Scotland's CCA Warns On Customer Contact 'Cost Pressures'

Edinburgh-based Customer Contact Association warns that while employment has "stabilized" in the customer contact sector in the last six months, "cost pressures and increasingly demanding customers are putting staff under renewed pressure."

The CCA is an industry organization dealing with global customer service standards.

According to the latest survey of CCA Industry Council members, including people in the banking, retail and leisure sectors, 90 percent of respondents said jobs in their customer contact operations had either stayed the same or increased in the last six months.

You'd think that would be good news. But the CCA goes on to note that respondents were "divided on the future employment outlook," as divided as divided gets, in fact: "An even 50 percent anticipated that jobs will remain the same or increase in the next six months," while the rest -- do the math yourself -- expect job numbers to fall.

In a rather bold show of confidence CCA held their Convention 2009 in Edinburgh last week.  And friends, Scotland in November isn't Orlando in June, or Orlando in November. Gets a little cold under the kilt. Nevertheless hardy souls from Microsoft (News - Alert), British Airways, O2, Jumeirah, RBS and Comic Relief agreed to deliver keynote speeches.

A CCA membership poll conducted by Merchants, a Dimension Data company, found that customers are "increasingly demanding compensation and threatening to involve a regulator or ombudsman in customer service issues."

There has also been an increase in the numbers of consumers requesting that customer service agents call them back to save on phone charges, the poll found, with more than 50 percent of respondents reporting such requests in October, up from just 22 percent in April.

Last month TMC's (News - Alert) Calvin Azuri reported that despite fall in the cost of staff attrition by $1,279.09 million helping contact centers in the United Kingdom deliver "major improvements in customer service," Customer Contact Association stated that contact centers will have to face tough challenges when the recession ends.