Will Remote Agents be the Future of Contact Center?
Over the past years, we are living amidst pandemic and implementing a new normal. As the time goes, we are starting to feel new normal is “a kind of normal”. Since no one could predict when the pandemic would be over, we are all adapting well with the new normal implementation.
By going through this era of adaptation, many experts predict that we will take our new normal habits to the post-pandemic era. The prediction will be applied to the business world as well.
Since the pandemic will continue to directly affect business operations, especially contact centers, companies should consider creating new policies to control the flexibility or agents’ schedules – such as allowing some agents to work from home and facilitate them with supported technologies.
However, the questions are, is the new work models effective for agents? Will remote agents continue to represent stable performance during their work from home schedules? If the answer is yes, will remote agents be the future of contact center after the post-pandemic era?
The Three Factors Shaping Remote Agents as the Future of Contact Center
To predict the answers of those questions, let us take a closer look on the factors shaping remote agents as the future of contact center:
· Optimizing employee satisfaction
Many employees enjoy the convenience of working from home than working in physical office. However, it is not about the convenience, it is not the reason why companies let their employees to work from home. Numerous contact centers research show that most companies increased productivity and agents’ morale after implementing remote agents. It means that both of companies and employees get the same advantages by implementing remote work.
· It makes companies easier to find the best talents
By implementing remote agents, companies can find the best contact center agents from wherever it can be found within the bounds of employment law. This model can even boost a company’s reputation by making it easier for all individuals including disabled individuals, for instance, to contribute their skills.
· Adjusting contact center strategy easily
Have you ever had a hard time adjusting additional members of agents when you suddenly have higher call volume? By having remote agents, you can easily set the right amount of agents to higher call volumes – because all agents can operate the system fron anywhere. Moreover, if you facilitate them with advanced technology to align the number of agents with the interactions, these dynamic situations are not a problem to be solved.
With these three factors, we conclude that remote agents will be the strategic choice for companies even after the post-pandemic era and remote agents will be the future of contact centers.
The Challenges Contact Center Face with Remote Agents
For companies that want to prepare their business toward the future of contact center, they need to know the challenges they might encounter and its solutions. Here are the details:
· Productivity problems
It is true that many companies experience productivity improvement after having remote agents, but it is still possible to fall if contact center leaders cannot find effective ways of managing remote agents.
· Communication problems
Communication problems and agents’ performance issues are closely related to remote agents, because the supervisors or managers cannot supervise all agents at all times. If the supervisor is not facilitated with the right strategy to monitor agents’ performance, the implementation of a remote agent will be the backfire for companies.
The Right Solutions to Overcome the Challenges Contact Center Face with Remote Agents
To prepare the implementation of remote agents for the future of your contact center, you need to utilize Workforce Management solutions to make it easier for supervisors or managers to make flexible work scheduling, control the productivity, and monitor remote agents’ performance.
Together with Verint, Phintraco Technology provides Workforce Management solutions to make it happen – from anywhere, at anytime, and from any devices. Please click the article below to get more information about Workforce Management solutions:
https://phintraco.com/atasi-tantangan-operasional-contact-center-dengan-solusi-workforce-management/
Further information:
References:
https://monetsoftware.com/remote-control-managing-work-at-home-contact-center-agents/
https://monetsoftware.com/are-remote-agents-the-future-of-contact-centers/
https://phintraco.com/atasi-tantangan-operasional-contact-center-dengan-solusi-workforce-management/
