In the 1980s, the customer contact centre industry was still in its infancy. Today, contact centres are critical to the success of many of Canada’s key industrial sectors. Financial services, telecommunications, utilities, transportation and service industries (such as hospitality, software and retail) all rely heavily on customer contact centres to provide customer relations. Contact centres are also prominent in municipal, provincial and federal government departments.
The customer contact centre industry provides professionals from a wide range of fields with quality jobs. Nurses, financial advisors and computer analysts often work in contact centres, earning salaries that range from $40,000 to $225,000.
There are also many occupations available in the field of contact centre management. Due to the widespread adoption of customer contact centres for all aspects of business activity, as well as the industry’s recent technological evolution, contact centre management is now a distinct occupational sector with its own set of competencies, job prospects and career paths.
A 2002 Government of Canada sector study entitled “The Canadian Customer Contact Centre Landscape: An Industry in Transition” indicated that the customer contact centre sector faces a number of human resource challenges. These challenges include:
- Labour Shortage
Labour market statistics indicate that the pool of skilled workers in Canada is shrinking. Between 2005 and 2009, the annual growth rate of the labour force is expected to drop below 1%. As a result, there will be increased competition for labour in Canada. Within the customer contact centre industry in particular, it has become particularly difficult to recruit database managers, technical support staff and appropriately skilled contact centre managers.
- Skills Gap
The skills required of contact centre employees are changing rapidly, in tandem with technology and business environment trends. As indicated in the sector study, 34% of customer contact centres report that they were unable to find enough candidates with the necessary skills. As the sector moves toward integrating front and back offices, current roles and positions are expanding and new occupations are emerging. Our workforce must receive the proper skills training to meet these changing demands.
- Turnover
Although the turnover rates in Canadian contact centres are low compared to those in the US (between 12 and 20% in Canada, compared with over 50% in the States), they are still high enough to threaten productivity and profitability. Not only does it cost money to continually train new workers, but it has been shown that long-term customer contact centre employees are more efficient and cost-effective than newer employees. Workers who stay longer in their positions tend to have well-developed customer service skills, which leads to better job performance and higher job satisfaction.
- Recruitment and Selection
Today’s contact centre managers are having difficulty attracting people with the necessary skills, aptitudes and attitude to handle the fast-paced environment of a contact centre. One of the reasons for this is that the industry’s current image does not accurately represent the contact centre work environment and the type of worker required.
The sector study includes recommendations to develop a national recruitment and retention strategy, and to develop strategic partnerships with educational institutions and other training providers to ensure an appropriately skilled labour force.
- Professional Accreditation
Accreditation, as defined in the sector study, is a professional designation granted to those who have received a certain level of expertise through academic training or professional expertise. It helps employers maintain standards, and increases workers’ employability and mobility within the industry.
Professional accreditation for customer contact centre professionals has not been widely adopted in Canada. Contact Centre Canada (CCC) will be reviewing national and international professional accreditation and training programs to determine what will work best for the industry.
- Lack of Human Resource Statistics
The majority (77%) of Canada’s 13,000 contact centres are small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 25 customer service representatives. These contact centres lack affordable access to quality information on leading-edge human resource practices and statistics specific to the contact centre industry. There is a need to develop accessible baseline data on best practices related to recruitment, selection, compensation, performance management and training. This data will help CCC to identify gaps that can be addressed by sector initiatives.
In the coming years, CCC will address these challenges through designated projects carried out in partnership with its stakeholders: contact centre organizations, labour representatives, contact centre associations and educational institutions.