The benefits of the home agent option are fairly obvious to anyone who’s worked in a call center in recent years. With this model agents get access to the same software elements, and call center managers pay the same software costs, but both save substantially on their office operations and commute. Virtual call center software is driving the growth of this sector, and is also giving customer service operators the a bigger pool to hire from.
Virtual call center software like that provided by Contactual (News - Alert) affords call center operators an inexpensive and effective way to manage a remote workforce. Contactual’s full-featured, business-grade call center technology facilitates home based agents and eliminates the need for any additional hardware or system software.
Since tapping into the software doesn’t require heavy lifting on the user end, devices as simple as Google’s (News - Alert) Chromebook can be used to access the full Contactual software suite. This means that call centers save money in equipment alone as they look to bring on agents in a work-from-home capacity. But the main advantages of the home based workforce are not relegated solely on the reduction of operational costs they provide.
Home staffing also offers a way to attract workers with higher skill levels than may be available otherwise. While the traditional method of home-sourcing, known as the hub model, revolve around hiring agents from a centralized location, this style is slowly loosing favor as many begin to realize the true advantages of home based agents. The hub model generally confines call centers to the same demographic they would have access to in a brick and mortar operation. Opening up the hiring process to agents from all over the region or in some cases the country allows call centers to choose from a larger store of experience, and typically bumps up the average age and level of education within the staff.
The staffing ability that virtual call center software allows is not only helping centers reduce their operational costs but giving them more choice in the agents they have access to and hire. The combination makes the blend of virtual software and home-sourcing a promising one for any call center that needs quick ROI.
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Chris DiMarco is a Managing Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page. Follow him on Twitter (News - Alert) @cpdimarco.
Edited by Stefanie Mosca