Your call center is vulnerable. Phone lines can go down and the data that agents need to do their jobs can be obliterated at any moment due to uncontrollable outside circumstances.
When these problems occur, your company, like many others, may not be fully prepared to deal with them. That's the conclusion that disaster recovery services company Comdisco (Rosemont, IL) arrived at after it interviewed 200 different organizations, including businesses, nonprofit groups and government agencies, to find out their plans to secure data in case of disasters.
One in four of the participants in Comdisco's study had already experienced a disaster during which it couldn't use its computer systems. Yet only one in three has a business continuity plan ready if servers go down and only one in four is prepared if local area networks fail. Approximately one third of the companies and organizations Comdisco interviewed have recovery plans in case their Internet connections fail, but many of them can only manage short-term power outages.
Currently, 63% of the companies, agencies and organizations Comdisco interviewed now use electronic backup systems with their servers and 71% of them do the same with their local area networks. Although these systems can help them retrieve lost data, call centers still have to provide service to customers. Rather than risk losing customers by shutting down their call centers during emergencies, more companies are now researching disaster recovery services options. In 1997, 21% of the participants in Comdisco's study didn't draft a budget for these services; that figure is now down to 4%.
What prevented most companies from planning these budgets sooner? Ed Deveau, VP of business continuity at the disaster recovery firm EverGreen Data Continuity (Newbury, MA), explains that many of these firms used to regard disaster recovery plans as purely technical issues. "In many businesses, the disaster recovery planning effort is initiated by an information technology team, usually at the data center level," he says. The problem with this approach is the potential lack of communication between the IT staff and the other employees about what the plan should consist of.
Deveau is also president of the New England Disaster Recovery Information Exchange Group (NEDRIX), an organization of disaster recovery professionals. He recommends that members of a company's technical and business staff establish a process early on so that everyone knows what course of action to take when an emergency occurs.
"An information technology team may have a great plan to recover the data center's functions, but it won't do much good if the business teams are excluded from the planning process and can't use the recovered systems," he says.
More companies now view disaster recovery as more than a technical concern, especially after last year. "The Y2K scare brought disaster recovery to the forefront of businesses' concerns in 1999," says Deveau. "We did a lot of recovery planning for companies to prepare for any potential problems." He acknowledges that although many of these companies didn't actually need to recover lost data, the threat of Y2K errors did provide corporations with a powerful incentive to consider how a disaster recovery plan would affect all their operations.
Odds are that you already have an emergency plan for your call center, but it's not too late to begin preparing one if you don't. You can consult a disaster recovery services company to create a plan that works best for your center and budget. Here are how some call centers, with the help of disaster recovery firms, continued serving customers despite the onslaught of hurricanes and computer crashes.
Comdisco Keeps Transamerica Flood Hazard Certification Afloat
Transamerica Flood Hazard Certification declared a disaster at its call center last year after losing all phone service in the wake of Hurricane Floyd. The company works with banks and other money-lending institutions to offer flood hazard certification to borrowers who obtain mortgages and loans.
Transamerica Flood provides a toll-free number for its customers to call if they want to check or alter their certification status. This number suddenly went dead after AT&T temporarily shut down due to flooding. Agents left the call center, which is based within Transamerica Flood's office in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ, and gathered at a Comdisco disaster recovery site in the nearby town of East Rutherford, NJ.
"We contacted Comdisco to re-direct our phone lines to their site," says Cindy Mann, call center manager for Transamerica Flood. "Before that, customers received a recorded announcement explaining that the center entered disaster recovery mode."
Mann recalls that Transamerica Flood declared a disaster on a Friday morning, and that the company worked to restore its call center during the weekend. By the following Monday, customers were able to speak with agents and send them e-mail messages from the company's Web site.
Transamerica Flood kept its customers informed of all emergency measures. "Our field service staff speaks directly with clients, making sure they leave up-to-date information on the state of our business," Mann points out. "They feel secure that way even when we're in disaster mode."
Comdisco prepared 50 cubicles with desktops and phones connected to an ACD with Transamerica Flood's routing parameters programmed on it. Since Transamerica Flood's call center is only open on weekdays, Comdisco had time to add 30 more desktops to accommodate additional agents. Mann didn't want to send agents back to the center by Monday. She recognized how long it would take to move a working center from one location to another, and decided to allow extra time to have everything up and running.
"We worked from Comdisco for an entire week," recalls Mann. "We decided to remain there to ensure continuity of service."
During the week that agents worked at Comdisco's site, Mann made sure that travelling to work wouldn't be an issue. "Some agents had their own transportation, but we also arranged a shuttle service," she says. "We rented a van and sent agents to Comdisco from our main office."
To ensure that agents are ready for any future disasters, Transamerica Flood conducts drills three times a year from Comdisco's East Rutherford facility.
"We bring the software that we use to produce orders for certificates, and our production staff to fulfill orders," says Mann. "We also bring agents there to take live calls." She proudly notes that every time the company conducts a drill, customers experience no delays in service and no difficulties with contacting agents.
IBM Business Continuity and Recovery Services Steers Mercedes-Benz Away From Disaster
Transamerica Flood wasn't the only business to find its call center disabled by Hurricane Floyd. The same storm hit auto manufacturer Mercedes-Benz, which operates a center near its headquarters in Montvale, NJ that answers roadside assistance calls 24 hours a day. The 100 agents at the center respond to emergencies such as flat tires and stalled engines, typically handling a daily average of 1,000 calls.
