NewVoiceMedia Releases Whitepaper: Preparing your Contact Centre for Flu Pandemic
Hosted Contact Centre provider NewVoiceMedia has released a detailed whitepaper that gives insights into the nature, consequences and options for business continuity when flu pandemic strikes.
Basingstoke, England (PRWEB) April 29, 2009 -- Hosted Contact Centre provider NewVoiceMedia has released a detailed whitepaper that gives insights into the nature, consequences and options for business continuity when flu pandemic strikes.
Is your contact center ready for pandemic flu?
For many companies the call centre stands at the front-line with their customers. However having hundreds of agents working together in close proximity is an ideal environment for spreading infections. In worst case scenarios between 50% and 80% of staff may be away for several weeks.
NewVoiceMedia CEO, Jonathan Grant commented, "It's my hope that the recent outbreak of swine flu will not as serious as the projections. Nevertheless call centres should review their processes and systems to determine how the operation could continue if their work force could not, or would not, get to their place of work. A significant percentage of staff will be lost for weeks on end due to agent sickness, but other staff will need to stay home for far longer to look after their children because the local schools and child minding groups have been closed."
Most call centres will have their own contingency plans in place for pandemic flu - which is very different in nature to other disasters such as a fire, flood or power outage. But for people who would like to know a little more about the issues this whitepaper will describe the unique nature of a pandemic flu, how it will disrupt operations, and what can be done to minimise its impact on operations.
Research by NewVoiceMedia and others shows that people may be ill for up to 6 weeks; the infection will strike over a rolling period of 12 weeks; up to 50% of agents will not be able to come into work due to illness; 30% of agents who are perfectly healthy will be unwilling to come into work - they will be caring for sick relatives and friends, or just frightened of catching the disease. Such a loss will decimate the capability of call centres' to answer calls, and have a consequent knock-on effect for a company's bottom line.
According to NewVoiceMedia Chief Architect Richard Pickering, "NewVoiceMedia has been involved in contingency planning and the pandemic flu debate for some time. This whitepaper models when and how many agents may be affected by an outbreak using published information from the UK government's Influenza Pandemic Contingency Plan, including Annex J. The whitepaper also goes on to describe how the amount and nature of incoming traffic may decrease or increase depending on the type of organisation…and companies must plan for this too."
NewVoiceMedia can supplement existing call centres with temporary technology that will allow agents and supervisors to work from home, to provide a triage service that identifies callers with priority needs, and automates or delays the processing of less urgent caller requests. NewVoiceMedia hopes that the advice the whitepaper contains is never required, however it may help with your planning processes. You can download the whitepaper for free by visiting www.newvoicemedia.com/pandemic.aspx.
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