A redundancy plan builds spare capacity into a contact center — agents, technology and separate sites — so one failure cannot take customer support offline. A contingency plan is the standing procedure for what happens when a failure occurs. This guide covers what belongs in each, the failure modes contact centers actually face, and why a nearshore partner in a separate geography is one of the cheapest forms of continuity coverage.
Contact Centers are a critical and essential part of many businesses. In times of disaster, contact centers become even more critical for many organizations, and ensuring they are operating at full capacity is imperative.
Having a back-up plan in place in case of unforeseen circumstances means your company is prepared for any tough situations that may arise. Contingency and redundancy plans can ensure minimal disruption in service for your customers and your company. These “disasters” may include local and global events such as a world health crisis, natural disasters, company-wide shifts, local or national law changes, and more.
In short: a redundancy plan is the spare capacity you build in advance — extra trained agents, duplicated technology, separate sites — so a single failure cannot take support offline. A contingency plan is the standing set of procedures that tells everyone what to do when a failure actually happens. Contact centers need both, plus a partner who can absorb volume if the primary site cannot.
Here we’ll learn more about what redundancy and contingency plans are and what you can do to prepare accordingly.
Redundant is defined as being in excess or beyond what is normal or necessary. A redundancy plan ensures your contact center has more than you need in case you need a back-up. This applies to all areas of your contact center, from your contact center agents to your technology and more.
A contingency plan is created by a business to have standing policies in case in-company or national emergencies take place. Protecting the employees through safety procedures and cross-training can help with stability and safety. Contingency plans are often implemented during times of catastrophes, war, health crises, or if a tragedy occurs within the company.
A contact center’s primary function is to service and support companies’ customers. If a business is experiencing turbulence or substantial company-wide changes, a contact center needs to be the backbone to ensure consistent customer-focused service.
During times of turbulence, contact centers may find any of the following challenges occur:
Contact centers are often a lifeline that helps businesses stay afloat or grow during times of profound change. That’s why it is imperative to have a back-up plan in place before disaster ever strikes. For utility providers, this is especially important because utility outage support must remain available when customers need updates most.
The following items should be considered when developing a redundancy and contingency plan.
Consider all of your critical technical requirements. What is the worst that could happen? How can you ensure you can be back up and running quickly? Talk with any vendors and software providers about their back-up plans and policies and know what’s in your contracts.
Consider geography when developing your back-up plans. If there is a natural disaster or other such events, having your data backed up or another partner available in a different part of the country or world will be imperative.
Training your employees in advance of any potential disaster will be essential for a smooth transition. This may include what to do in the actual emergency, to emergency scripts, to a different working environment. Consider training and preparing employees to work from home, ensuring you have the necessary equipment and protocols in place if this becomes necessary.
If there are long term adjustments in your work-flow due to emergencies, it’s essential to let your customers know. This could mean a notice on your website about hours of operation changes, shifts in contact information, telling your community about your contingency plan, and so on. Letting your clients know as soon as possible any changes that are occurring shows you’re in this together and building continuous trust in the process.
If there is a natural disaster happening in your area and it disrupts business, having a contact center in a different location may be essential until you can get back up and running again. Nearshore contact centers are especially beneficial, as they are often in the same time zones and understand U.S. culture. This will help with filling in gaps without sacrificing quality and service levels.
Having trained agents ready to go at a moment’s notice may prove extremely useful for your back-up plan. By partnering with a nearshore contact center provider, you can have a team of agents that work alongside you year-round, helping with increases in call volume or certain call types. If disaster strikes, this partner will be there and ready to ramp up quickly until your internal agents (or other partners) are back to full capacity or until volume returns to normal.
The benefits of nearshore outsourcing are numerous. For one, they are geographically close to all U.S. time zones allowing you to provide service during your regular business hours. Another, perhaps more important reason, is that nearshore outsourcing companies are often bilingual. With a significant percentage of the U.S. population’s first language not being English, this part is vital. Relying on relevant information in someone’s native language creates a thorough understanding and might gain you a customer for life.
Centris is a nearshore contact center with over 30 years of operating history and bilingual teams in Monterrey and Aguascalientes. We support customer service, tech support, live chat and soft collections, and we run our own redundancy and contingency plans so client programs do not lapse when something goes wrong.
The fastest way to test a continuity plan is to price it. Tell us your channels, your volume and the failure scenarios you need covered, and we will map what a standby or overflow team would look like — including how quickly it could ramp if you had to activate it tomorrow.
Talk to Centris About Continuity Coverage →
A redundancy plan is a documented plan for holding more capacity than daily operations require — additional trained agents, duplicated technology, and separate physical or geographic sites — so that losing any one of them does not interrupt service.
A redundancy plan is about spare capacity built in advance. A contingency plan is about procedure: the standing policies, scripts, escalation paths and safety steps that take effect when an emergency actually occurs. Redundancy gives you somewhere to fail over to; contingency tells everyone what to do.
Technology backups with vendor commitments in writing, geographic separation of sites and data, employee cross-training including remote-work readiness, a customer communication plan, and a named partner who can absorb volume on short notice.
Geographic diversity outside your own weather, grid and political risk; bilingual agents already trained on your programs year-round; and the ability to ramp quickly rather than recruiting under pressure during the disruption itself.
Want to see what this looks like with your own call volume and mix? Book a 15-minute demo and we'll bring real numbers, not industry averages.
Book a 15-minute demo — we'll bring numbers for your call mix, not just industry averages.
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