Devoted to the call center industry, the agents on the phones, and their managers

When you consider the worst, how do you plan for it? Ken Wisnefski, president of VendorSeek, gives sound advice for call center emergency preparation.

Your recovery team should be assembled before you need them.  Include representatives from all areas of your business.  The members should range from the most obvious – IT workers and managers - to other less obvious, but integral members – people in marketing, purchasing, legal, human resources, outsourced service providers, and any others pertinent to call volume.  

Know your call systems and their limitations.  Think about adding supplementary backup or duplicate systems to curtail the effects of a problem.

Personally, I've always been an advocate of including workers in the trenches, agents from the front lines, in planning meetings. Once management can convince them that they will be heard, they can tell you how things really work from the customer service representative or sales agent perspective.