gig-cx Archives - Arise

How Gig-CX is rewriting the rules of workforce management

David Williams — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 09:46:00 +0000

Workforce management leaders are facing the stark reality that continuing with the traditional BPO solution they’ve employed for the past 40 years for capacity planning is no longer working.

The traditional sources of talent and workforce strategies aren’t up to today’s challenges. Despite investments in technology, systems, and people, many Brands find themselves falling short—either in terms of locating, scheduling, or motivating qualified talent.

Weighing remote versus in-office for business

After workers pivoted and proved successful at working from home, a workplace insights firm analyzed some 4,000 sources on agile work arrangements to determine key findings for senior executives.
Four out of five workers consider telework a top job perk. Workforce satisfaction with remote work is high. Mandates around returning to the workplace lead most Americans to re-evaluate work-life balance, and many are finding rigid in-office hours are unbearable. The eight-hour shifts in a contact center, with restrictions around breaks and days off, further alienates a segment of experienced customer care workers.
The locations of brick-and-mortar buildings can limit the pool of available workers who could access your operations. If your workplace isn’t accessible by public transportation or far from a large pool of candidates, recruiting is complicated. Your company likely needs employees with a range of qualifications, proficiency in other languages, and specialized skill sets. Access to the most qualified workers shouldn’t be hindered by your address.

When it comes to commuting, two-thirds of employees report they would quit their job if another opportunity would ease that burden

With today’s tight talent pool, many executives are beginning to recognize the high potential for increased attrition when disallowing or devaluing flexible work arrangements. Losing a valued employee can cost an employer up to $30,000 while recruiting and training a new hire costs thousands.

Solutions to outperform

Precise planning for contact volume is both a science and art. Contact center leaders have many areas to monitor and forecast to successfully schedule and plan for seasonable peaks and unexpected influxes of contact volume.

Traditional BPOs have limited capability to flex intraday or seasonally, which requires overstaffing for peak hours. Gig-CX can help organizations flex capacity in real-time, up or down, based on volume, delivering the exact capacity needed in every half hour. Gig-CX solutions also can flex intraday or seasonally to significantly reduce underutilization and excess staffing.

The depth and breadth of Gig-CX agents not only allows for on-demand intraday flex and scheduling capacity in smaller increments, but it means that workers can be sourced to match their experience and passion with your Brand’s lines of business and special areas of focus around your needs. Gig-CX workers are particularly adept at using their talents, soft skills, and Brand affinities in customer interactions.

Don’t believe us? The results speak for themselves.

One roadside assistance service engages Arise to manage the volatility in call patterns due to weather events and the busy summer travel months. Motorists love the quick response times to aid them with navigation or when they’re stranded–a fact that is reflected in a number one ranking in customer service satisfaction.

#1 CSAT ranking of driver assistance program that relies on Gig-CX Service Partners on the Arise® Platform.

Utilization expands customer focus without a big price tag

Gig-CX agents are scheduling their working hours around all the demands in their lives. This increased flexibility enables them to focus completely on your Brand’s customers during hours scheduled and enhances engagement.

There’s no comparison between Gig-CX agents and traditional contact center workers—up to 90% of their paid time is focused on serving customers whereas a traditional BPO teleworker’s utilization sits at just 65%.

Workforce management leaders benefit from not only matching capacity to demand but also enormous improvements in productivity for cost containment. More often, top-performing Brands are looking to a Gig-CX partner like Arise to reap the benefits of higher utilization rates, faster response times, and superior customer service satisfaction scores.

Capacity flex in the gig economy

Knowledgeable, digitally connected, and self-starting Gig-CX workers are drawn to alternative work arrangements and innovations of flexible work. During critical periods of uncertainty over the past two years, Arise successfully leveraged its expertise for numerous clients operating across ten key sectors. Today, these clients continue to benefit from Arise’s 30 years of experience and it’s vast network of Service Partners.
We stand ready with access to the knowledge, technology infrastructure, talent, workforce management tools, operational excellence, and measurement models needed to support you too. Please schedule an appointment to learn more about how Arise can deliver results for your organization.

Blog Sources:
https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/resources/costs-benefits
https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/remote-work-statistics/
https://fortune.com/2022/04/14/inflation-americans-gig-economy-work/

The post How Gig-CX is rewriting the rules of workforce management appeared first on Arise.

