World Cup to shake-up service industry

Many businesses are boosting service capacity to cope with the additional demand expected during the World Cup period, says Dave Paulding, regional sales director for the UK, Middle East and Africa, at Interactive Intelligence.

Paulding argues that service suppliers need to start offering temporary solutions and short-term contracts during the World Cup. “We are increasingly seeing this trend in the contact centre industry and it appears to be a tendency in most industries,” he points out.

According to Paulding, multiplying the number of call centres during the tournament is inevitable, with increased recruitment efforts and training being made available, especially for the booking of agents. “On balance, there needs to be sufficient capacity to deal with the above-normal rate of enquiries the service industry is anticipating.”

Senior analyst of software and IT services at IDC MEA, Pieter Kok, agrees, adding that service is going to be critical during this period. “We are going to see an influx of tourists, so contact centres are going to be essential across all service providers, including specific ones like emergency, tourism, police and transport, for services to be accessible to them.”

Kok says businesses will be under constant pressure to balance their company's need for efficiency with their customers' demands for service.

He adds that customers will have high expectations for their interactions with service providers. “Accustomed to efficiency in the private sector, they have come to demand 24/7 access to all services through the channel of their choice and to achieve a satisfactory resolution from their first and only contact.”

According to Kok, this is because tourists are coming from all over the world, and expect the service industry to be world-class. “So the entire travel and tourism sector is expected to grow and improve. Car hire companies, airlines, and transport services, for instance, will be busier and bigger than they have ever been and they need to provide sufficient service.

“This gives SA an opportunity to grow in the service industry, both now and beyond, especially when it comes to BPO,” he points out. The country will be well positioned as it possesses expertise in this service industry, adds Kok.

However, Paulding points out that service suppliers do not want to invest in extra capacity over the long-term. “They are making provisions for a rise in call volumes, but refusing to buy in to long contracts, whether it be for software solutions, hardware, personnel, or even physical space.” Suppliers have been forced to meet these transient needs by offering flexible service contracts, he adds.

“It is likely this ad hoc and unconventional way of doing business will have a more permanent impact on the local trade industry going forward,” predicts Paulding. Knowing what is possible, clients may continue requesting non-traditional service agreements.

According to Paulding, consumers have been enjoying flexible, short-term options from most of their service suppliers for some time now, with shortened cellphone contracts, for example, and pay-as-you-go electricity.

“Evolving technologies such as cloud computing, hosted services and 'software-as-a-service' have already greatly contributed to a change in the way some businesses consume services, but general take-up thus far has been slow,” he points out.

Paulding adds that the World Cup might shift expectations to such a degree that people will not be able to go back to the way they provided and requested services before. “Businesses may just begin to demand 'building-block' or 'modular' services and software provision from their suppliers.”

So although the extra capacity will not remain, a whole new way of doing business might. Businesses that have had to increase capacity temporarily may want to continue to avoid binding contracts or vendor buy-in, Paulding says.

Furthermore, he points out that service suppliers will begin to look at structuring their contracts differently, or giving more options in terms of buy-in. They will realise they have to be flexible enough for changing consumer needs in order to remain ahead of the game.

Kok says the industry is going to have to be innovative when it comes to contact centres. “I believe with the opportunity of the World Cup being hosted in the country, we are definitely going to see a permanent change in the way businesses operate.”