Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Cloud-based Contact Center Solutions Raise the Option of Home-based Agents
From a contact center perspective, the benefits of cloud-based contact centers is often discussed in terms of cost savings: a reduction in capital outlay, return on investment, lower IT costs and a licensing process that allows you to pay for only what you need on a month-to-month basis. Yes, a cloud-based solution can offer increased functionality and help a contact centers achieve true multichannel customer engagement.
What’s less discussed, however, is the benefit of a cloud-based solution from an agent stand-point. Since working on a cloud-based solution only requires a PC and an Internet connection, forward-thinking companies have the option to allow some agents to work from home. While it may not work for every company, and for every agent, for established, professional mature agents, it’s a real option, according to Monet Software CEO Chuck Ciarlo in a recent blog post.
“What is not acknowledged as often is how employees may also prefer a virtual working situation,” writes Ciarlo. “Qualified agents looking for a position no longer have to live close to a call center location. In fact, they don’t even have to reside in the same state.”
Contact center often suffer from high turnover. For many people, it’s not a desirable job…just a way to fill in the blanks or pay bills. For others, however, it’s a career. Those individuals are valuable to any company that prizes the quality of its customer service: they tend to be older, they tend to be better educated, and – most importantly – they tend to stay in their jobs longer. Offering a work-at-home solution benefits them in many ways, says Ciarlo.
“Parents with small children might also enjoy the family proximity of a home-based office, as long as it does not interfere with their professional obligations,” he writes. “It also eliminates the drive to and from work, which not only increases family time, it also decreases gas costs and automobile wear and tear.”
It’s also an ideal model for retired or semi-retired people looking for extra work, and handicapped individuals who are able to work , but perhaps not able to commute to a job. Many companies have found these individuals make the best contact center agents.
Working from home, says Ciarlo, is a means of boosting employee engagement right from the beginning.
“The comforts of home can make a call center agent more content in his or her work, and more motivated to maintain their employment by working hard and meeting the company’s needs,” he writes. “These agents may also feel more confident in trust that is shown in them to work from home without a manager looking over their shoulders throughout the day.”
So while you marvel at what your cloud-based contact center has done for your organization in terms of flexibility and cost, also ask yourself whether you can’t save even more – and have happier employees – with a home-based agent scenario.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi