| Contact Centres Struggle To Retain Staff and Keep Costs Down In Face Of Strong Industry Growth |
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| Wednesday, 20 June 2007 | |
  
Sydney, 20 June 2007 – The Australian contact centre industry is growing rapidly, but this growth is placing increasing strain on its ability to retain good staff and keep costs down, according to a report launched in Sydney today by callcentres.net, the research, news and online company dedicated to the Australian and Asia Pacific contact centre industries. The study also found a slight decrease in outsourcing rates, increasing use of hosted technology systems and a strong trend towards teleworking. Featured Whitepaper
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Industry growth The survey found the contact centre industry is undergoing a period of considerable growth, the total number of seats having increased in size by 13% from 2006 to 2007, an increase on the 8% growth between 2005 and 2006. However, the survey found this growth was also causing the industry significant challenges, particularly in human resources management. Human Resource challenges “Contact centres in 2007 are more acutely feeling the strain of training, managing and retaining good staff. There is considerable competition for good staff, which is placing increasing pressure on wages,” said Dr Catriona Wallace, Director, callcentres.net. “The turnover rate of full-time agents grew from 16% in 2006 to 22% in 2007. Turnover is considerably higher in contact centres with 50 or more seats, at 27%, and even higher in very large centres with over 100 agents, at 34%.” In addition, the mean base salary for a full-time agent rose by 6% from 2006 to 2007 to about $41,000. This combination of trends is having a noticeable effect on contact centres’ bottom lines, the survey found. “Labour represents a growing proportion of the running costs for a contact centre and now accounts for about 70% of total operational expenditure,” said Wallace. “High turnover is a major concern, given an agent costs an average of $19,000 to replace. The cumulative effect is that total costs are on the rise.” Outsourcing The trend in recent years towards outsourcing contact centre functions has made a surprising reversal, according to the 2007 survey. “In the 2004 and 2006 surveys, 20% of respondents said they outsourced some or all of their contact centre functionality; in the 2007 survey it was only 15%,” said Wallace. “Any growth in outsourcing appears to be coming from the growth of existing accounts rather than from new business. We are surprised at this result given the current HR and cost pressures. This finding is perhaps indicative of Australia’s continued resistance to outsource and in particular to offshore service work.” Revenue Generation Another interesting result of the study was the changing focus of contact centres from service only to service and sales. “We see companies increasingly viewing their contact centres as revenue generators rather than pure cost centres. Nearly 60% of respondents said their contact centres were used to generate some revenue from calls. However, contact centre managers also stated that a lack of sales skills, culture and technology was limiting the realisation of revenue generating opportunities from up-selling and cross-selling.” Contact Centre Technology The survey found an increasing uptake of technologies such as Voice over IP, CRM, call recording, e-learning and hosted solutions. “About 40% of respondents said they were already using some type of hosted technology in the contact centre,” said Wallace. “The reason for this may be to offset the increasing costs, contact centre management is opting to defer large capital investments in technology systems and software and shifting that to operational expenditure.” Despite this increase in some technologies, the survey found Australian contact centres were not effectively moving from voice-based communications to a multi-channel model that incorporated email, SMS, web ordering and online chat. “Agent-only voice calls represented more than half of all contact centre transactions, while another quarter of calls were handled using agents and IVR systems,” said Wallace. “Only a tiny proportion of contact centres were making use of true multi-channel communications. We believe this will be a major point of service differentiation into the future.” Teleworking or Home-Based Agents 2007 saw a significant jump in the number of contact centres allowing their staff to telework, or home-base, from 4% in 2006 to 10% in 2007. This proportion was expected to jump to 19% in 2008. “Reflecting the general trend in the workplace, many contact centre agents want to work from home,” said Wallace. “Most contact centres have not yet embraced this flexibility, but teleworking could be an effective way to increase staff satisfaction and reduce the high levels of turnover in the industry.” Do Not Call Register 87% of organisations surveyed indicated that the introduction of the Do Not Call Register would have no impact on their headcount while 77% claimed that it would have no impact on gross revenue. Only 9% of organisations thought that the Register would decrease gross revenues. “With the Do Not Call Register only having just gone live as our research was being finalised, it will be interesting to track how these figures perform when we conduct the survey in 2008. We predict there to be some changes but do not expect it to be significant,” said Wallace. [ends] About the 2007 Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Study The 2007 Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Study, sponsored by Autonomy etalk, Cisco, COPC and Zintel, is produced by callcentres.net and endorsed by the Australian Teleservices Association and the Call Centre Managers Association. The study provides detailed information to help organisations better manage their contact centre operations and benchmark their performance against the contact centre industry in areas such as contact centre operations, technology, human resources, key performance indicators, budgets, seat costs, quality assurance, customer satisfaction and the significant challenges facing the industry. About callcentres.net Established in 1998, callcentres.net is the central portal for the Australian and Asia-Pacific contact centre industries, providing research, benchmarking studies and up-to-date news and information. It also delivers innovative online advertising and marketing packages for suppliers and vendors. www.callcentres.net |
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