NZ Contact Centres Grow Through GFC But Will Slow
NZ Contact Centres Grow Through GFC But Will Slow in 2010
Auckland, 4 September 2009
There were an estimated
27,000 seats at 340 contact centres in New Zealand during
2008-2009, a year in which the number of seats increased by
6.1%. Growth in seat size is expected to slow to 1.3% in the
year ahead.
The number of contact centres in New
Zealand is also expected to decrease by 4.3% during
2009-2010 as a result of downsizing and consolidation. This
is among the key findings of the callcentres.net 2009 New
Zealand Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Report, which
highlights some of the biggest challenges facing the contact
centre industry over the next 12 months.
Full-time
contact centre agent turnover reduced slightly from 35% in
2008 to 31% in 2009, while part-time agent turnover
increased from 35% to 40% over the same period, according to
the research. Over the past 12 months, 60% of those staff
who left the contact centre industry resigned their
positions. A further 22% were transferred to other parts of
the business, 13% were retrenched or dismissed, 2% did not
renew their contracts and 2% retired.
The research,
completed in August 2009 by specialist research, consulting
and news organisation, callcentres.net, and sponsored by
RightNow Technologies and Salmat, is based on interviews
with more than 53 contact centre executives, representing 79
contact centres in New Zealand.
Dr Catriona
Wallace, Managing Director, callcentres.net stated, “The
New Zealand contact centre fared well through the economic
downturn with seat size growing at 6%, unlike its Australian
counterpart which grew at only 1%. However, we see New
Zealand’s growth slowing considerably to 1% in 2010,
suggesting a lagged affect of the
GFC”.
Focus on profit generation
An
increasing proportion of contact centre interactions are
focused on profit-generating sales activities with 15% of
all interactions being inbound sales and 10% outbound sales,
according to the research. This compared to 57% of contact
centre interactions attributed to providing customer
service.
The average outbound conversion rate for
campaigns in the last 12 months was 38% and the average
inbound conversion rate for up-sell or cross-sell campaigns
was 26%.
Of the centres that undertake revenue
generation activities, 56% indicated that the GFC has not
affected the amount of revenue generated in the contact
centre, 29% believe that the GFC has decreased the amount of
revenue generated while 15% claim the amount of revenue
generated has increased due to the GFC.
Budgets
cut, tech spend down
Contact centre budgets decreased by
7% from $4.6 million in 2008 to $4.3 million in 2009.
Research respondents spent 66% of their available budgets on
human resources, including salary, benefits, recruitment and
training costs. Respondents spent 12% of their budgets on
telecommunications, 10% on technology and 5% on rent. Of all
the budget items, 17% of contact centre managers indicated
that the GFC has had a negative impact on their HR
budget.
Contact centres plan to spend an average of
$423,441 per centre on technology over the next 12 months, a
decrease of 19% on 2008. The drop is primarily due to a 45%
reduction in spend for the purchase of new technology from
$284,040 in 2008 to $157,059 in 2009. Conversely, budgets
for upgrading and replacing technology have increased by 10%
from $241,960 in 2008 to $266,382 in 2009.
Over the
next 12 months, the top two planned technology investment
areas that contact centres intend to purchase, replace or
upgrade are customer relationship management (CRM) and
knowledge or content management.
Brett Waters, Vice
President Asia Pacific – South, RightNow Technologies,
said, “With budget constraints and the ‘more with
less’ expectation, now is the time for organisations to
focus on fixing those areas that drain resources. They
need to reduce call centre complexity and improve agent
productivity. Another win will be to exploit proven
methods of call and email reduction by opening up robust
self-service channels that move routine questions away from
the call centre leaving agents freer to deal with the higher
value, transaction-based interactions, which then deliver
measurable value back to the
business.”
Outsourcing
About 13% of
contact centres in New Zealand are entirely outsourced. In
addition to totally outsourced centres, approximately 17% of
the in-house contact centres researched outsource some or
all of their functionality, down from 28% in 2008. Two of
the most common functions to outsource were after-hours
calls (75% of respondents) and technical support (13%). Of
the organisations that do outsource, 13% use an offshore
outsourcing supplier.
In the coming year, 6% of
respondents planned to outsource additional functionality,
2% were unsure and 92% had no plans.
Most customers satisfied
According to responses from the managers of the
70% of contact centres that measure the customer experience,
an average of 81% of people who use contact centres
indicated that they were satisfied with the
service.
As in previous years, staffing-related
issues continue to dominate the list of challenges facing
contact centre operators. This year inadequate headcount to
meet business requirements (35%) led the concerns, followed
by budgetary constraints or the expectation to do more with
less (30%), training or agent development (28%), improving
customer satisfaction (28%), staff turnover (20%) and
organisational or contact centre restructuring
(20%).
About the 2009 Contact Centre Industry
Benchmarking Study
The 2009 Contact Centre Industry
Benchmarking Study was sponsored by RightNow Technologies
and Salmat, produced by callcentres.net and endorsed by the
Contact Centre Institute of New Zealand (CCINZ).
The study
provides detailed information to help organisations better
manage their contact centre operations and benchmark their
performance against the contact centre industry in areas
such as contact centre operations, technology, human
resources, key performance indicators, budgets, seat costs,
quality assurance, customer satisfaction and the significant
challenges facing the industry. The study has been conducted
annually since 1997. www.callcentres.net
About
callcentres.net
Established in 1998, with offices in
Sydney and Singapore, callcentres.net is the central portal
for the Australian and Asia-Pacific contact centre
industries, providing research, benchmarking studies
consulting services and up-to-date news and information.
www.callcentres.net
About RightNow
Technologies
RightNow delivers the high-impact technology
solutions and services organisations need to
cost-efficiently deliver a consistently superior customer
experience across their frontline service, sales and
marketing touch-points Approximately 1,800 corporations and
government agencies worldwide depend on RightNow to achieve
their strategic objectives and better meet the needs of
those they serve. RightNow is headquartered in Bozeman,
Montana, the United States.
For more information, please visit www.rightnow.com
About Salmat
Salmat is a unique Australian owned company that, through strategic use of different communications channels, online technology, demographic insight and detailed data management, engages consumers in cost effective one to one communication on behalf of our clients - individually in small groups or on a mass scale.
For more information, please visit www.salmat.com.au
ENDS