This week I have been listening and discussing some of the longer-term economic impacts of coronavirus. We have already started to see the impact on growth and it will likely decline further. A projection of contraction this year with a slow recovery in early 2021.

We also have seen spikes in the number of already staff absent and all this with increasing customer call volumes and massively changing types of demand. These are challenging times indeed.

And as much as we would like to think that we can now start to plan around this new normal, my fear is the UK is still really on at the start of this pandemic (just run the maths). 

It means it will get worse before it gets better and am afraid we need to think about being even more prepared. We need to plan further for resilience, preparing our processes and teams further.

If this is the case, there will be more challenges ahead. More difficult situations, impacts on employees, customers, further loss of capacity, service levels and supply chains, most likely for the next 2-4-6 weeks, at a minimum, maybe longer depending on how this plays out.

Important questions are:

• How do you cover difficult news with employees? Reassuring and supporting people, trying to keep them safe?
• How will you cover roles if there is a reduction of staff and further illness?
• Do you have adequate hand over procedures for people who are off ill?
• Are key roles and dependencies identified and covered? – keeping things going without key people (many looking at remote working)
• Are there scenario plans for different options? Mitigate unacceptable risk
• Medium-Long term – can you manage or design your process for no staff interaction?

By my calculation we have an ever closing window, now a couple of weeks, maybe less, to cover some of this. 

We may need to share resourcing, ideas and stick together to get through it.

Anyone who wants to contact me, talk about this, share concerns or ideas I am happy to chat with them and support.  Even if you just need a friendly voice or sounding board.

Happy to share information, put people in contact with each other and hear about your experience too.

The recent worldwide spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19), now confirmed as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), has affected numerous aspects of our lives, everyday hygiene, travel, social gatherings and perhaps most significantly here, the workplace.

What will the impact be for the collections industry, for customers and for employees, and how will this impact our day-to-day interactions as a team?

It’s difficult to foresee at this stage, but nevertheless, these are questions we now need to ask.

Short-term

We are expecting government advice for workplaces to centre around potentially closing offices and events where there are large gatherings of people. For the collections industry, one of the key concerns would be the potential reduction in call centre capacity as employees may not be able to get to work. This could impact customer support capability, and indeed areas of performance around keeping customers out of arrears.

From a consumer perspective, we are also expecting a potential increase in financial hardship levels.  Customers may fall ill themselves, have their workplace closed or need to be home for childcare reasons; all of this could affect their ability to maintain payments, including on existing repayment plans. Collections departments may need to look at alternative strategies to assist impacted customers for the duration of this outbreak, and indeed many banks are already moving in this direction.

Longer-term

If the viral outbreak restrictions are in place longer, we will need to think about alternative ways of working; this goes for both call centre and non-call centre staff, each of which presents their own challenges.

Call centre staff may potentially need infrastructure changes to be able to fulfil their role from a remote location or multiple locations. Without this, there is a danger of a sustained loss of capacity impacting performance.

Luckily, many non-call centre staff are already able to work remotely, and we expect this to become even more commonplace. If not usual practice already, this may create challenges for teamwork and cooperation, to which organisations will need to adjust by using video/telephone to replace face-to-face interaction.  

The future

After this is over (whenever that may be), what does the future hold? Will this change our working styles forever? This does seem likely. 

Companies may well have been through the pain of shuttering and distributing work from large call centres, and we will all have had to manage with limited travel for a while. We will likely see some trends emerge:

• A move to more remote working, even from holdouts (companies where this was not accepted).
• Increased use of video conferencing to gain more personal interaction.
• Greater emphasis on digital strategies and building collections paths without human intervention, which also builds resilience.
• Dispersed smaller calls centres and use of new channels (such as mobile chat) to spread the risk and provide functionality.

If productivity and project deliverables have not massively slipped, these could start to be a new normal. The outcome will depend on the results and impacts over the next few months.

Getting ready

Organisations should start to examine and review their business continuity processes now, if not doing so already, to ensure that they are fully prepared for any similar national or international health emergencies in the future. Considerations need to be given to working locations for staff:

• Is working from home a viable option?
• What equipment do staff need to enable home working?
• Can new technologies mitigate any security concerns that organisations may have around remote access for call centre staff?

Although this health emergency is unprecedented in our lifetimes, at Arum we have decades of experience designing and transforming processes, using technology to create robust automation. If you need help or resource to implement change quickly and effectively, please contact us.

Published on www.arumplc.com. Co-written with Stuart Walker

Coronavirus is sadly still in the news this week, with a big leap in infections to 25,000 (globally) and a spread to two additional cities in the region. The world and certainly the media seem to be on alert.

Mercifully, the mortality rate appears to be lower than MERS or SARS, and there are even some initial reports of some optimism that this may not be as bad as first feared. This is of course little comfort to those already impacted.

I personally remember the SARS outbreak whilst in Canada, and the fears over Ebola in West Africa more recently, whilst in the UK. I was in a call centre environment for both and a few immediate thoughts leap mind.

• Our first thought has to be the well being for other employees, ensuring the team is healthy and protected where-ever possible….. are all appropriate steps being taken?… am I aware of next steps?
• The second thought is ensuring continuity of service for customers, ensuring they have access to services and tools for themselves. This even includes continuity should the call centre (and outsourced vendors) have to temporarily suspend operations…. what is the Business Continuity Plan?… where is it?… am I comfortable and do I have an understanding of next steps?
• Lastly, on assessing risk.…do I know the latest facts and news?… does my company have expert advice?… what is the protocol?

Fortunately, the progress in digitalization and options for remote working the last few years, should all help with our readiness and plan, especially should the situation worsen here.

We all hope this is nothing, I certainly do, and yes this feels all a bit doom and gloom for a Wednesday night. (I did have quite a bit of eye-rolling today when discussing this earlier in the day!). However, this does not and should not prevent us from being prepared and reviewing plans tomorrow.

Being even a little more prepared is a strategy that can make a huge difference in generating better outcomes… for employees, customers and company

So…. it may be worth dusting off the plans or at least asking the ‘what if‘ question tomorrow.

[for more on readiness planning… see some previous thoughts here… for good facts on the outbreak, I recommend following @HelenBranswell and @Laurie_Garrett on twitter… I am at @chris_w_tweet