Virtual Customer Care: An Essential Component of H1N1 and Business Continuity Planning Sally Hurley: President Dan Fontaine: SVP, Technology Importance of Business Continuity Planning Platform requirements in virtual call center environments Finding and preparing the right people in virtual call center environment Case Studies Best Practices

1. VIPdesk Webinar Series December 3, 2009
Cover Slide
Virtual Customer Care: An
Essential Component of H1N1
& Business Continuity Planning
Sally Hurley: President
Dan Fontaine: SVP, Technology
View The Webinar
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2. Agenda
• Importance of Business Continuity
Planning
• Platform requirements in virtual call
center environments
• Finding and preparing the right people
in virtual call center environment
• Case Studies
• Best Practices
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3. About The Presenters
Sally Hurley Dan Fontaine
President, Co-founder SVP, Technology
• 20+ years experience delivering • Leads VIPdesk's Technology Team to
premium customer service develop and integrate technologies
relating to VIPdesk's loyalty solution
• Passion for customer experience
product portfolio
• Committed to building a culture that
• Manages VIPdesk Disaster
supports work-life balance
Recovery/Business Continuity Plan
• Proud to be a green company- development, execution, testing and
supporting thousands of individuals maintenance
that work from home across North
• Team provides operational support
America
for the technology employed
• President of Entrepreneurs throughout VIPdesk and its
Organization in D.C. programs.
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4. Business Continuity Planning
More important than ever
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5. H1N1 Reaches Pandemic Status
2009-10 flu season
started early, has 43 US States reporting
exceeded previous years widespread flu activity
The IMF said a flu pandemic could cost $3 trillion
and cause a 5% drop in global GDP.
--Reuters
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6. Short-Term Response
Sick employees required to stay
home or risk disciplinary action
Hand sanitizers installed
throughout workplace
Employees allowed to telecommute
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7. Situations that Require Immediate DR/BCP
Worldwide 2009
• Pandemic
South Dakota 2009
• Natural Disaster
East Coast 2003
• Unnatural Disaster
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8. Business Continuity Plan in Action
Event
Tornado destroys home
office $1 million in hardware,
software damage
Actions
Employees enabled
DRBC Plan Offsite backup systems
to work remotely
Results
• Within 72 hours, Aeneas was fully operational
• Many customers never lost service
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9. Business Continuity Plan in Action
Event
Hurricane Katrina hits
New Orleans
Actions
Duplicate servers Staff relocated away
across country from New Orleans
Results
• One of only web services companies to
remain active
• Able to help local organizations, non-profits
and news organizations with coverage,
communication
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10. Components of BCP Success
Plan
Platform
DR/BCP
Success
People
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11. Building a Plan
• Identify critical call center and business
functions and the systems and staff needed to
support them
• Prioritize the business functions by what is
most critical to the company's survival
• Determine the maximum acceptable outage
time for identified business functions
• Prepare step-by-step procedures for
recovering disrupted functions or systems
• Include your vendors
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12. Platform
What are the components of an
effective Business Continuity Platform
in a call center environment?
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13. Key Technology Questions
Do I need to
invest in new How do I connect
What hardware? everything during
software an emergency?
do I need?
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14. Assess Technology Risk
• Identify critical call center and
business functions and the
systems and staff needed to
support them
• Prioritize the business functions
by what is most critical to the
company's survival
• Determine the maximum
acceptable outage time for
identified business functions
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15. Identify Call Center Requirements
Technology infrastructure
hosted at a data center
Auto-failover Mirrored hosted
mirrored ACD solution
systems
ACD and supporting systems can be
accessed and used by home-based users
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16. Identify Agent Requirements
Proper environment
Workstation or laptop that meets
system and security requirements
High speed Internet access
Ability to connect securely to
systems
Phone or VoIP headset
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17. People
How can a virtual contact center model
effectively recruit and staff to ensure
Business Continuity?
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18. Attract Decentralized Applicants
• Flexible scheduling
• Reduced expenditures
• Elimination of commute
• Enhanced work/life balance
• Comfort of working from
home Geographically
• Ability to maintain lifestyle in dispersed agents
mitigate risks
addition to career
associated with
• Work on behalf of the brand localized or regional
they love Business Continuity
events
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19. Nationwide Recruiting
Ability to be Selective
Pass Basic Qualifications: 24%
Pass Client Specific Qualifications: 59%
Pass Hardware/Software Requirements: 73%
Pass Resume and Phone Screen: 83%
Pass Credit/Criminal Check: 79%
Complete Agreement
and Tech Setup: 85%
Complete/Pass
Certification: 63%
Go Live: Nationwide recruiting
95%
Highly skilled team
Supports BCP
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20. Provide Effective Communication Tools
Instant Data and
Communication Reports
Secure IM
Web-based
Switch capabilities – outbound
Dashboard
voice messaging
Methods Resources
DR Procedures Technology platform
Resource portal
DR Processes
LMS
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21. Leverage Learning Management System
Web-based LMS- University
• Class schedules and ability to register
• Learning Paths
• Curriculum Library/Searchable database of
training modules
• Assessments/tests
• Self-paced modules
• Videos
• Web Conferencing
• Conference calling
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22. Virtualized Operations Make a Difference
Centralized call center is crippled
Example 1
by local tornado
Virtual operation makes a
Example 2
difference during NE blackout
Virtual call center steps in during
Example 3
frequent blizzards
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23. Putting it All Together
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24. Business Continuity Best Practices
Keys for Success
 Identify technology and process touch-points to
ensure systems are in place, people are
available and people know what to do
 Locate people, platform resources in multiple
geographic regions, including Leadership Team
 Test DRBC Plan regularly
 Communicate plan to all team members
 Utilize multiple communication tools for “blasts”
and urgent updates
 Don’t just manage the model, live it!
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25. Additional Resources
• http://www.ready.gov
• http://www.cdc.gov/
• http://www.business-continuity-world.com/
• http://www.disaster-recovery-guide.com/
• http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Business-
Continuity-Plan
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26. Connect With Us Online
Website: http://www.vipdesk.com
Blog: http://blog.vipdesk.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/vipdesk
Facebook: http://facebook.com/vipdesk
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/companies/vipdesk
YouTube: http://youtube.com/user/vipdesk
Via RSS: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/23095083.rss
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27. Contact Us
Sally Hurley
President
shurley@vipdesk.com
(703) 837-3518
Dan Fontaine
SVP, Technology
dfontaine@vipdesk.com
(703) 837-3520
VIPdesk Webinar Series
Maintaining Your Brand Through Customer Service
Guest Presenter: Connie Smith, SpotOn Enterprises
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
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