SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — March 24, 2020— Bucking the trend of business decline amidst Coronavirus, contact centre outsourcing companies in Australia are recording a surge in demand. This was the conclusion reached by Matchboard, which conducted a snap survey of suppliers on its platform last week. Key findings include:
- Almost 80% of outsourcers said they were “busier than ever” (none were “quieter than usual”)
- 100% had either moved all or part of their workforce to a work-at-home environment
Clients causing the surge in demand were from industries such as Government, health and food supply.
Matchboard’s Sharon Melamed noted, “The type of contact centre outsourcing requests we are seeing on Matchboard has completely changed in the last two weeks. We’ve got requests from debt collection companies needing extra capacity as consumers and businesses alike will struggle to meet their payment terms. We’ve got requests from large national employers wanting to set up a Coronavirus Employee Information hotline. And we have some businesses reaching out for urgent assistance as they do not yet have cloud platforms to manage customer contact with remote workforces.”
Most Australian outsourcing companies have advanced cloud technology and BCP/disaster recovery plans and appear to be well placed to absorb additional clients at the time of the survey. “We are keeping a close tab on the industry so we can immediately direct clients to outsourcers with the required capacity, including work-at-home capability,” said Melamed.