Busy season is often the most disruptive time for any contact center. Unlike the steady flow of calls, messages, or emails experienced during the rest of the year, seasonal spikes are turbulent, unpredictable, and can overwhelm even the most experienced operators. The surge not only puts immense pressure on agents but also demands meticulous planning, training, and real-time decision-making from the operations and management staff. 

While staffing and operational capacities are usually designed for "typical" days, seasonal spikes can quickly expose weaknesses, leading to diminished customer satisfaction and increased costs. There are other opportunity costs that contact centers usually don’t realize until after the busy season is over, including burnout from their teams and cultural impact from reactive, high-stress operations. The sudden hiring surge can create uncertainty for seasoned, tenured agents and lead to unproductivity from new agents that haven’t quite got your processes down. Not to mention the inevitable forced attrition that comes post-busy season.

All in all–the busy season is by no means easy for any contact center. However, with technological advancements and changes in the modern workforce, we believe there’s an easier way for contact center teams to tackle their seasonal operations.

Why GigCX Makes Sense for Seasonal Operations‍

Every great contact center understands the value of accurate forecasting to manage seasonal fluctuations. Still, once you start to execute that plan–there are inevitable challenges with fulfilling your forecast requirements. Talent shortages are pervasive, quality is low from inexperienced hires, and the cost to ramp up agents with traditional hiring methods is costly. 

This is where a GigCX model comes into play. Workers in a gig economy have a different set of preferences and priorities than a traditional workforce. A GigCX model by design has perks for both businesses and agents. Gig-based agents value autonomy, they are more independent, they like variety, hold themselves accountable, and are high-performing. 

Contact centers that elect to tap into this pool of talent can leverage a flexible, engaged, and experienced workforce to meet their forecasting needs. GigCX also enables contact centers to scale up to 10s, 100s, and even 1000s of agents that are literally opting in for the level of flexibility, autonomy, and variety that seasonal operations present. 

Companies Unlock a Better Agent and Ops Team Experience‍

Even the most comprehensive in-house preparations can fail to maintain a sustainable experience for seasonal agents and their existing operations teams. Unlocking traditional operation methods, GigCX prioritizes employee value and leads to scalable growth that doesn’t burn out everyone on the team. Here’s why.

On-Demand Scalability:

‍Utilizing a gig economy model provides high confidence to operations teams that they can get the talent they need when they need it. This enables teams to rapidly scale up or down at almost 35% lower costs than traditional methods. You're not burdened with the overheads associated with permanent staffing or setting the expectation that temp workers can go full-time because this workforce has opted into flexible and variable work.

Expertise:

At ShyftOff, we have a highly selective onboarding process tailored exactly to your needs. This enables us to match your company with agents who have highly specialized skills or experience—We also incentivize our agents to have opportunities to continue this work through high-performance expectations. As a result, our partners can tap into an engaged workforce who wants to do this work.

Cost-Effectiveness:

‍With our model, we save our partners, on average, 35% in operating costs compared to their traditional operating models. Some of our partners have brought work from offshore or nearshore teams to us at cost-neutral or better. This is typically not attainable in traditional contact centers. 

Improved Culture:

‍A GigCX eliminates the unstable culture that temporary work inevitably creates. By tapping into a flexible workforce, we completely eliminate the process of reducing staff once the busy season comes to an end. In this model, temp workers aren’t treated as expendable. In fact, gig-based agents understand that the work is variable and that your company will provide shifts for them to work as they become available. It’s a model where both agents and businesses have an expectation of the type of work provided. This, in turn, provides less stress on operations and creates an environment for your year-round agents to feel supported by supplemental staff vs. feeling they are in competition to hold their seats next to new talent.

Managing a contact center during seasonal spikes is not merely about surviving the storm but delivering the needed staff to keep your customers happy. Contact centers that are looking to crush their busy season this year or next will benefit greatly by partnering with a GigCX provider such as ShyftOff 60-90 days ahead of their seasonal need. During this time, we can work closely with your ops team to tailor your onboarding process, optimize your training, and match you with top-performing agents who will provide exceptional customer service. 

A flexible model like GigCX equips you with the flexibility and resources needed to adapt in real time to your seasonal needs.

For more insights and actionable strategies, you might be interested in the following resources from our blog: 

• Hire Seasonal Agents Without the Stress
• How to Become a Flexible Contact Center in Less than 30 Days
• Best Practices for Staffing Your Contact Center

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Let’s make this holiday season your easiest one yet. Get started with your GigCX pilot this week. Contact our team to get started.

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