Avoiding Disaster Before It Strikes

By Christopher M. Carrington, Alpine Access -- Multichannel News, 4/19/2010 12:01:00 AM

It has been a bad winter and now, with the end of the El Niño cycle, hurricane prognosticators are warning of an above-average hurricane season.

Forecasters predict eight hurricanes will form in the Caribbean this season, with four of them potentially Category 3 or greater storms. (Category-3 hurricanes are rated at winds of 111 to 130 miles per hour.)

What does this mean for cable system operators? It’s time to review business-continuity and disaster-recovery plans. It’s also time to make arrangements to ensure your customer-care strategy has the potential to shield you from the storm.

How do you plan to offer uninterrupted service to your subscribers when your contact center may be without power, lack communications or be inaccessible to your employees? Businesses that have the ability to off er complete customer-care options on even the darkest days have the potential to leave customers with a feeling of goodwill that never dims.

As cable operators have consolidated into regional service centers, they may have made themselves more vulnerable to natural disasters. While larger centers tend to be more costeffective and efficient than smaller operations, they also provide a larger, single point of failure in the event of a disaster.

Regardless of the weather (or other situation), however, subscribers everywhere still want to be able to reach a live agent when they need to order new services, have a question on a bill or need help trouble-shooting. By failing to answer calls during disruptions, operators risk losing valuable subscribers to their competition.

The country has experienced above-average erratic weather and unforeseen natural disasters in the last two years — record snow storms, torrential rains and even an April 2008 earthquake in Illinois. How do operators cost-effectively plan for unpredictable Mother Nature to maintain uninterrupted contact with their subscribers?

Many companies now view home-based, outsourced customer care as a viable option. In fact, more than 2,000 at-home agents support cable MSOs like Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable. Why? These agents provide high-quality service and are not in one centralized location that could get knocked offline.

Home-based agents are veterans in call center operations and are trained in specific industries. Outsourced virtual call centers hire experienced workers from across the U.S. and are not limited by geographic proximity to a physical call center.

Additionally, research suggests that home-based agents tend to be more experienced and mature, and deliver better performance statistics than people who work in brick-and-mortar locations. They may even be your local customer!

Here’s a real-world example of customer-centric disaster response: A Fortune 500 financial services company found its Houston call center threatened by Hurricane Ike in September 2008. The company had to shut down the call center for the duration of the disaster and knew that its centers in other states would not be able to handle the expected call volume.

The firm needed not just more bodies to man the phones, but workers who had in-depth knowledge of its brand, systems and financial products.

Less than 24 hours before landfall, when it became clear that Ike’s path would pass through Houston, the company moved to supplement its customer service workforce temporarily. Within hours, home-based agents had beefed up the agent pool by 22%.

While call volume was twice that of a normal weekend, with the assistance of home-based workers, the organization was able to handle the additional volume and preserve its customer relationships.

Service spikes are not only the result of disasters. Call volumes in the cable industry can surge in response to service outages, a highly anticipated Ultimate Fighting Championship or boxing event or other incident. Supplemental homebased agents, trained with client-specific product knowledge, can trim hold times and ensure customer happiness.

Businesses would do well to live by the Boy Scouts’ motto: Be prepared. Don’t wait for disaster to strike; quality customer service is essential even when the sun is shining and there isn’t a cloud on the horizon.

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