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Is Taking it Home, Taking it Too Far?
[June 20, 2007]

Is Taking it Home, Taking it Too Far?


TMCnet Voice Solutions Columnist
 
Are at-home agents a reality or are they all hype? Recently, I was speaking with an IT manager at a company that operates a number of distributed contact centers and I asked them whether they had considered using at-home agents instead of regional contact centers. He laughed in my face. “No way” was his response. “Was he a pessimist or realist,” I wondered.


 
With VoIP and standards-based CTI (News - Alert) software, at-home agents can be a practical technical solution. VoIP puts the voice traffic over the network and makes the contact center software available to anyone on the network, so with as little as a PC, an Internet connection and a phone, agents can work from home and have essentially all the control and capabilities of agents physically sitting in the contact center.
 
This leads to more consistent service quality. Just as important, since the contact center software is the same across sites and people, the customer service organization can have consistent reporting across the entire network.
 
None of this would matter, however, unless you were able to efficiently route calls to all of your distributed agents. CTI software ensures that calls and data can be routed to remote agents as seamlessly as they could if the agents were all in the same room. And, the intelligent routing capable through today’s CTI software enables an organization to track the skills of each available agent and leverage information in the CRM system, accounting system, and other enterprise applications to match a caller with the agent best suited to their needs.
 
This enables organizations to optimally route calls across the entire virtual contact center, including all remote sites and at-home agents. Sounds great. And it is. At-home agents offer many potential benefits for customer service organizations, including:
  • Better qualified agents – Agents with hard-to-find skills can be hired, and retained, regardless of their physical proximity to the corporate office.
  • Reduced operating costs – Organizations can leverage low-cost labor pools to reduce personnel costs and can reduce the square footage of their contact center facilities.
  • Lower attrition – By providing more flexible working situations, organizations using at-home agents have reported turnover rates of less than 10 percent - a dramatic improvement over traditional turnover rates.
  • Disaster recovery planning – “At-home” capability can be a core part of a disaster recovery plan. For example, if a hurricane hits your Florida-based contact center, imagine being able to have your employees home and safe and still functioning as if it’s a clear, sunny day.
Despite these benefits, companies should proceed with a clear plan of attack. If you go virtual, your organization must make a corporate commitment to modify hiring and training practices accordingly. Specifically:
  • At-home agents require additional skills – Not every agent has the make-up to work from home, so you need to consider some additional skills when hiring agents for at-home positions. First, the agents have to have the knowledge and mindset to work independently. Tools such as instant messaging can allow agents to confer with their colleagues, but at-home agents must be able to get by with less interaction with other agents. Next, they must have the ability to be mentally “at work” and focus on work despite the distractions of being physically at-home. Finally, they have to have the technical know-how to address any minor technical problems that occur because there won’t be an IT person within arm’s reach.

  • Ongoing training is required – Organizations and remote employees have to dedicate more time to training to ensure that the employees can truly represent the corporate goals, vision, and culture. Ongoing training will ensure that the agent feels part of the team and that they perform according to corporate guidelines.
With organizations in every industry looking for a competitive edge, the long-term benefits of at-home agent staffing models will surely make at-home agents more commonplace. So why did the IT manager I spoke with laugh at the prospect of using at-home agents? Well, his response indicated that not every organization is culturally ready to manage a virtual team. He said their VoIP infrastructure made it a snap to implement such a staffing model, but “our CEO wants to keep a close eye on the agents.” Apparently, they prefer to manage their folks the old-fashioned way—management by walking around.
 
John Joseph is vice president of corporate marketing at Envox Worldwide (News - Alert), a voice solutions provider based in Westborough, Mass.


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