Virtual Call Center

The home-based agent model continues to gain momentum, as organizations discover the many advantages it brings, not the least of which are improved agent satisfaction and retention; better business continuity and redundancy; lower operating costs stemming from reduced facilities usage; a significantly reduced carbon footprint; and a vastly expanded pool of candidates from which to hire.

 

Although it is a difficult trend to measure – most organizations decline to reveal how many of their call center agents are home-based, and it’s usually only a percentage of the total workforce – research from Datamonitor predicts that the number of home-based agents in the U.S. will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 36.4 percent between now and 2012. Other research firms have “guesstimated” the total number of home-based agents in the U.S at around 400,000 – but most call center consultants will tell you that’s a conservative number – some have even put it as high as 1 million.

Either way, the trend is likely to continue – especially in this down economy where organizations are desperate to find new ways to lower their operational costs.

Helping to facilitate growth of the home agent model -- and making it more economically feasible -- are today’s hosted or SaaS (News - Alert)-based call center solutions. These Web-based systems enable the “virtual call center,” which means an agent can work from any computer with a Web browser and a high speed connection, without having to download any software.

With today’s virtualized call center environments, agents and supervisors have access to all the same applications – with the same features and functionality – as they do in the main brick-and-mortar center. What’s more they are capable of multimedia routing, meaning that emails, Web chats and SMS messages can be routed just as precisely and efficiently as phone calls.

In addition, these systems are capable of delivering training to agents via their e-learning capability: Agents can get supervisor-assisted coaching and training sessions using in-house training content (i.e. modules), during lulls in volume -- again, just the same as if they were in the main center.

Thanks to the power of IP-based technology, call recording and monitoring is also done with ease, as the system is centrally controlled and administered from the main office. That means call center managers can get the same metrics and KPIs, in real-time, as they do in the main center, thus enabling them to retain complete control over the customer experience – as well as to make fast decisions in response to rapidly changing market conditions or trends in call center performance.

As mentioned, the home-based agent model brings numerous advantages – perhaps the biggest one being that the nation, if not the entire world, becomes an organization’s hiring ground. Without geographic limitations, organizations can raise the bar on the criteria used to recruit and hire new agents – in fact, it can be argued that because home-based agents work independently, organizations should be using a whole other set of criteria for evaluating and assessing agents skills, with an eye toward the higher end of the skill curve.

In addition, research shows that the quality of the candidates tends to be better: Many applicants to home-based agent positions are retirees, home-makers or former call center agents with established skills who are still interested in doing the job, but no longer have the desire (or perhaps the ability) to work in a brick-and-mortar facility.

Contactual’s (News - Alert) virtual call center software is ideal for facilitating the home-based agent model. The company’s OnDemand Contact Center platform is fast and easy to deploy – which means a company can establish a home-based agents program in a manner of days.

With Contactual’s virtual call center solution, businesses can take advantage a highly-skilled and fast-growing labor pool. Skill and expertise levels can finally trump geographic location in securing the best qualified agents.

To learn more about how Contactual OnDemand Contact Center’s flexible architecture can help you cost-effectively launch a home-based agent program, click here.