For decades, contact centers have operated pretty much the same–and the old ways of working simply aren’t working anymore. The pandemic revealed that contact centers need to establish nimble and flexible operations that support new technology adoption, work-from-home strategies, and rapid response to fluctuations in customer demand. 

Over the last three to five years, the workforce has significantly shifted towards flexibility and remote work. As a result, contact centers are faced with attracting and retaining talent in the traditional model. Things will never go back to the way it was. Contact centers must rethink how they staff and operate their contact centers if they want to win top talent in this market. With the increased adoption of AI, contact centers will have more opportunities than ever before to use this to their advantage to make measurable impacts in operational improvements and customer experience.

The traditional operating model is no longer the gold standard

Forecasting is the bread and butter of any good contact center. Theoretically, operators that nail their long-term and short-term forecasts should have very few hiccups regarding workforce management. While our ability to predict demand hasn’t changed, we have new ways and available technology to respond to these challenges to improve customer experience, business operations, and the bottom line.

As a result, the change in customer demand impacts everything. Customer expectations have evolved to expect instant service, and contact centers have lost the ability to respond quickly within a traditional model. Forecasts are all over the place, agent scheduling is off and intraday management becomes impossible. Labor shortages don’t make it any easier. Attracting and retaining agents with the right skills is harder than ever. It doesn’t help that contact centers typically have a bad rap as one of the least ideal places to work due to a lack of flexibility and low pay. Overworked agents, mandated overtime, and rigid schedules lead to absenteeism and high turnover–the true kryptonite of a contact center. 

How GigCX can help contact centers achieve a new gold standard in operations

Establish Incentives that Attract and Retain Top Talent

The demands of the modern workforce have changed forever, and will probably never return to the old way of operating. Today’s top talent wants flexibility and competitive pay, it’s that simple. By adopting a GigCX model, contact centers can reward high performance with more opportunities for agents to work when they want. Unlike the traditional model, where agents are told when to work, the GigCX model attracts and retains top talent off the premise that agents can earn around their schedule. 

However, in order to receive this incentive, agents must ‘play to win,’ which means meeting their KPIs and continually performing well to be rewarded with more hours to work. The traditional way of operating doesn’t enable contact centers to use flexibility as an incentive as GigCX does. 

A GigCX model enables agents to earn more, as brands only pay for productive time. We consider productive time or ‘productive hours’ as time gig agents are available, logged in, and ready to service customers. Contact centers can staff agents down to the 30-minute interval and aren’t required to lock agents into a typical 9-5 schedule which inevitably leads to paying for costly downtime. Contact centers only pay for the time they need agents serving customers allowing GigCX providers like ShyftOff to pay agents competitively and sometimes even higher wages than contact centers can within a traditional model.

The old model can’t promise flexibility and competitive pay. The difference between traditional and GigCX models is that agents opt in to do this work. They want to do this work. It turns the traditional model on its head by putting agents in control of how they earn and make their schedules improving agent happiness and satisfaction.

Invest in Technology to Perfectly Staff the Right Agents All the Time

AI is changing and optimizing contact centers in more ways than we can imagine. Automation is one of the biggest transformations we’ve experienced today. With the right tools in place, contact centers can virtually eliminate repetitive, low-value tasks from nearly every role in the contact center. For workforce managers, supervisors, trainers, and analysts, this includes leveraging AI to recruit, hire, staff, train and recruit the RIGHT agents to meet contact center KPIs.

At ShyftOff, we’ve built custom AI-powered improvements and maximized the latest technology to optimize the time needed to identify and train the right agent on the best ways to serve our partners’ customers. As a result, by adopting a GigCX model through ShyftOff, partners can invest in technology that ensures they always have the sharpest agents available on demand. We help partners do this in a few ways.

• Leveraging AI to identify the very best talent for their programs. 
• Establish flexible certification methods designed for a flexible, on-demand workforce. 
• Built an infrastructure optimized for a flexible workforce that drives high performance and proficiency. 

Proactively Respond to Customer Needs 24/7

Every great contact center wants to reduce wait times and create effective customer solutions with helpful, skilled agents. With the power of an on-demand workforce powered by GigCX, contact centers have the ability to proactively respond to fluctuations in customer demand. 

This is unprecedented with current operating models or within operations of some of the world’s greatest BPOs. The challenge with the existing models is there tends to be some guesswork in finding the right agents. A GigCX model enables contact centers to deploy a highly, qualified on-demand workforce by using technology to identify the best agents for a campaign. With this model in place, companies can deploy agents in as little as 24-48 hours with the support of a partner like ShyftOff. GigCX efficiently identifies, trains, and onboards the right agent talent in ways a traditional model can't.

The GigCX model will become the gold standard of contact center operations because we’ve enabled the industry to consistently provide a seamless customer experience. Agents are the heart of effective contact center operations. By providing partners a dependable way to perfectly staff highly-skilled and motivated agents, we’re helping minimize wait times and enabling customer resolution in as few touch points as possible to exceed their service levels. This flexible model is truly innovating how contact centers operate for good. 

Interested in starting a pilot with ShyftOff to ramp up your on-demand workforce? Chat with our team today to get started.