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New Zealand businesses are planning to outsource more of their call centre work as they struggle to attract and retain staff to handle customer inquiries.
A survey by research firm callcentres.net found 6 per cent of New Zealand organisations with call centre operations plan to outsource more of that part of their business over the coming year. When the same survey was carried out 12 months ago, only 3 per cent of businesses said they had plans for more call centre outsourcing.
Currently 28 per cent of businesses outsource at least part of their call centre activities, with 15 per cent of the outsourced work going overseas.
Call centre outsourcing businesses based in countries including India and the Philippines have become an attractively cheap alternative for organisations wanting to cut costs. However, those companies that have shifted to using overseas service providers have faced a backlash from some customers who object to having their inquiries answered overseas.
Telecom is part-way through a trial relocation of 140 call centre roles to Manila. The company already uses 450 permanent staff in Manila to handle customer queries about its internet services and some other aspects of its business. It also has 1400 New Zealand-based customer service staff.
Outsourcing - either overseas or to New Zealand-based specialist call centre companies - appears to be an increasingly attractive option for businesses that have difficulty holding on to staff working internally in customer service roles.
According to the callcentres.net survey, headaches associated with attracting and retaining local workers were top of the list of issues businesses said they faced in their call centres.
Despite pay rates for full-time staff increasing an average of 7 per cent over the past year, the turnover of full-time call centre staff surged from 27 per cent to 35 per cent.
"Disturbingly, the majority of staff (75 per cent) who left their contact centre during the last 12 months left the contact centre industry altogether, while the remaining 25 per cent moved to another organisation's contact centre," said callcentres.net managing director Catriona Wallace.
She said the study revealed that the most effective way for businesses to retain call centre staff was to offer them flexible work conditions, including variable working hours and the option of working from home.
Flexibility was seen as even more important when it came to attracting and retaining staff than the reward and recognition packages companies were offering, Wallace said.
Despite the issue of high staff turnover, the local call centre industry has grown strongly over recent years, from a total of 11,000 staff in 2002 to 27,000 this year.
