With the deteriorating epidemiological situation, more and more customer and business service centre are engaging in support and assistance to governmental or health care organizations that are experiencing a significant overload as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. After Comdata company, which helped to increase the capacity of employees on the information and emergency line in spring, Teleperfomance and Conectart have joined the fight.
“We take the pandemic very seriously in our sector. From the very beginning, we have tried to protect the health of our employees and help. Our members are involved in tracing assistance, support infolines, develop tools for monitoring contacts in offices, help with online education of children, offer their experience in the field of logistics and IT. We believe that together we will be able to slow down the spread of coronavirus and return to normal life. The current bad situation is already affecting the Czech Republic’s reputation as a safe country for life, work and investment,” says Jonathan Appleton, director of the ABSL.
Support for information and emergency lines
In the spring, the leading Czech customer service provider Comdata, joined the fight against the pandemic by supporting lines 112 and 1212, which collapsed under the overload of inquiries. Line 112 was supported by 60 operators, for whom trainings were organized twice a day at the same time. Another 50 Comdata operators then supported the national line 1212, which was established on 15 March 2020 to provide information on COVID-19. At the same time, employees from Comdata also helped the Czech-Moravian Guarantee and Development Bank, which processed government support programs for companies and entrepreneurs. Today, there are 110 trained experts working on coronavirus lines, who provide information on illness, testing or traveling, as well as help with registration and ordering vaccinations.
With the growth of Covid-19 cases this winter, also the company Teleperformance provided more than 100 operators in a very short time. “We are pleased to be able to help the government and healthcare organizations and provide them rapid and comprehensive support in testing, tracing, vaccination or awareness services for all citizens,” said Valeriy Svetlov, CEO of this international customer centre. Teleperformance experts help not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France and other countries and they all work from the safety of their homes.
At the end of the year, the largest local contact centre Conectart, also started to help the congested regional hygiene stations. In just eight days, the company secured and trained 60 operators, who started tracing the so-called third calls, i.e. tracing people who were in contact with positive people. In January, 120 operators joined the Smart Quarantine call, and in February their number increased to 222. Since January, Conectart has expanded its activities to include the so-called first calls, i.e. contacting positive people. In the first week of February alone, operators made 8,598 calls in Czech, English and Russian.
The need for external call centres
Tracing is essential to the fight with the pandemic. According to experts, it is necessary to have at least 1,000 to 3,000 operators available for its smooth management and effective provision, but in mid-September last year the government had only about 600 of them available. Therefore, it is clear that many contacts could not be intercepted in time. Thanks to the involvement of professional call centres, it is now possible to better plan capacity and ensure a higher number of calls, thus significantly speeding up the tracing of positive people. Working on these lines is psychologically extremely demanding, and therefore operators must undergo special training. “We are proud that 3 of our leading client service members are proactively engaged in the fight against Covid-19 and helping us all to come through these incredibly challenging times. Huge thanks to Comdata, Teleperformance and Conectart for their courage and fast response in our time of need,” said Jonathan Appleton.
