Companies in a variety of industries, including customer-facing call and contact center organizations, are looking for ways to leverage technology in new ways to lessen impact on the environment. Remote access systems are one way to be “green” by reducing the need for employees to commute.

 

The interest in remote access systems has given rise to a number of firms that specialize in this very technology. TMCnet recently turned to one such company for some perspective on the “homeshoring” trend. Connie Adcock, vice president of VSC relations, operations and results at Arise Virtual Solutions, shared her insight into why companies are finding it makes sense to give employees the tools they need to work from home. 

 

 

CA (News - Alert): Homeshoring, which was developed just over ten years ago as an alternative to static, bricks-and-mortar contact centers, is the concept of routing customer inquiries to service representatives that are based in home offices. Companies such as Arise Virtual Solutions allow agents to choose which clients they would like to service and when, so the model is quite different from a typical in-house call center. On the other hand, some companies like Jet Blue have employees that work from home in the vicinity of its headquarters, which is another option for implementing a homeshoring program.

 

 

CA: The homeshoring concept in itself is “green” since it eliminates the need for a physical contact center that requires resources and maintenance. This, in effect, reduces the overall amount of CO2 emissions these buildings would normally produce, as well as lowering a company’s total energy consumption. In addition to reducing a company’s carbon footprint, establishing a home-based agent program also helps reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that are produced through employee commutes. Agents are utilizing existing resources and technology such as broadband and VOIP to connect to their clients and customers, so the environmental impact is minimal.

 

 

CA: Traditional bricks-and-mortar call centers face challenges with productivity. A typical center may be under- or over-staffed at any one time depending on customer demand, but working with full-time employees presents scheduling challenges. In addition, there is a historically high turnover rate in bricks-and-mortar call centers. In contrast to these challenges, homeshoring with companies such as Arise provides the flexibility of scheduling any number of agents in as little as 30-minute increments. Home-based agents on average tend to be more mature, productive, and are less likely to leave since they have chosen their own clients and hours.

 

 

CA: One of the biggest challenges call centers face when making the decision to ‘go green’ is the quality assurance of home-based agents. Many companies have an initial concern over the productivity of their agents when there is no direct supervision. However, Arise Virtual Solutions provides companies with certified professionals who are meticulously trained and subsequently monitored by performance facilitators through phone and on-line chat. In addition, professionals are paid based on performance, so motivation and productivity remains high even away from a traditional office environment.

 

 

CA: Since 1997, Arise has been providing routing technology and certified home-based customer service agents to companies for handling high-value phone, chat and e-mail inquiries. Many large companies have begun to take notice of what Arise can do for them including Walgreens, Home Depot, Virgin America, and Verizon (News - Alert). Arise handles customer care for 10 of the Fortune 100 companies.

 

 

CA: Arise helps call centers make their operations more ‘green’ by creating a virtual call center that uses pre-existing resources where possible (home offices, computers, phone lines). By creating these virtual call centers, companies are eliminating both the energy and monetary costs of running a physical bricks-and-mortar call center. Even if virtual professionals are used as a supplement and not replacement for customer care, the overall use of resources is decreased.

 

 

CA: Virgin America is a new, innovative start-up airline based in San Francisco that decided to go completely green and have 100 percent of its customer care operations be virtual with the help of Arise. Therefore, the company has no physical customer service center. So far, it’s been a success—besides the fact that the company is keeping its corporate headquarter CO2 emissions down, the company was rated a top airline in service and quality overall by a well-known survey company (Zagat’s) in its first year of operation.

 

 

CA: In order to be successful, companies must look at the bigger picture. Cost plays a major role in a company’s willingness to ‘go green.’ While taking a ‘green’ initiative may seem more costly in the beginning, the benefits over time significantly outweigh the initial cost. In actuality, ramping up with a homeshoring provider has very little or no start-up costs for clients (or agents, for that matter).

 

Specific to the call center industry—we are fortunate that technology provides us the opportunity to have concepts such as homeshoring—which really is the ultimate ‘go green’ strategy. Companies that would like to incorporate this into their existing operations must ensure they partner with a proven, trusted vendor or have the necessary routing and workforce technology available to implement an in-house program.

 

 

CA: There are many business benefits that go along with ‘green’ initiatives. Not only will companies become more attractive to work for, but homeshoring provides a more diverse workforce. Companies are no longer limited to hiring within a specific radius; talent can be recruited from all over the country. Also, since home-based agents tend to be happier with their job because they are in control of when and how much they work, companies see an overall increase in customer satisfaction.

 

There are also money saving benefits to going ‘green.’ According to the Telework Coalition, companies save an average of $3,000-$10,000 per employee just by reducing office space. Not to mention the amount of time and money saved through lower turnover rates reduce recruitment and training costs and elimination of healthcare and benefits costs.

 

 

CA: Arise Virtual Solutions is unique to its competitors in that it retains and rewards customer care professionals for premium brands that require upselling or complicated transactions. Arise Certified Professionals are independent business owners and an overall invested workforce that is compensated for its performance—creating true brand ambassadors that are motivated and proud of their work.

 

Arise Certified Professionals consistently outperform in-house agents by a factor of 10 to 30 percent on profitable sales increases, first call resolution and customer satisfaction - and cost less than an in-house call center. With the homeshoring concept being inherently ‘green,’ Arise is poised to work with more Fortune 100 companies that want to incorporate environmental sustainability into their bottom lines.