The 'at-home' agent option

According to a recent report in the US online publication, CRM News, Editor Barney Beal claims that the number of home-based customer service agents in the U.S. is set to explode over the next four years.

In the US, where home agents are far more common, the typical agent has a degree, often has management experience, tends to be female, has family care duties such as kids at home, is between 30 and 50 years old and tends to stick with the job about twice as long as regular call centre workers.

The US numbers of home-based agents are set to jump to 300,000 by the year 2010 from only around 112,000 now.

The growth is not really surprising. As the call centre industry has become more competitive, it has become more important than ever for call centres to be nimble and able to respond to changing needs to ensure agent and customer satisfaction.

At-home agents are one way to achieve more flexibility. Modern call centres need to ensure they are set up to leverage all the benefits of having an at-home or virtual workforce including the right selection and hiring processes, training and technology.

The practice of engaging agents who work from home is often referred to as “homeshoring.” It seems that the current push in this direction is being driven by several factors.

Improvements in voice over internet protocol
These days almost anyone with an internet connection, a computer and a phone can get up and running. 

Rising petrol costs
With the rising costs of getting to work, employees are likely to jump at the chance of even some homework. And in an over-rushed world, where almost everyone seems to be rushing most of the time, for most people the opportunity to avoid the daily commute is very appealing.

Work life balance
Maybe the most important factor of all, homeshoring enables employees with family responsibilities to pick up kids, supervise homework, attend daytime school activities or keep an eye on aging relatives while still putting in a serious day’s work. The scheduling of work may not be the traditional hours of 9 to 5, but then variable hours have always suited many call centre workers.

It seems that for years, demand for at-home employment far outstripped supply, giving rise to a perennial crop of work-at-home scams, from pyramid schemes to a whole range of sometimes doubtful options.

Now, working at home is taking a leap forward. Instead of sending call-centre work to India or the Philippines, a growing number of consumer-products and service companies are outsourcing work to people in their homes.

The development, driven by expanded broadband access to the Web, cheaper computer technology and improved call-routing systems, has opened the door to an entirely new group of at-home workers.

While the potential benefits of telecommuting have always been compelling, many initiatives launched in the early to mid 1990s did not get much beyond the trial stage.

However, in recent years, the success rate has been much higher, which can be attributed to better planning before launch, more disciplined pilot studies, robust security capabilities, lower network costs and more 'how to' information.