People

Enhancing CX through the Gig Workforce

15 czerwca 2023

5 min.

As contact center executives know, understanding and meeting customer expectations is a critical factor in the success of any business. But with ever-changing consumer demands, it’s becoming harder to keep up.

To stay competitive and ensure exceptional customer experience (CX), many companies are turning to the gig workforce through a phenomenon known as GigCX – an increasingly popular way of sourcing on-demand customer service labor. By leveraging this talented pool of digital nomads anytime you need them, your organization can benefit from their specialized skills without requiring a full- time staff commitment – but this does come with some challenges.

What is GigCX?

GigCX is a new model of customer support that leverages knowledgeable on-demand CX workers through a central platform to handle customer enquiries and support tasks across the entire customer lifecycle. As such, customers receive a more authentic, personalized experience, whereby enquiries are dealt with more rapidly, translating to higher satisfaction levels.

Size of the GigCX market

The model’s versatility has resulted in notable growth gains in the global GigCX market over the last five years. In 2017, the GigCX market (including both captive/in-house and outsourced contact centers) was estimated to be valued of US$845 million, expanding to US$2,79 billion in 2022.

Increasing rates of digitization and the acceptance of WFA working models among contact centers will stoke GigCX market expansion to an estimated US$4,19 billion by the end of this year and rising sharply to US12,98 billion by 2025. It is projected that GigCX adoption rates will plateau from 2025 until 2027, resting on an estimated US15,42 billion valuation.

5 benefits of using GIG workers in a CX operation

A variety of factors are at play behind the exceptional growth and the strong business case for GigCX; however, there are five that have been identified as the most significant.

Access to talent

The virtual nature of GigCX enables contact center organizations to tap into a much broader pool of qualified workers in the global market possessing specialized experience in niche areas that are often difficult to find in the local market. This has unlocked access to a new kind of customer service specialist – brand advocates or ‘super users’ who are expert customers of a particular brand’s products and services. Expert customers assisting other customers can be more relatable, providing a personalized CX.

In fact, 81% of surveyed customers said they would more likely buy a product after engaging with a GigCX expert[1].

Reducing costs

Globalized recruitment offered by GigCX allows contact centers to draw skilled CX talent from regions with competitive salaries. These would not only include offshore locations, such as India and the Philippines, but also emerging locations across Eastern Europe, notably Poland, Czechia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Slovenia.

In addition, the GigCX model is based on a variable ‘pay-as-you-go’ or cost per ticket pricing structure, as opposed to cost per head. There is a dual benefit to this – costs are directly correlated to output and there is a degree of guarantee from the GigCX worker to successfully resolve a customer query.

Scalability

More rapid onboarding processes and customer enquiry resolutions enable contact centers to scale using less time and resources. By leveraging a distributed workforce model, contact centers can meet client requests to install large numbers of seats within a limited timeframe, speeding the time-to-market. For instance, National Express and Daily Mail managed to quadruple their CX workforces using GigCX workers in response to unplanned demand peaks and operational expansions[2].

Flexibility and agility

The elasticity of the GigCX model allows contact centers to adapt their workforce size according to the ebb-and-flow of customer service volumes and changing market dynamics.

On the one hand, contact centers can rapidly onboard new workers and increase their agent complement in a short time frame to precisely match customer service volumes. On the other hand, contact centers can seamlessly reduce their headcount during customer service lulls. For this reason, many CX leaders cite the ability to have a flexible workforce as a major driver of adopting GigCX within their operations.

Diversity and inclusion

Contact centers are able to implement diversity and inclusion into their workforces through flexible, cross-border hiring structures offered by GigCX platforms, bringing in fresh ideas and alternative ways of thinking.

Notably, CX executives using GigCX platforms have reported that up to 30% of their GigCX agents come from communities of diversity and inclusion. Moreover, 42% of these diverse GigCX workers speak more than one language, enabling contact centers to tap into multilingual pools of talent[3].

Challenges and solutions

However, as a newly emerging trend, GigCX does not come without its challenges, particularly around data security and brand consistency and quality.

Data security

Approximately 77% of global enterprise buyers view security and legislation as a major hinderance to GigCX adoption.

In the US, the UK and Australia, security is viewed as the most prominent GigCX limitation, while legislation is seen as the leading inhibitor of GigCX by enterprises in Spain, France and Canada. The rising trend of Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) among virtual workforces adds further complexity to GigCX adoption.

However, there are robust BYOD best-practices implemented by GigCX platforms to prevent data leakages and other cyber security risks, including:

Implementing a BYOD security policy;
Mandating passwords on all devices;
Banning specified apps;
Training personnel about protection measures;
Necessitating periodic maintenance updates.

Additionally, key international data protection legislation, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), can be applied to the endpoint of devices for WFA GigCX workers.

Brand consistency

Another concern is the adherence to brand guidelines and standards, potentially resulting in inconsistent and compromised customer service delivery. To mitigate this, GigCX platforms have deployed stringent peer review processes augmented by algorithm-based agent assessments to monitor and evaluate performance. A constant feedback loop is developed, where tickets are fed to top performers, creating a natural selection of query allocation. GigCX workers struggling to meet brand expectations either go through a re-learning initiative or fall off the platform completely.

A World of opportunities

The proven scalability, flexibility and profitability of the GigCX model – resulting in happier customers and workforces – means that businesses can keep up with high demands for customer support while still ensuring quality of service. In addition, contact centers can now rapidly scale and have a variable workforce that shifts with seasonal customer call volumes.

Although GigCX is unchartered territory, most CX leaders should ensure that their organizations have robust processes in place for data security and providing a consistent brand image across their contractor base. With improved technology and greater collaboration between industry experts, we can expect the way people interact with contact centers to evolve even more in the coming years.

Author: Mark Angus, CEO of market research consultancy, Genesis Global Business Services and Founding Partner of The World Source Marketplace for Global Business Services (GBS.World)

_{[1] Limitless 2022 GigCX Report.}

_{[2] 2022 CxOutsourcers Leveraging the Gig Economy for CX Delivery Roundtable.}

_{[3] Limitless 2022 GigCX Report.}