Scaling The Gig Economy For Enterprise Contact Solutions – with Courtney Meyers of Omni Interactions

In this episode, Derek has a conversation with Courtney Meyers, co-CEO of Omni Interactions — a CX outsourcing provider based in CO, USA.

They discuss how Omni Interactions utilizes the gig economy model, how gig workers can go beyond customer support, and the future of gig work.

Omni Interactions

Omni Interactions is a customer service outsourcing provider based in Colorado, United States, established in 2016.

The company uses the “Omniverse” and gig workers to fill talent gaps for clients who need customer support.

Courtney shared, “We actually started as a consulting company doing contact center transformation and automation.

And so we worked with a number of large clients and did true full-blown brick-and-mortar contact center transformations. Then we started to kind of move to the BPO world.”

Talking about what the firm focuses on now, she says, “For us, an ideal client is someone that needs a lot of flexibility.

So it gives us the opportunity to really flex those ‘gig muscles’ where we can help with the intervals that are very challenging.”

She painted a picture of how quickly they provide staffing, “We have got one client where we staffed 200 FTE from noon to two PM.”

The firm’s co-CEO added, “Omni Interactions fits into the overall outsourcing market, but it’s really a managed service… I feel like Omni bridges the gap between outsourcing and traditional employment.”

The provider focuses on high-volume, repetitive customer service and back-office work; “At this stage, for us, it’s defined and repetitive. So we certainly do back office work.”

Leveraging the gig economy model

According to Courtney, Omni Interactions grew over 3100% in the last three years. She stated the COVID-19 pandemic played a big part in how the provider operates today. 

“We had a great business model that was very timely. People needed to move their contact centers at home… So we have had a tremendous boom in business from 2020 forward.”

She added, “We offer a managed service for our clients to leverage the gig economy in a way that they don’t have to do it one by one.

So we can be that overall solution for them and ensure they’re getting the quality, the consistency, and all of those things they expect from any other vendor.”

Omni Interactions focuses on high-volume, repetitive tasks suited to those working by gig. They built a platform called “Omniverse” to manage their gig employees and ensure quality.

“The Omniverse is basically a cloud platform built around multiple cloud technologies connected through microservices with a lot of bots that run off of that.”

Courtney noted, “The reality of a gig worker is that they are their own small business, so they want to make the most out of their time or their logging hours.”

Applying the gig model beyond customer service

When asked about other applications for gig work, Courtney said:

“I wouldn’t say there’s any one demographic as much as it’s people that are exploring the idea of working more on their own terms as opposed to being a traditional employee.”

However, she noted, “For the most part, the contact center back office has been the space we’ve been largely working in.”

The CEO added, “One of the things that makes gig [work] what it is, in terms of adding value from a flexibility standpoint, is that people don’t work full time.

And so, we certainly encourage all our gig workers to have other gigs out there. Maybe they drive for Uber or maybe they work for DoorDash.”

Courtney revealed they found that people work an average of 20 productive hours a week. That’s why they’re open to letting their staff find and fill other jobs.

“That’s the productive time we expect to build from [gig workers] each week. And that allows us to do is turn up that dial when it’s needed.”

The future of gig work

Regarding the future of gig work, Courtney believes it will continue to expand.

“I think we’re going to see more and more gig work, and the gig economy continues to grow as people figure out how to piece that together.

[It will proceed to develop as more people] make their own schedule and their own income and make that work for themselves.”

She believes “Gig is growing everywhere…We believe that there’s a market for gig work all over the world.”

The CEO adds, “Our dream is to be able to [have] gig work anywhere, to be able to look for languages or certain cultural affinities and all of those things.”

In terms of automation, Courtney states, “Contacts, call types, things like that will continue to be automated. But I would say that in many ways, things become more complex as well.”

She comments, “I don’t necessarily see [automation taking over] even in the next five years. I think it’ll continue to eat into the industry, but I don’t see the industry in any way going away.”

Learn more about Omni Interactions and its services by visiting its website. You can also contact Courtney directly by messaging [email protected].