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VoIP Contact Center: Why Shrinkage is Your Worst Nightmare

Whether you run an on-premise or virtual contact center, you know that shrinkage is your worst nightmare. This time that your agents spend doing anything other than interacting with customers is a drain on your overall budget. The biggest challenge for you is that some of the activities they are completing are necessary to the overall job. If yours is a VoIP contact center, you likely made that change to streamline your costs and keep everything running on the same platform. Why not leverage those same capabilities to ensure you can minimize shrinkage and use your agents to their full potential?

Knowlagent recently completed its own survey on shrinkage in the overall call center industry and published its findings in the Contact Center Shrinkage Survey. In their examination of the VoIP contact center industry, Knowlagent discovered that shrinkage can actually take up a considerable amount of an agent’s workday if it is not properly managed within the overall environment. What does it mean to your VoIP contact center budget if your agents lose 30 percent of their time to shrinkage?

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Perhaps the most frustrating thing for your VoIP contact center managers is the reality that primary losses are outside of their control. In fact, the survey determined that 54 percent of all shrinkage has to do with activities such as lunch, tardiness, absenteeism, etc. While it is true your managers can offer incentives to try and combat shrinkage in these areas, some amounts you cannot avoid. The good news is, there are manageable activities that are also contributing to loss, including training, project work, social learning, etc. While these losses contribute to 46 percent of shrinkage and 12 percent of an agent’s day, they can still be controlled and minimized, while ensuring the VoIP contact center receives the most benefit.

There are some levels of shrinkage that will exist no matter what methods you put in place to avoid it altogether. The best method is to try to implement tools that allow you to minimize shrinkage, while focusing on optimizing the performance of the center. The good news for those of you running a VoIP contact center, the lowest percentage of time in shrinkage is reported in this area simply because the methods put in place are designed to optimize time usage. The industry in which you operate can contribute to your shrinkage numbers somewhat, as regulations and compliance can dictate the processes you put in place. With careful planning of the VoIP contact center, however, you can minimize the overall impact.

The reality is that shrinkage does not have to be your worst nightmare in the VoIP contact center environment. Look to key providers in this space to learn best practices and benchmarks to determine the best strategies to put in place to maximize the amount of time your agents spend interacting with customers. Look to automated platforms that capture information and CRM systems that ensure all information on each customer is available across the enterprise. This will minimize the amount of time the agent has to spend cleaning up an account, allowing them to immediately go to the next call. You will not only reduce shrinkage, but also deliver a better experience for your customers.

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