Where we tell you why shifting to a home-based agent model is an absolute win.
Who wouldn’t want to work from home? We know we would. Recently there’s been an upward shift towards employing remote employees. Over three million US citizens work from home. But many companies still find it hard to relinquish their hold on traditional models.
It’s time to put an end to stale perceptions.
Forty percent of organizations interviewed for Dimension Data’s Digital Workplace Report said they had employees working from home, while 56% said they will have employees working from home full-time two years from now.
Why are so many companies making the shift to a home-based agent model? Because it makes sense on absolutely every level.
What’s in it for businesses?
Firstly, money. Specifically, you will have more of it. That’s because employing remote agents requires less hardware, less furniture, less parking spaces and, if you’ve successfully migrated your contact center to the cloud, no rent.
Software as a service has dramatically changed the business landscape. According to the MIT Center for Digital Business, companies that have migrated online are 26% more profitable than their competitors.
Digital transformation is, dare we say it, inevitable. This is in no way a bad thing. Not only will you be able to keep up with competitors and digitally savvy customers, your operations will be centralized, you’ll have less IT infrastructure and server headaches, and yes, you’ll save oodles of money on capital expenditure, furniture and more.
You’ll also (apologies for digressing) be able to support both central and decentralized teams of agents. Contact center software like (ahem) ours makes routing, monitoring, listening in on calls, and reporting easy. All you’ll need is an Internet connection, a computer and a headset for each agent – and that’s it.
A cloud-based contact center can do everything your contact center does, only more cheaply. Oh, and your customer-satisfaction scores are probably going to be higher, but we’ll get to that.
What’s in it for the agents?
Where do we start? Home-based agents are the best. Why, you ask? Because they’re happier.
Working from home means many working parents can be closer to their kids. They can work in their pajamas if they want. Or hey, in the bath or something (that’s probably pushing it, isn’t it?).
In a nutshell, there are less distractions, they save on travel costs, and are able to work in a more comfortable environment than a massive, noisy contact center. For many the additional peace of mind they get from being closer to their families is a major benefit.
Home-based agents are also more career driven. Not only do they have more time to deal with customer queries, they know that if they deliver excellent customer service, they will be called upon again and again. Research has shown that home-based agents create a better customer experience, which directly results in increased customer loyalty.
The same research shows that retention rates for home agents is 80% versus 25% for on-premises agents. (Isn’t that astounding? We think that’s astounding.) So not only can you increase customer loyalty, you increase agent loyalty too. Bonus!
So, here’s a question for you. Do you want to increase efficiency, savings, customer loyalty and agent retention? If the answer is yes, then dear reader, the home-agent model is just for you.
Read more advice about the benefits of the home-based agent model here.