How to Handle Contact Center Staffing During a Natural Disaster
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Natural disasters, like hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes can be unpredictable and devastating. For victims, the first step is always safety. The second is insurance.
Hurricane Harvey alone resulted in approximately 765,000 claims. More than a year later, over 15,000 remained open, with many taking weeks, months and even longer to resolve.
Delays can happen for many reasons, but one is the sheer volume of claims-related calls that pour in.
Contact centers can quickly become overwhelmed, especially if agents are also personally dealing with a natural disaster.
The Struggle of Running a Contact Center During a Natural Disaster
Many insurance contact centers find it challenging to predict the onslaught of needs during these times. Even when you know a disaster is coming, preparing for a surge can still be difficult.
Once the disaster hits, there may not be enough agents to respond to urgent claims. The result? Longer wait times, overwhelmed agents and frustrated callers.
Ramping up your contact center is a time-intensive and costly process made even harder by the disaster itself.
In some cases, like during Hurricane Sandy, critical infrastructure was down. Local contact center agents couldn’t work without reliable internet or electricity, leading to even more stress and downtime.
While the challenges are big, they are far from insurmountable.
With the right strategies, you can become rapid response-ready – no matter the disaster or timeline.
Best Practices for Ramping Up Contact Centers During Natural Disasters
When your contact center is about to face a disaster-related surge, you’ll want to scale your agents quickly and efficiently.
Implementing some strategies, like the following, can make the process easier and less stressful:
Be Prepared
Fortunately, there are many tools out there that can help you prepare. For instance, insurance companies can use location data or geospatial intelligence to understand what areas may be more prone to natural disasters and when these locations will be impacted.
Companies can also use catastrophe risk modeling to plan how many agents may be needed to respond to the event.
Tools like these are currently underutilized but can help insurance organizations assess the likelihood of a disaster and its potential aftermath, keeping your contact center agents prepared for whatever is on the horizon.
Scout High-Quality Agents
You’ll also want agents who have the skills necessary to help you meet demand. Seek out workers with a background in customer service or insurance; they’ll generally be quicker to onboard. You can also ask current employees about their flexibility for additional work.
Prepare a Remote Workforce
Catastrophic events can make it difficult for members of an impacted community to continue working.
By contracting remote agents who don’t live in the impacted area, your company will be able to retain more workers during an emergency. That said, you want agents who have the cultural sensitivity to appropriately respond to policyholders who are dealing with potentially some of the worst moments of their lives.
Here’s what to look for when bringing on additional agents.
Hard and Soft Skills
As your contact center prepares for an emergency, you want to focus on upskilling your agents to build a more efficient and effective team.
Even if a new hire has worked in a contact center before, some additional training will be needed to get them up to speed on your agency’s practices, especially during a disaster.
The following skills should be prioritized:
Natural Disaster Insurance Knowledge
Train new employees on the claims process, including what is covered under the policyholder’s insurance plan.
Ensure agents have knowledge about additional resources, like if the company covers temporary housing or what families can do if the natural disaster isn’t covered under their policy.
Crisis Management Skills
Teach agents how to respond to individuals who may be in distress.
Callers will be frustrated and upset – that’s expected. Contact center agents should do their best to maintain a calm demeanor and help guide policyholders through the claim process.
Disaster Preparedness
Agents should know that a natural disaster can strike at any time and contact centers need to be adaptable during surges.
Workers who understand their role and its flexibility will be the best at responding to the demands of a disaster.
Using Technology and Planning for Crisis Management
Access to technology is crucial during a natural disaster; both call agents and policyholders may have to relocate.
Thankfully, there are many tools designed to help contact centers maintain customer service while meeting their client’s needs.
These tools include:
Cloud-Based Software
Cloud-based systems can help you reduce costs and improve customer engagement.
During a weather event, it can also help agents in unaffected areas keep working.
Despite the benefits, it’s estimated less than 10% of insurance companies are utilizing the cloud to its full potential.
Automation and AI
AI and other automation tools can help insurance companies by increasing productivity, which is uniquely important during worker shortages. Insurance companies can also use automation tools to collect policy information, lost records and more from clients.
By automating simpler tasks, time is freed up for human agents to assist in more complex claims cases.
Workforce Management Tools
Your contact center should invest in tools that gather analytics on performance and customer satisfaction. By understanding current successes and areas of improvement, your center can adjust the number of workers or workflow processes when needed.
In times of crisis, a highly efficient team of agents can handle surges and put policyholders at ease.
The Benefits of Using Gig-Based Workers During Natural Disasters
Gig workers are ideal when contact centers have to respond quickly to a surge of increased claims and questions. Just days before Hurricane Ian in 2022, ShyftOff was able to add 300 certified U.S.-based agents to support an insurance agency in processing claims.
Gig-based agents are ideal during a worker shortage because they offer:
Rapid Deployment
Our gig-based workers are highly educated, pre-vetted and can quickly jump into a crisis response situation. Because agents are located around the U.S., we can find people who have internet and power, as well as the sensitivity to help those impacted by the natural disaster.
Scalability
Contact centers can employ gig workers when they need them, but don’t have to commit to long-term employment for short-term needs.
For gig workers, the flexibility is exactly what they’re looking for. When the claims process for a natural disaster ends, gig workers simply begin work for another area in need or take a break.
Reliability
Gig-based workers can help fill in the gaps around normal workers’ schedules. Because they’re located around the country, contact centers can take advantage of having agents in various time zones.
ShyftOff’s gig-based model helps guarantee 24/7 coverage, meaning no call has to go unanswered or get cut off due to limited work hours.
Keep Your Contact Center Rapid Response Ready With ShyftOff
ShyftOff is ready to help insurance companies rapidly respond to any natural disaster.
With our gig-based staffing model, you don’t have to compromise on quality during a crisis. You’ll have access to the best U.S.-based talent, trained to handle high call volumes with empathy and efficiency.
Our rigorous selection process ensures you work with only the top-tier agents. We also handle all training and onboarding. And we move fast. So you don’t have to deal with the long lead times of traditional BPOs.
With ShyftOff, your contact center is always ready to handle the surge in inquiries from a natural disaster, minimizing downtime and maintaining customer satisfaction.
Our model also eliminates shrinkage and ensures you only pay for agents’ productive time, helping you save 35% on your contact center operations.
Support your policyholders by providing a response team as resilient as your coverage. Let ShyftOff help your contact center prepare for the next natural disaster.
Schedule a live demo with ShyftOff today!