There is no labor shortage in the gig economy

Tone Stray — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 17:51:00 +0000

While the gig economy raised its profile since the onset of the pandemic, businesses are still learning how to leverage the gig workforce to improve customer care. Tapping into the growing pool of Gig-CX workers can boost your business, bring flexibility to staffing levels, and deliver the expert attention and experience that clients expect.

We can’t return to where we were

Businesses are beginning to ask their staff to return to the office, but workers are balking. While the pandemic raged on far longer than anyone predicted or wanted, employees proved themselves successful in their roles while working remotely. Consequently, returning to lengthy commutes and working in close-contact brick and mortar call centers is not attractive to most CX workers.

But if the pandemic proved anything, it proved that Gig-CX workers can deliver exceptional customer experiences to major Brands in every vertical while working securely from home. Not only do Gig-CX workers traditionally have more work experience and affinity for the brands they serve, but because they work on their schedule, they bring the very best of their talent and capabilities to every customer interaction.

Arise has spent over a quarter-century perfecting the way of serving gig-economy entrepreneurs so they can provide exceptional service to the world’s leading Brands. With this history of innovation, customers are getting better service while Brands get better productivity, efficiency and cost savings.

Knowledge workers with skills that are easily portable across employers and geographic locations have power…The national labor market is open to [them].”

- Bryan Hancock, Partner, McKinsey & Company

New era for filling customer care roles

While companies are unable to swiftly address staff shortages or market forces beyond our control, they need to meet customer care needs today.

Leaders are faced with a variety of options:

Pursue remote and hybrid work arrangements for existing employees.
Partner with a supporting CX provider to manage demands as they ramp up and down.
Evaluate the root cause of attrition among the customer care staff, making sure to value workers and their needs.
Explore Gig-CX to meet the need, saving costs and increasing quality.

Most times, the answer will be “all of the above.”

Engaging the gig workforce

While business leaders, human resource departments, and recruiters wring their hands about unfilled jobs, 59 million American gig workers are in search of flexible, part-time work.

Instead of commuting to an office for 9-5 work, which is viewed as particularly outmoded by the youngest subset of the workforce, more workers are becoming entrepreneurs or gig workers managing their own business. Between 2019 and the onset of the pandemic in 2020, there was a 20% uptick in the formation of small businesses. This is double the growth rate of any other year in U.S. history.

The flexibility of gig model has great appeal. Individuals pursue opportunities to suit their schedule, operate freely as independent contractors, even on a project basis, and work where and when they want. In 2020, one in three U.S. workers got on board with the gig economy. Experts forecast that number will continue and that by 2023, more than half of all U.S. workers will have participated in some form of gig work during their years of work.

Inflation is increasing the size of the talent pool even more, according to a recent report in Fortune.

About 85% of independent workers have increased their gig work in the past six months.
About 45% said they have done so because of inflation.
Another 13% of independent workers surveyed say they plan to take on more gig work to combat rising prices.

No need to shop around

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COVID-19 rapidly drove an increase in chat volume up an astounding 700% for the leading online grocery delivery company.

After a request to several service providers, Arise was the only platform that could meet the Company’s need by bringing online more than 2,000 certified Service Partners in a matter of weeks.

Who’s on the line?

With the rise in gig workers providing customer care, the profile has changed. On CX platforms, gig workers are highly sought after for the value they deliver.

More than half attended college and they have the maturity to operate independently. They possess more work experience and understand how to adapt their current workspace for remote business.

What’s more, they often have industry-specific knowledge or brand passion for the company they are supporting. That level of connectedness excites them about their work and drives them to excel, often delivering a higher degree of care to the clients they help.

Leveraging Gig-CX can help your organization transform its customer care delivery, ease scheduling troubles, and improve client satisfaction ratings.

Rapid response: Varying customer service demand times

The annual Black Friday period signals a high point in holiday sales where retailers add temporary staff. Customer service and sales support for the e-commerce, store and catalog divisions of a major luxury retailer needed to expand staffing 250% in less than 16 weeks, growing from 250 to 600 full-time equivalent members.

When Black Friday weekend arrived, Arise managed 48% of the retailer’s customer interactions. The retailer’s customers experienced an average speed of only 6 seconds for an answer. That far exceeded other retailers who left customers waiting for up to 12 minutes during the rush.

Knowledgeable, digitally connected, and self-starting gig workers are drawn to alternative work arrangements and innovations of flexible work. During critical periods of uncertainty over the past two years, Arise successfully leveraged its expertise for numerous clients operating across ten key sectors. Our clients benefit from 30 years of experience and a vast network of service partners on the Arise® Platform.

