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

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