The Gig Economy is rapidly changing the way businesses deliver customer experience. The emergence of Gig Workers, especially during the pandemic, has provided companies with a unique opportunity to increase their customer service capabilities. Omni Interactions CEO Chris Carrington sat down with Principal Analysts, Michael DeSalles from Frost & Sullivan to talk about the benefits of Gig Customer Experience. From speed and flexibility to cost savings and improved satisfaction levels, there are many benefits to leveraging the Gig Economy for customer experience.
What is Gig Customer Experience?
Gig Customer Experience refers to the use of Gig Workers or freelancers in order to provide services such as customer support, sales, and marketing. Gig Workers are typically hired on a short-term basis for specific tasks and projects as needed. This type of customer experience model allows businesses to quickly scale up or down their workforce depending on the needs of their customers.
What are Some of the Companies Using Gig Workers to Improve Customer Experience?
Several major companies have already begun to incorporate Gig Workers into their customer experience models. Uber and Lyft, for example, have both seen success in their use of Gig Workers for on-demand rides. Airbnb is another example, as they have adopted a Gig Worker model to provide short-term rental services. Other companies utilizing Gig Workers include Amazon, Instacart, Postmates, and TaskRabbit.
What are the Benefits of Gig Customer Experience?
Gig Customer Experience offers several benefits that traditional customer experience models can’t. Here are four of the biggest advantages:
Benefit #1: Speed/Instant Launch
By using a Gig Worker model, companies can quickly launch customer experience initiatives without having to go through the lengthy process of recruiting and hiring traditional employees. This allows them to rapidly respond to customer needs and provides a much faster response time.
Two years ago, one of the largest healthcare pharmacies came to Omni looking to address a rapid need to start scheduling appointments for the COVID vaccination. Tens of millions of Americans were going to need to get appointments made and they had no ability to take that volume of calls rapidly.
“Using the nationwide sourcing model and the Gig Economy, Omni found, onboarded, and certified 1200 people within six weeks. I’ve run brick-and-mortar centers and typically you couldn’t get 1200 people up and running in six months. So it was a real feat,” said Christopher M. Carrington, CEO at Omni Interactions.
Benefit #2: Scalability and Flexibility
Because Gig Workers are not full-time employees, it’s easy for companies to scale up or down their operations as needed.
Every year, one of the largest financial services companies needs to add thousands of agents to support their customers during tax season. The company turned to Omni and asked us to ramp up over three thousand agents each year during their 16-week busy period leading up to Tax Day, April 15th.
“For our financial service client, we ramp up the program with three thousand agents and then back down to zero. That’s something really special about the Gig CX Economy,” said Christopher M. Carrington, CEO of Omni Interactions.
Benefit #3: Cost Savings
Companies can save a considerable amount of money by utilizing Gig Workers as opposed to traditional employees due to the reduced overhead costs.
Omni partners with the largest healthcare company to provide support during welcome season, their busiest time of the year. Omni helps with back-office work when customers have issues getting prescriptions filled. The company needed agents with healthcare experience that could quickly process through the issues.
“Because these back-office claims needed to be processed quickly, Omni put in place an incentive system called outcomes-based pricing, whereby the remote agent earned more money by processing claims quicker, which was also a benefit for our client. It worked out amazingly. It saved the client about 25%. The Gig Workers themselves were earning about 20% more than they would in any other hourly-based function. And very importantly, the end customers were getting their prescriptions faster,” said Christopher M. Carrington, CEO of Omni Interactions.
Benefit #4: Improved Customer Satisfaction
By having access to talented and experienced workers, companies can deliver a higher quality customer experience that leads to more satisfied customers. Additionally, because Gig Workers are usually available on-demand, companies can often respond more quickly to customer inquiries and complaints than with traditional employees.
Thinx is a women’s apparel brand that specializes in women’s undergarments. Using the nationwide sourcing model, Omni found agents who were customers of theirs. Who were brand enthusiasts and brand loyalists that use the product and understood the product. We were able to take those inbound calls and increase sales activity as well as customer service.
“We increased their CSAT score by 680 basis points, and we had zero percent attrition for all of 2022 on that program. The client really appreciated that the Gig Workers were real users and customers of the product,” said Christopher M. Carrington, CEO of Omni Interactions.
Overall, the use of Gig Customer Experience has many advantages. Companies can benefit from cost savings, improved customer satisfaction, scalability and flexibility, and speed/instant launch capabilities. By utilizing the right mix of Gig Workers to meet their customer needs, companies can take advantage of these benefits and create a better customer experience.
Strategies for Leveraging the Gig Economy for Better CX
For more information and strategies on leveraging the Gig Economy in your customer experience operations download our Ebook on Gig CX or watch our latest webinar with Frost & Sullivan “Leveraging the Gig Economy for High-Value Customer Experience”.