We stand ready with the knowledge, technology infrastructure, service partners, workforce management tools, operational excellence, and measurement models needed to support you too. Please schedule an appointment to learn more about how Arise can deliver results for your organization.

Blog Sources:

https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-opting-to-freelance-in-order-to-stay-remote-2021-8

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/07/25/working-9-to-5-is-an-antiquated-relic-from-the-past-and-should-be-stopped-right-now/?sh=33be88a140de

https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/entrepreneurship-and-innovation-policy-and-economy-volume-1/entrepreneurship-during-covid-19-pandemic-evidence-business-formation-statistics

https://www.zippia.com/call-center-agent-jobs/demographics

https://fortune.com/2022/04/14/inflation-americans-gig-economy-work/

The post There is no labor shortage in the gig economy appeared first on Arise.

The CX Gap: And How To Navigate It

Tone Stray — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 17:53:00 +0000

Customer Service is going downhill. At least, there’s a growing body of evidence (such as this piece from Arizona State University) making such claims. Whether it’s true or not, the perception of customer service seems to be in decline. And in the legendary words of Kate Zabriskie, “the customer’s perception is your reality.”

Much of this alleged decline is in relation to a change in mentality from our customers. Thomas Hollmann, a clinical associate professor of marketing at Arizona State University, explains, “We call it the ‘Amazon-ation’ of business. Everything should be one click and one-hour delivery, so customers think, “Why do I have to jump through five hoops when I deal with you?”

The bottom line is that customers expect way more from their interactions with Brands…and very few companies are meeting these elevated expectations.

The others are left with a significant gap. A gap in what customers expect, and what we as CX professionals are capable of delivering. The landscape becomes especially bleak when what we are capable to deliver has dropped at the same time customer expectations are on the rise! Between a major labor shortage, supply chain issues, and lingering pandemic complications, creating a consistently great experience is harder than ever before. This has put many CX leaders in a very difficult spot.

So how do we bridge the gap?

Many CX technology platforms claim to have the solution. By forcing customers down a digital, and often automated path, we “labor-proof” our CX. It’s an enticing promise, especially for those who feel like it’s impossible to hire the right talent. “If we can automate/deflect 30%, even 40% of our volume, we can finally catch up and bring the team into a better place.” Sadly, it’s almost never that easy.

“They (the customer) want to be treated with dignity. An apology — that’s free,” says Hollmann. “They want an explanation of why the problem occurred, or at least a recognition. All of those things are an extra 10 seconds on the phone, but companies aren’t doing it.”

Creating interactions like this requires capable people. Many have pursued the digital experience path with vigor, but at the expense of the human experience. In these cases, the pendulum has swung too far. As inspired by “The Effortless Experience,” we must guide customers to the BEST resolution path. Considering the needs and expectations of our customers, this will often be a human-to-human interaction.

The sweet spot is maintaining focus on great interactions, both human and digital.

There are times when self-service channels are absolutely the best. A quick piece of information, a confirmation of a reservation, a modification to a flight, and the customer is on their way. These interactions are secure, seamless, and speedy. Great tools and a great knowledge curation process will put this type of experience well within your reach.

When it comes to the human experience, service centers across the world have been hit especially hard by the labor shortage. It may feel impossible to attract and retain the talent required to meet volume demands. For many service leaders, success will require trying something different.

Enter “Gig-CX.”

Gig-CX is simply leveraging the remarkable talent available in the gig economy for customer service roles. There’s a significant demographic of people right here in North America who are experienced and available. They are often seeking a bit of extra flexibility…ensuring that work can revolve around life instead of life revolving around work.

The benefits of this hybrid model are tremendous. It’s more affordable, more sustainable, and far easier to attract top talent. Additionally, the flexibility organizations can achieve through this model is unlike anything we’ve had before. Your team no longer needs to be a victim of volume at peak times. You can schedule service partners to be available exactly when you need them even down to thirty-minute increments.

Taking advantage of this hybrid capability is exactly how to future-proof your CX. It protects you against unexpected surges in customer activity or unexpected business events. Who knows what is around the corner? By establishing a partnership now, you can be there for your customers no matter what.

Arise has been doing Gig-CX for twenty-eight years. We’ve partnered with hundreds of brands to elevate their CX, even in challenging times. Take a look here to learn more about the Arise Platform and all kinds of tips to bridge the experience gap!

The post The CX Gap: And How To Navigate It appeared first on Arise.