At-home is not that far away—with a little contact center consulting
A work-at-home or home agent model is an attractive alternative to building or buying new real estate for your business. But don’t think this is a “one, two, three, BAM—you’re done!” exercise. Your team and the organization must understand that this is a new operating process and it will take some time to mature. However, you can develop an at-home model by following a few important steps.
First, we suggest you hire specifically for the position and not move agents from within. The at-home model is not for everyone. Agents choose to apply for work in a contact center for a reason; more often than not, it is for the human interaction, so be careful about thinking you can send agents home as a reward. It is a physiological challenge for an agent to be solo. Another important consideration should you choose to take from within, is to guard against working at home becoming a replacement for childcare, eldercare or pet care. If you allow this, your customers will suffer. Noise, lack of focus and poor quality will all be part of your outcome, so if at all possible, hire for the position.
Second, technology is a challenge at times. If you can do it, send a CITRIX stripped-down machine home with the agent. Have them sign the necessary paperwork for your protection, but don’t require them to come up with their own. If you supply it you will have more success in keeping track of the machine’s software, and the help desk will thank you. We would suggest that you have the agent supply the high-speed Internet access and the second phone line, if you are not using VoIP.
Something else to keep in mind when starting a home agent program: Don’t go and inspect the agent’s house. If you find OSHA violations you might be liable to have them corrected. We suggest you stay far away from the home. You will need to develop some remote training programs and remote monitoring/coaching. This can be challenging if you are not prepared, but with proper timing it will work well. We will cover this area in future blog posts.
Finally, make sure that internal support—both supervisors and peer agents—are aware that you have a new initiative. They will need to support the agents and do so with a cheerful attitude. The supervisor ratio will need to drop from an average of 16-20 as an in-center standard to a 12-15 ratio for home agents. And home agents will need more coaching, monitoring and training to get started.
In the end, work-at-home is a great concept. There are lots of really successful examples out there, some quite large and others not so big. JetBlue, 1-800-Flowers and West are some of the more well known at-home models.
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F. Curtis Barry & Co., a multichannel operations consulting company, focuses on the entire direct fulfillment process with expertise in call center consulting and benchmarking.