A New Era Calls for a New Level of Resiliency

I am supposed to be at the Enterprise Connect conference in Orlando. This month’s column was going to be about what I learned and share the value of conferences to contact center leaders, encouraging you to put them on your “to-do” list. But here I sit at home, just like everyone else, and I suspect that none of you will be signing up for a conference any time soon. So, let’s redirect. We have entered a new era, and preparedness is more important than ever. I want to talk about resiliency from two angles—business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) and volume agility.

Chances are you already knew that being prepared for disasters was important. Still, many haven’t been able to prioritize that task and properly document, test and refine a formal BC/DR plan. Maybe your company focused on technology infrastructure impacts (e.g., data center or system down, power outage) and recovery (IT’s plans). If you were prudent (or vulnerable to hurricanes), maybe you had something about facilities impacts and relocation to another site or service.

As we now know, to be ready and resilient, you need to cover a wide range of scenarios, including a pandemic with impacts beyond anything we could have imagined. For example, maybe your plan needs to simultaneously cover dramatic volume swings and relocation of staff to home offices. You may have done that on the fly, and kudos to you! Going forward, everyone needs to be ready to respond to whatever gets thrown at us with a formal, structured plan in place.

Formalize Your Resiliency Plan

Let’s call the new plan a “Resiliency Plan” because it covers more than BC/DR. It can tap some of the same technologies and operational practices for unusual peak volumes and can provide the confidence that you have the agility you need for a variety of situations. This comprehensive plan will address events that can impact facilities (e.g., power outage, fire, storm, flood), people (e.g., virus, evacuation) and technology (e.g., network, systems and/or power failure), while also addressing volumes that exceed your monthly or seasonal patterns. The plan should address events of various durations, from minutes to months. (See Figure 1.)

The goals of a plan are:

• Minimize disruptions caused by events.
• Continue operations when events occur.
• Recover operations after catastrophic events.

As Figure 1 shows, short-lived events may be absorbed with a slight reduction in service, and chances are customers will understand. The longer events, like the one we’re living in now (compounded by uncertain duration), can be make-or-break for a business and its customer relationships. Things you do for day-to-day optimization, like self-service, can help in an emergency. And what you do with technology matters more than ever as you build resiliency into your infrastructure and applications. (See THE sidebar, “My Favorite Resiliency Enablers.”)

As you develop a Resiliency Plan, make sure it addresses a complete set of objectives:

• Identify and address the full range of business-impacting events with a level of prioritization based on probability and impact.
• Define Resiliency Team members (across IT and operations) and their roles.
• Provide a guide for the Team by defining procedures and identifying resources needed to assist in a timely response and recovery for the various scenarios.
• Identify employees and vendors that must be notified and engaged in the event of a disruption.
• Store and secure adequate backup materials off-site (including the plan itself!).
• Train assigned personnel on various as­­pects of the Plan, including adequate cross-training to reduce reliance on key personnel.
• Guide comprehensive tests of the Plan and modify/update the Plan as a result of the tests.
• Enable everyone to respond effectively and consistently, even perhaps training on event-driven changes (like work-at-home) as part of new-hire training and/or ongoing reminders.

If you don’t have a plan or want a guide to updating the plan you have,
we have a table of contents to help you get started.

Keys to Success

The keys to success we have identified through lessons learned in writing, testing and executing plans include the following:

• Strong sponsorship. Success requires a culture that values (and sees the value in) these plans. That means allocating resources, investing in technology, and taking the time to test and update.
• A cross-functional team that makes decisions and can lead execution. IT and business leaders and trusted “in the trenches” staff work together to address technology, operations and staff needs.
• A comprehensive perspective that considers all elements—people, technology, processes, facilities—and the role of all parties (including vendors).
• Detailed, thorough documentation routinely updated, accompanied by effective communications across the organization.
• Perhaps most importantly, consider people first, and recognize that they will think of their families first.

When Things Are Back to “Normal”

Hopefully, your center was able to respond to the coronavirus situation without too much impact on your customers and staff. Chances are, things could have gone better. We don’t know what the new normal looks like, or when it will be here, but we can’t assume that things will ever be the same. I suspect these plans will take on a new importance. That being said, planning for unlikely events has been shoved down the priority list for years, and we must be cautious against that same complacency creeping in again. I’ve always viewed BC/DR plans like insurance: Nobody likes to pay for it, but you are really glad you have it when it’s needed!

This new era demands a new level of preparedness and resiliency. Whether you have an existing plan that needs refreshing, or never had a formal one and became painfully aware of it, there has never been a better time to develop or update your plan. Put it at the top of your “to-do” list when we emerge from this unprecedented time.