Holiday Hustle: How Contact Centres can maximise breaks and minimise disruptions

All the schools are broken up, the weather is (supposedly) at it’s best, and workers across the country are booking well-deserved leave.

Empowering agents to strike the right work-life balance with leave is critical to agent satisfaction and indeed long-term Contact Centre success. Equally critical, however, is ensuring that during holiday periods Contact Centres operations aren’t disrupted and customer experience remains a number one priority. As although some sectors are at their quietest within the summer months, for other industries, such as retail, the back-to-school momentum that builds towards the end of the month will be a prime time for positive brand experiences.?

In this month’s IPI Wellness Wednesday blog, we are sharing ideas, strategies, and tools that Contact Centres can utilise to support agents throughout the holidays and minimise disruption while agents are on leave.

Keeping on top of schedules

With some agents off on holidays or choosing to take off time for R’n’R, teams are going to be harder to manage. Implementing a workforce management tool, such as Verint, that can help managers keep track of holiday schedules and ensure that there are still enough agents to meet demand, is essential to the successful management of a Contact Centre.

Change up tasks

For some Contact Centres, the easiest way to mitigate the impact of increased annual leave amongst agents is to have colleagues pick up tasks for each other during quieter times. It seems straightforward to have colleagues that work primarily on the same technology – telephony, email, video, etc. – to adopt the responsibilities of their colleagues on leave.

Yet it's worth being cautious of making workloads too repetitive. Mixing tasks for agents with the know-how and experience to work with a range of technologies will help keep motivation up and minimise the chance of burnout.

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Use automation to alleviate the burden

Thanks to the proliferation of AI services, tools like chatbots are only getting more popular. Rather than bristle against the tide of change, Contact Centres could use the inconsistent work patterns of the summer as an opportunity to embrace such new technologies. Particularly in industries where call volumes are down, taking the time to try out new technologies before bolstering operations in readiness for autumn, would be a strategic move.

Hybrid doesn't mean teams have to be apart

Summer can disappear in the blink of an eye, and it's easy for managers to let routine tasks slip. But for agents who are not going away this summer or have moved to home-work to look after dependants, having something in the social calendar can be a great break from the day-to-day. Ensuring that these activities are as accessible as possible for colleagues is essential, so regular events like “virtual coffee breaks” are great low-key social activities for summer.

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Set realistic expectations

KPIs drive business growth, and the best managers know that to utilise them fully, they need to be realistic and specific to agents and teams.

In the summer months, some contact centre workloads will be quieter, while in other sectors agents will be under increased pressure as they pick up absent agents’ workloads. As such, over the August period, Contact Centre managers must be realistic about KPIs and adjust expectations accordingly.

Back to Education

Innovation and education are a must for ambitious Contact Centres. To maximise both, agents need to be trained and confident in their skill sets. As such, any downtime across summer is a great opportunity to initiate new training and offer agents refresher courses that keep their know-how up-to-date and relevant.

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Childcare

With schools out for summer, Contact Centres will find many of their agents opting to work from home to look after children. Having accessible policies on hybrid working will help teams adjust to these short-term changes and help everyone keep on track with targets and feel connected to colleagues.

Equipment at home

For agents juggling childcare and work over the holiday period – noise-cancelling headphones are a must. But this is just a drop in the pond of equipment agents need to successfully complete home tasks. Providing equipment similar to what agents are used to in the office, such as mice, ergonomic keyboards or even a second screen, is an easy way to support agents while streamlining hybrid work.

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Commit to relax

Many agents will opt not to use their leave during the summer, perhaps if they aren't limited by school holidays or prefer to take annual leave out of peak times. But this doesn't mean that they need less support. With fewer agents physically present in the Contact Centre over August, managers should initiate short-term initiatives.

Friday drinks are common and very popular, but non-alcoholic alternatives that suit a hybrid workforce, such as weekly challenges or quizzes, are great inclusive options too.

Alternative ways to use a holiday

We're living in unprecedented times and have all had to adapt. For many, this has involved cutting back on luxuries, including holidays. As such, Contact Centres, like any workplace, must be sensitive to situations, but encouraging agents to take their leave even if they aren't using it to travel is a must.

Fun can still be had at home, and annual leave can be reinvested into new skills and hobbies that will help agents destress at the end of the day, even after they're back at work.