Use Call Centres to Manage Unexpected Employee Absences

Unexpected employee absences can be a major inconvenience to your business. Not only can the absences impact productivity, but they can also affect your customer service, too. Fortunately, you have options for dealing with unexpected employee absences that won’t leave you, your employees, or your customers in a lurch. Here’s how to use call centres to manage unexpected employee absences.

Have a plan for unexpected absences

You may not need to use a call centre all the time, but it never hurts to have an arrangement in place for those unexpected times when you will need to use one. Select a backup call centre before you actually need it. This will be far less stressful for you when an unexpected bout of employee absences occur and it will allow the call centre to be better prepared to seamlessly assist your customers.

Consider your backup options

If you only have one person out of the office, you may be able to transfer the missing employee’s duties to another employee. However, if your staff is small or you have several employees out at the same time, you may want to evaluate how you do things when you’re fully staffed.

Call centres can easily be used to handle overflow calls on the average work day, plus they can pick up slack during those times when your employees must be absent from work. Don’t fall for the mistaken belief that keeping a skeleton staff will save you money–people get sick and emergencies happen all the time, and when they do, your loss of employees for the day (or longer) will mean a loss of money, too.

Be proactive

Rather than put your head in the sand and pretend like unexpected absences are a rarity, plan ahead and discuss the matter with your employees. Look at times when absences are likely to be higher (cold and flu season, summer holidays when the kids are out of school) and schedule your call centre backup accordingly. If you don’t need the service, you can always cancel or reduce the amount of support they provide. However, it’s very likely that you’ll appreciate the fact that you do have support whenever you need it and you may decide to incorporate a call centre into your day-to-day operations.

For more tips on using a call centre to support your business, speak to one of the knowledgeable representatives at Answer 365 today.