In a July 2008 survey of 187 end-user organizations on the topic of contact center disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC), DMG Consulting found that the majority of contact centers are at risk of avoidable failures and disruptions. Surprisingly, only 36.7 percent of companies are confident that they can operate without serious impact on service quality and the customer experience during a disaster. This is because most contact centers either do not have a disaster recovery and business continuity plan, or are not keeping it up to date. Only 4.7 percent of companies test their DR and BC plans on a monthly basis. This leaves 95.3 percent of contact centers at risk of a severe meltdown in an emergency situation. (See Figures 1 and 2.)

Even more worrisome, only 45.6 percent of companies test or monitor their contact center’s routing and queuing capabilities at all. Of these companies, only 39.8 percent test or monitor monthly. This means that 60.2 percent of companies are not routinely testing their core contact center infrastructure. This leaves them open to unexpected but avoidable failures. And, when contact centers implement a new or enhanced solution, only 49.7 percent are confident that the new capability is thoroughly tested and will not disrupt their operations. (See Figures 3 and 4.)

These numbers point out that too many contact centers of all sizes, around the world, are not taking appropriate actions to minimize the impact of disasters or even system and process changes in their own environments. Planning, combined with limited investments in disaster recovery, business continuity, and ongoing internal testing and monitoring, can greatly reduce the risk and impact of failures.

Donna Fluss (donna.fluss@dmgconsult.com) is founder and president of DMG Consulting LLC, the leading provider of contact center and analytics research, market analysis, and consulting. To obtain a free copy of this disaster recovery/business continuity report, visit http://tinyurl.com/4fan4y.

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