You may have experienced the following crisis situation or one similar to it.
The crisis: In the middle of your most important campaign of the year, you’re hit with the largest snowstorm in a decade. Not only are the roads impassible for most of your staff, you have lost power in your building several times today. And to your customers this simply means your contact center is unreachable. What do you do?
You can substitute your own critical program and trouble spot as you please for this scenario — as long as it requires immediate contact center service. When you’re faced with a situation like this, what happens if these communication channels are interrupted?
The rescue: An increasing number of enterprises are using Software as a Service (SaaS) to create “virtual” or “hosted” contact centers. For the uninitiated, Software as a Service is a way of using subscription-based software to allow contact center agents to be located away from a traditional service center. Through SaaS, agents may be in multiple time zones, using multiple communicational lines. They may even speak multiple languages when responding to customers.
For enterprises that utilize SaaS, the virtual contact center allows agents to work from home, accessing a common set of tools, appearing joined and available via “regular” support channels. Having this capability pays big dividends — here’s how:
- High-value transactions receive high, skill-based priority. When a high-value customer needs support, every transfer counts. By linking agents in the virtual call center based on skills, rather than location or pool-priority, the customer may receive an improved level of support. These agents can be part of the larger contact-center pool or an escalated group of experts.
- Home-based agents may be more productive. Agents who work from home often have more education and are more loyal than those in brick-and-mortar contact centers. They don’t have commuting problems to deal with and may be more flexible regarding extended or off-hour responses.
- Virtual contact centers can be easier to reach in a disaster. Because of their decentralized nature, when disaster strikes, many virtual contact centers remain open and operational. They are more reachable because the agents are not in a single location. During disasters, the contact centers can also share critical information with employees calling to find out about facilities, coworkers, even loved ones.
Good for the your company and your customer
According to industry research from IDC, the number of U.S. at-home agents will triple by 2010. This way of working is growing in popularity for many good reasons. The first is cost. For the company implementing a virtual contact center, or adding agents to an existing operation, the cost per agent can be much lower because no additional facilities are required — The company does not have to provision or maintain more power, air conditioning, furniture, communications equipment or computers for every new agent. Adding agents in an existing virtual center doesn’t require additional IT infrastructure or labor.
From the customers’ perspective, they can’t tell that the center is virtual. Customers use the same 800 number or series of numbers. They don’t know if agents are side by side or all over the country. Customers are still routed with an automatic call distribution (ACD) queue and skills-based routing to put the right agent on the right call.
The beauty of the virtual or hosted service is that the “back end” is transparent to the customer. And for the agent they only need a web browser and Internet access to participate in the virtual center.
Creating a virtual contact center
The virtual call center model allows a company to rely on a contact center service provider to set up an account, which is quite simple. Cost is often based on the number of agents and services provided. The provider maintains the infrastructure and contact center software as part of the service to your company.
Contact center software updates, patches and bug fixes are also handled by the service provider, making the contact center even easier to create and maintain. By using different hosted services, you can boost your company’s existing contact center performance and capabilities with minimal disruption and investment. And as your company and support needs expand, it’s easy to expand your virtual contact center, using the hosted services and virtual agents.
Managing your virtual team
Companies concerned about allowing agents to work from home have excellent management capabilities with the virtual or hosted center. Since on-site supervision is no longer a part of the management perspective, other tools are needed to monitor and manage virtual contact center activity. Call monitoring software reports number of calls per agent, length of call, even software access times. These reporting tools are often accessible from a contact center manager’s desk, which may also be off-site.
Flexibility and expandability are significant advantages with the hosted model. When your company expands or becomes geographically diverse, the contact center can grow or move to support it, without additional infrastructure. Adding another shift or time-zone to your company’s operation is also easier to support with virtual agents who are already awake and accustomed to working in the new time-zone. Similarly, when you move into new regions requiring multilingual support, you can depend on agents native to the region — who already speak the required languages fluently.
Customer support on a limited budget
For small companies, or those with limited budgets, adding virtual agents enables them to provide a high level of support without devoting the infrastructure investment and facility cost of an on-site contact center. Companies often start with a small, centralized installation, allowing agents to work from home as they become comfortable with the hosted applications. This method allows a centralized presence initially or migrating to a virtual center, or a combination of the two. Often the addition of a second or third shift marks the migration to a virtual center, allowing the additional business to be supported by virtual agents at significant cost savings.
Your company may also benefit from regional hub-zone telecommuting incentives, by eliminating commuters and pollution from the area.
Virtual solutions — concrete benefits
Companies that create a virtual contact center experience a plethora of benefits. When you begin to add virtual agents to your business, you improve productivity and facilitate better customer responses through:
- Minimal capital start-up costs
- Low infrastructure and information technology costs
- Flexible and easily expandable workforce
- Readily available multishift and multilanguage support
- Lower agent turnover — loyal virtual agents working from home
- Smaller resource utilization footprints — lower cost per agent
- Reduced outages due to emergencies or disasters
The keys to success include finding a provider you can work with that offers the mix of services, reporting tools and supportability you want. Start with your existing program and add virtual extensions. As you expand, you’ll have the experience and relationships in place to better support your customer base as it changes. By making your move into a virtual contact center with the support of a knowledgeable vendor, you’ll ensure success for you and your customers.
By Randy Saunders at Cincom Systems
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