Has contact center hiring finally turned a corner?

We surveyed 400+ CX leaders in the U.S. and U.K. for our annual GigCX Report. More than half (55%) said that hiring contact center employees has been somewhat or considerably easier this year than in the previous 3 years.

At first glance, it seems we’ve turned a corner in terms of the contact center hiring difficulties of the last few years.

Of course, returning to pre-pandemic hiring doesn’t mean it is easy, just easy by comparison. According to CX leaders, sourcing and managing the best talent continues to be a formative challenge for contact centers.

Our report also revealed that the greatest cause of concern regarding service staffing in 2023 is the demand for flexible working, followed by difficulty hiring in physical contact centers, and a shortage of talent in the workforce marketplace.

With so many hiring difficulties facing CX leaders, it’s no wonder many have turned to or plan to turn to gig-based customer service (GigCX) as a solution to finding and retaining quality talent.

From this year’s report, awareness of, interest in, and use of GigCX among CX leaders clearly continues to trend upward.

When asked how familiar they are with GigCX, 22% of CX leaders we surveyed said they are currently using GigCX in the organization, up from 8% in 2022, a dramatic 149% increase year or year.

Nearly half (47%) said they are very or somewhat familiar with GigCX, up from 38% in 2022, a 26% increase.

And 31% of CX leaders said they know very little about or have never heard of GigCX, down from 54% in 2022, a steep decline of 43%.

The survey also asked about the current or future use of GigCX. Nearly a quarter (24%) of CX leaders said they have added it to their service operations in the last 12 months, and nearly 60% of CX leaders plan to add GigCX to their service operations withing the next 2 years.

While CX leaders claim many benefits to leveraging a GigCX model, they cited access to an agile talent pool as the top benefit.

There are many advantages to leveraging a GigCX crowd of experts, compared to traditional contact center agents, such as their native brand knowledge and experience, passion for the brand, on-demand availability, per-resolved-case payment, and more.

Related: Contact center agents vs. Gig experts - What’s the difference?

Plus, now that GigCX Experts can do anything a contact center agent can do, including handling more advanced customer inquiries, implementing a GigCX model is a no-brainer for CX leaders.

Many of the world’s largest brands – Google, Microsoft, PlayStation, Unilever, and more – are partnering with Limitless to deploy and deliver their GigCX model.

Related: How Zwift uses GigCX to scale and flex its customer support

Find out why businesses should consider GigCX in their service operations.

Interested in learning more? Contact our team of GigCX specialists.