I know, I know. It may seem I’m piggybacking off of the excellent posts about the implications of Swine Flu by rock star Assistant Editor Jessica Tsai and fabulous Assistant Editor Lauren McKay. What’s peculiar about the influenza A(H1N1) virus is that it has so many different business applications.

In my coverage area of contact center/customer service, the implications come from all angles. What if every single agent — or the vast majority — came down with the flu and could not work? Do you have a back-up plan in place?

What if you get a flood of calls asking myriad questions about Swine Flu? Can your contact center scale? Will it become overloaded and keep impatient and worried callers on hold or, even worse, drop calls?

I wrote an article on a study by DMG Consulting a few months ago about disaster recovery/business continuity planning — or, the lack thereof being done by most companies.

DMG’s research found 63.3 percent of respondents were not fully confident in the effectiveness of their companies’ disaster recovery or business continuity plans. Twenty percent — one out of every five contact centers — had no plans in place whatsoever.

Donna Fluss, president of DMG Consulting and a regular columnist for CRM magazine, told me at the time that so many companies are ignorant or cavalier in its lack of planning because executives aren’t entirely convinced contact centers warrant that much attention. “Contact centers are mission-critical,” she said. “In times of calamity and challenge, people reach out to organizations in unprecedented numbers. If the customer can’t reach [someone], they will be upset.”

Fluss also argued too many just think about “acts of God” such as hurricanes and tornadoes, or man-made calamities such as terrorist attacks and war. Essentially, the potential danger is so rare, and so far-fetched, that it seems as though you’re throwing money at something that will probably never pay for itself.

The “it can’t happen to me” syndrome affects everyone. I haven’t been to a doctor in just about three years. Should I go? Probably. But I’m too lazy to set up an appointment when on the surface I seem to be — thankfully — perfectly healthy. That’s just it though, isn’t it? I could have something lurking, attacking my immune system as we speak, and yearly check-ups can help prevent anything life-threatening.

Same thing goes for contact center business continuity plans. While it may not pay for itself immediately — and in today’s recession, that can be a sticking point — having a plan in place and never having to use it is better than not having one, and then not knowing what to do. While a potential pandemic like Swine Flu may come once every couple of decades, it is worth the time to test your contact center infrastructure and other procedures to ensure you are ready for anything that may come about.

For the contact center professionals out there, how has Swine Flu affected your business? Even if it hasn’t directly affected it, has it changed the way you think about disaster recovery planning or at least started a conversation?