Industry predictions are that by the end of this year more than 2% of the entire working population will be employed in the call centre industry. This reflects the impressive growth of call centres over the last three years.
Historically, people-centric, rapid-growth businesses have quickly bought into the call centre concept without buying into the necessity of developing the infrastructure to manage their staff effectively. This has resulted in high staff attrition rates. For example, in the UK, the attrition rate in call centres is running at 40%.
Locally, it is evident that this is a significant employment sector. But already attrition rates are as high as 15% to 25%.
Fast growing, competitive industries inevitably develop through trial and error. In this context, resourcing and retention of staff are major challenges. Mistakes can be expensive and result in a lack of consistency in the service offering.
Outsourcing must not to be a rushed decision driven by short-term challenges such as staff shortages, but rather viewed from a medium- to long-term perspective, considering the strategic implications of going that route. It is not a "silver bullet", solving all existing call centre staffing problems.
The local market has already seen the emergence of many players, large and small, in the call centre outsourcing business. The nature of the business is service and after the technical and physical infrastructures have been set up, it is almost entirely people-driven. Consequently, there is tremendous growth in call centre training, recruitment and outsourcing. Whatever the source of these services, quality and cost of delivery must be primary factors.
The outsourcing route offers a number of options:
- Total outsourcing: The technology, physical infrastructure and locality, staffing and management.
- Outsourcing of technology and infrastructure: where the call centre lation software enables companies to assess the capability of candidates and the impact and effectiveness of training that they have undertaken, as well as identifying additional training needs. This sort of initiative, when undertaken by the outsourcing service provider, gives the client assurance in terms of skills levels.
A business enabler
South Africa clearly lags behind Europe, Australia and America in terms of call centre implementation - not in respect of leading-edge, but in terms of extent and numbers of installations. This will change as more local and international companies find it a business enabler in a market that is tuning in to customer relationship management (CRM) and e-business. While call centres will become more and more core to business, they will seldom be the core business and that is a sound reason for considering outsourcing.
Current market activity projects continued and dramatic growth in the sector, locally and internationally, and the attrition rates are likely to grow. This presents many challenges, especially increased costs relating to staff training, recruitment and retention. The other side of the coin is the opportunity for alternative forms of resourcing, particularly outsourcing.
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