MaaS360™

More and more organizations have been looking at the option of at-home agents to improve agent satisfaction and retention, but also to increase the flexibility of agent scheduling, improve agent productivity, reduce operational costs, and allow for staff expansion without impacting current facility space. This possibility is also being increasingly scrutinized by organizations as an alternative for business continuity during global pandemics.

Having at-home agents truly offers benefits and effective business continuity options, which is of increasing importance. With the right technology and planning, an organization can successfully improve business processes and customer satisfaction with work-at-home contact center agents.

Why At-Home Agents?
A lot of factors go into the decision as to whether at-home agents would be strategic and beneficial for a company and its contact center. Factors influencing this decision go far beyond technology implications, however. They also include human resources, security, training, facilities, and legal issues—all of which need to be explored.
   
The first benefit for organizations implementing an at-home agent program is access to a broader and better resource pool. Being able to employ agents located anywhere can provide a number of unique benefits and options. For example, when operating a 24x7x365 support environment, it makes it easier to provide agents that have the language skills needed.

Another compelling benefit is schedule flexibility. If a contact center is subjected to fluctuating volumes, such as during evening hours or certain seasons, at-home agents offer increased flexibility, allowing contact centers to pull in resources when most needed. It also enables agents to be able to work hours that best fit their own schedules.

This certainly leads to “happier” agents because they have a better quality of life, which leads to a positive effect on morale. There is evidence that at-home agents are usually more productive by a number of measures including quality and timeliness. Plus, another benefit of happy agents is the fact that they have longer tenures and lower attrition rates, which reduce recruiting and training efforts. It also provides access to a larger, more skilled agent pool, which is a big differentiator for companies. Research firm Gartner Inc. says 70 to 80 percent of home-based agents have college degrees, compared with 30 to 40 percent of workers in call centers. Most are older than the average call-center employee, and often have management experience. Reduced corporate office space is also impacted by using at-home agents. If the at-home percentage of total agent population is significant enough, it can mean substantial savings. This is key as companies develop plans for corporate moves and when negotiating or renegotiating real estate agreements. In addition, at-home agents offer a logical
solution for providing backup in the event of a disaster.

The Right Tools for a Telecommuting Contact Center
There are a number of key tools that companies should consider to successfully leverage an at-home agent contact center. Unified communications (UC) tools can really help streamline communications with at-home agents and connect them with other agents and the rest of the enterprise. UC leverages instant messaging and presence, collaboration, calendaring and conferencing tools across the enterprise and the call center to bring together employees and improve business processes.

In fact, contact center agents can benefit from UC just as much as, if not more than, the other departments across the enterprise. Call center agents are on the front line communicating directly with customers; but for 10.3 percent of the calls handled by the contact center, agents also serve as conduits between customers and subject matter experts across the enterprise.

Incorporating telecommuting contact center agents as part of a company’s overall UC strategy can help organizations drastically increase agents’ efficiency. It can reduce the amount of time spent contacting knowledge workers for answers to inquiries, and potentially decrease the number of interactions required to have inquiries resolved. Plus the telephony setup for unified communications can potentially save the organization considerable costs through a converged network and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking.

Using IM and presence, a contact center agent can, in real time, connect with a knowledge worker outside the center to quickly resolve an issue, while still staying integrated with their own team. Previously, the agent may have had to hang up the phone, research the information and call the customer back. The use of UC speeds problem resolution and enhances the customer’s experience. UC empowers agents to instantly check the availability of and get input from a knowledge worker, regardless of whether they are in New York or Illinois.

With presence engines, users can convey their availability, willingness to communicate with others, and preferred contact methods, and in turn, employees can see if someone is available and then quickly and easily initiate contact. Instant messaging can also help reduce latency by enabling employees to chat with no delay, as well as seamlessly escalate a conversation to voice, if necessary.

Unified communications can be thought of as enabling enterprises to enrich the customer experience with the knowledge and expertise that agents can offer, while still allowing the contact center to retain control of interactions. Customer transactions can become collaborations between the contact center and the rest of the enterprise, and by using the tools already available, the contact center can
manage the entire interaction.

Remote agents should have all the same tools as agents deployed within the walls of the contact center. In addition to the basic connectivity tools, such as a computer, a virtual private network (VPN), router, and digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable modem, the agents will need the applications for managing the calls. The contact center also has to consider how its IT department will support those remote applications.

Additionally, leading contact centers are recognizing the value in skills-based routing to get customers to the right agent, regardless of their remote location, with the right knowledge to resolve the call. Skills-based routing is critical to transfer calls to the right resource, quickly and efficiently. With an inbound capabilities platform managing IP-based agents, skilled workers can be located even if they are telecommuting, making it easier to respond to customer inquiries and resolve any issues on the first call. Also, inbound capabilities coupled with a unified solution with presence interoperability will help contact centers route calls to knowledge workers outside the contact center, to lower customer call-backs. Contact centers also need to be able to schedule, manage, and measure at-home agents in the same way as any local agent. Arranging schedules, optimizing performance, and tracking productivity in a virtual model can be challenging. Therefore, contact centers should consider implementing workforce management, quality management, and performance management capabilities to ensure at-home agent performance is aligned with business goals, as well as having the right agents with the right skills scheduled at the right time.

Leveraging at-home workers is absolutely available and affordable and presents a number of advantages. With planning and the right technology, using at-home agents can potentially yield great benefits to the company, the contact center, and the employee. However, it’s important to embark on an at-home agent set-up with eyes wide open to ensure that it is a successful venture. 360

Andy Bezaitis is the Senior Vice President of Product Management at Aspect.