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Hosted Call Center Solutions Revolutionize Remote Call Center Management

By Tracey E. Schelmetic, TMCnet Contributor

The cloud has changed the way we operate call centers today. Not only does it allow for flexible scaling up and down according to need and to meet peak volumes (or contract for troughs), it allows a call center to operate as a cohesive whole even if its facilities or individual agents  are scattered all over the country and all over the world. It also allows call center facilities to get up and running quickly with little upfront capital to lay out.

But, it has done more than that.

Cloud-based call center platforms have freed call center managers or operations people to manage remotely: something that once upon a time could only happen while physically walking the floors of the contact center, keeping an eye on the reader board or simply by listening in on the agents’ calls.

As business becomes more global, distributed and virtual, enterprises have seen technology providers give them an arsenal of tools with which to manage remotely. In the call center, this has been particularly valuable, according to cloud-based contact center solutions provider inContact, whose cloud-based platform allows managers to manage operations from literally anywhere.

“Problem came up? It’s a Saturday morning and you’re still home in your pajamas?” asks inContact’s Jami Synder in a recent blog post. “No problem – you can log into the system and have the same exact experience navigating the platform that you would from the office. None of your access is limited because you’re at home. Worried about your late night agent’s productivity? You can have a real time reporting dashboard pulled up on your iPad as you watch the evening news. Need to reset that late night agent’s password because they forgot it AGAIN and locked themselves out? Something else you can do from the comfort of your own home.”

While logging into drill down to the precise data and stats you require in your pajamas is nice, the more practical use is that you can manage the call center remotely while you’re on the road, allowing you visibility to check in or keep up with the pulse of your center no matter your location.

An even more critical use, Snyder points out, is for disaster recovery. Imagine that the power is cut to one of your contact centers due to a weather emergency. With a cloud-based contact center platform, agents can log in from their homes or other places where they might have power, and managers can direct the operations from their own remote locations: no calls missed or dropped, no seam in operations and no need for callers’ to even know how their calls are being handled.

On a smaller scale, says Snyder, these types of solutions also allow you to offer your agents the ability to work from home if they or a family member are ill, or as a perk of tenure.

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