By Anuradha Shukla

TMCnet Contributing Writer

Managing costs and maintaining quality are major concerns faced by outsourcing businesses. The rising cost of hardware, connectivity problems, IPL reliability and availability of efficient and skilled workers are the major issues which need to be addressed. To create a balance between costs and output, companies are turning towards English speaking workers from India, Sri Lanka and other countries.

Switching to virtual call centers can be a good option. At times employees may be situated in groups but generally they work individually, from the comfort of their own homes. This opportunity is readily taken up by people who love the idea of flexible work hours, zero commuting time and working without any dress code or supervision.

From a business perspective, virtual call centers save on expensive infrastructures and reduce the other wise high attrition rate of the call centers. Businesses which are seasonal can also greatly benefit from this new arrangement no longer having to maintain facilities round the year.

A good example of a company benefiting from the virtual call center is displayed by “Office Depot.” According to Julian Carter, director of operations at Office Depot in Delray Beach, Fla., virtual call centers offer a good alternative to completely going offshore.

“Before moving to a virtual model, Office Depot typically saw 60 percent turnover of its call center agents in a year,” Carter said. “Going virtual immediately cut attrition rates in half, and they dropped to the 20 percent range within the first year. Attendance also is upon the productivity side. The biggest thing we see is a reduction in absenteeism.”

According to Cisco, the virtual call center expands skill-based routing from the ACD (automatic call distributor) to the network level. ACD is the programmable device which routes the incoming calls to targets within that call center.

After the ICM (intelligent contact management) software determines the call, it is sent to the ACD associated with that target. The ACD then completes the routing as determined by ICM.

Experts suggest that companies with existing contact center facilities switch to virtual call centers by initial pilot operations. Areas like internal support desk or non-critical functions can be a few areas to start with. It is wise to start out with few agents and resolving the teething problems before expanding to a larger group.

Home-based agents should generally begin work in an internal center to allow the company to screen for knowledge and skills, said Penny Reynolds, co-founder and senior partner at the Call Center School in Lebanon, Tenn.

“Typically, they need to be a proven employee before they’re sent home to work,” she said. “They need the ability to work independently and follow through. It needs to be people that don't need a high degree of social interaction.”

Provided there is support from agents, virtual contact centers are sure to offer a sound business model for customer support operations.

-----

Anuradha Shukla is a contributing writer from India. To see more of her articles, visit her columnist page.