Could your job be done from home?

[hiNRG]

I'm curious to understand what call center positions lend themselves easily to a work-at-home model versus a position that could not easily be done from the home.

What do you think? Are there specific positions that could not be performed from home? Why or why not?

Thanks!!!

[cchitsey]

I have experience with placing at home agent work. Any sales or outbound related positions do not work well from an at home model. usually inbound customer service, industry specific or task oriented jobs are good for at home agents.

[Charles Alvear]

All of my support agents are eligible to work from home one day per week once they have achieved a certain level of product knowledge and demonstrate they can follow internal procedures on their own. We allow agents to work from home once per week and can generate individual performance reports whether they are in the office or at home.

My team supervisors work from home one day per month. I need them here in the office more often than not to help with day-to-day activities. Working from home 1 day per month affords them an opportunity to have some distraction-free time to complete certain projects.

I (the dept manager) work from home once in a while on an as-needed basis. I generally prefer to be in the office to work on projects and be available to assist staff members or other department heads.

Generally speaking working from home implies that the employee has a suitable work environment at home - is free from distractions and has access to necessary resources. Most of our resources can be made available electronically. I can see this may be an issue for a position that needs access to physical tools or resources that are only available in the office (such as industry specific hardware).

If you are worried about performance degradation through the introduction of a WFH program, then you should consider positions that have traceable performance metrics as ones that can be eligible for the program and those that do not have traceable performance metrics as being ineligible.

[gkern]

I do not think that work at home agents are necessarily limited to inbound care calls, it is just that those are easier to provide initial training for and require less incremental training. Many companies have a successful work at home model for multiple call types, but all have a strong virtual training delivery methodology and tools as well as strong remote call center management (quality/HR).

There are actually significant operational advantages that can result from a good work at home implementation:

Consistency with training - you now have a virtual training curriuclum. Training content is developed along with ongoing input from QA and HR, so training is the same every time. No inconsistencies with live training delivery from mulitple trainers.

More efficient scheduling - You now have the ability to more closely match the call arrival pattern you model to. As an example, an agent can schedule for 3 hours on in the morning, 2 hours off, 5 hours on, etc. because they are already home. You can not do this in an inhouse center because you can not temporarily take agents off line. Agents are very accepting of this type of scheduling because they like to have time off in the day for picking up kids, lunch, errands, etc.

Another plus - NO COMMUTE - At $4 per gallon, the commute to and from work can mean anything from $0.50 to a couple dollars an hour difference in net pay.

Give me a call or email if you are interested in discussing further.

Greg Kern
Consultant
512-934-0254
gkern@austin.rr.com

[Jeff Anonics]

For me, I suggest that it will be better if they will work in the office so if ever they will encounter a problem from their clients then we are all here to help to solve the problem!

[Kevinized]

There already are virtual call centers operating. In 1999 I worked for a while as a supervisor for one. I monitored calls of about 30 agents and reviewed sales transactions these agents made. It required me to have 2 phone lines, 1 to talk and 1 to log in on.
That company has now grown to a couple thousand agents. The infrastructure was in a small office building in Boca Raton, I lived in Pennsylvania and supervised work at home agents from all over the US.

I own a call center that cost me under $8000.00 to start . It includes the PBX, auto attendants, unified messaging, ACD (inbound and predictive), CRM, Call recording, Call conferencing, IVR, Presence management, and extensive monitoring and reporting tools. It is expandable and I don't need a team of engineers to maintain and administer it.

It can interconnect via traditional telephone lines and internet trunking and it can use analog phones, VoIP phones and soft phones.

Adding agents for me is simple and inexpensive. My infrastructure cost when I hire someone is about $300.00 per agent when I hire someone to work from their home. All they need is a phone and internet connection.

I'm about to deploy an internet conference server that will support video conferences, file and desktop sharing, that costs $1500.00 and has unlimited connections.

I think companies need to re-think about infrastructure costs. Competing with a virtual company will be harder because the expense of maintaining a building for several hundred workers that sit at a desk, talk on the phone and type, are not a factor any more to the 'virtual' model.