UK Contact Centres: Winning In The New Normal

Genesys and IST conducted an online survey between 21st of April 2020 till 30th of April among 150 contact centre executives and managers the United Kingdom.

The survey found that more than eight-in-ten managers (82%) said 75% or more of their contact centre staff are working remotely and more than half (54%) have 100% of their contact centre agents operating remotely.

Employee wellbeing biggest challenge during pandemic

58% of contact centre managers said ensuring staff wellbeing was their biggest challenge whilst transitioning to remote working. More than a third (35%) said the restraints imposed by their current technology give them the biggest headache, while for 34% it is maintaining the effectiveness of their workforce. Over a quarter (26%) said enabling remote working was their greatest difficulty, along with lowering contact centre demand. Only 18% said budgets are currently their main challenge.

Increased call volumes and demand on Contact Centres
Based on interaction data from the industry’s leading cloud contact centre platform, Genesys Cloud, between Q4 2019 and Q1 2020, UK businesses saw an increase of nearly 33% in customer service inquiry volumes.

Dealing with the increase in demand, businesses were asked which technologies could help contact centres manage these increases. Chatbots came top, selected by 34% as a priority for businesses looking to provide quick answers to frequently asked questions, such as opening hours. Knowledge base self-service was on the wish list for almost as many (32%). Nearly 30% want to introduce robotic process automation (RPA) to assist agents and exactly a quarter (25%) want to see implementation of voice biometrics to identify callers, save agents time and eliminate frustrations.

Download this report now to learn how contact centres can adapt to win in the new normal.