our expert team at Forrest Contact helps businesses bounce back after a crisis.
By using the resources and expertise of a reliable contact centre partner like us, businesses can improve responsiveness in the face of crises and disasters. Get in touch with us to learn more.