While telecommuting is increasing in popularity in today’s workforce, for its ability to save costs and improve employee morale, working from a location outside of the brick and mortar office is not new in the call center space.

In fact, hosted contact center technologies that leverage VoIP have been used by call centers as a way to reduce attrition rates and improve customer experiences.

Five9 is one company offering support for a distributed workforce so agents can work from home and have a more rewarding job experience. The company’s agent application is browser-based and allows agents to work via an Internet connection just as though they were in the office.

Not only do hosted contact center capabilities improve employee morale, but supervisors and administrators also can remotely monitor agents regardless of where they’re located. This includes listening to recordings of interactions with customers, sending individual messages or broadcasting messages as needed.

At-home agents also help to lower call center costs including capital and operating expenses for both telecommunications equipment and lines.

A recent survey by Cisco (News - Alert) revealed that those who were able to work remotely experienced significant work-life flexibility, productivity and overall satisfaction increases.

 

Eighty percent of survey respondents also said telecommuting allowed them to have an improved quality of life while ninety-one percent noting the ability to telecommute as being somewhat or very important to their overall satisfaction.

 

Recently, Five9 announced the release of its Virtual Call Center Suite version 7.2 which includes a new “Preview Dialing” capability to make it possible to call clients and prospects more effectively using various dialing modes as soon as possible - creating an advantage over the competition.

 

The Virtual Call Center Suite was also awarded a Communications Solutions 2008 Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation, honoring the company’s leadership and vision in developing innovative products and services in 2008.