Coronavirus and its potential impact on the workplace.

I was recently contacted by a senior member of a well-known UK business about potential business continuity issues they faced if - or perhaps when - Coronavirus impacts on large organisations.

My contact works within one of the biggest contact centre businesses in the country. The business provides customer management services to many of the UK’s largest brand names, so it is critical that they are considering how to continue to deliver services seamlessly, when, arguably, inbound contact from the public will increase. For example, we are already seeing panic-buying in the supermarkets, so it stands to reason that retailers will be contacted by increasing numbers of customers who wish to query when stock levels will become available.

My contact had four key requirements in order to keep his operation active should high numbers of employees need to be sent home:

1. Speed of deployment

2. Interoperability with their current systems

3. Commercial flexibility and

4. Call recording for compliance purposes

We discussed a telecoms solution provided by www.callplancloud.co.uk, which could be deployed very quickly and would seamlessly integrate with their existing telephone systems.

Call Plan Cloud uses technology which is hosted virtually – as the name suggests. Users deploy Call Plan Cloud by downloading an application onto their PC, Mac, Mobile Phone or Tablet. It takes roughly 15 minutes once the user accepts the application download instructions.

Call centres tend to have in-house telecoms skills, so if the system was deployed by a medium to large-sized businesses, I’m certain their people would find Call Plan Cloud to be intuitive and simple to administer. However, support is also on-hand for those who need technical assistance.

Call Plan Cloud only has a 30-day commitment period and so price becomes pretty irrelevant. However, at £15 per user per month (plus VAT) it is highly competitive.

There are many features to choose from within Call Plan Cloud. My contact requires call recording, and if calls are routed through numbers provided by Call Plan Cloud all calls are indeed recorded.

The reason for sharing this conversation is because, regardless of businesses current systems and processes, speed of delivery may be the most important consideration in providing continuous services and support to your customers.

Should this be the case, Call Plan Cloud could be the short-term and flexible solution you are looking for.

For further info just go to www.callplancloud.co.uk