Benefits of Using Remote Agents

Setting up a contact center staffed with remote agents means that companies are free to
find and hire the best talent from anywhere. Because their potential agent pool is larger,
they can find and retain higher quality agents who can, in turn, provide higher-quality
service levels to customers.

At the same time, companies typically benefit from:

Better management of peak call volumes
Lower agent attrition, which alleviates the need to hire, train, and dismiss personnel
Delivery of better quality customer service on a consistent basis
Lower operational and labor costs
Greater business agility and flexibility
Avoidance of most infrastructure and maintenance costs as agent staffing needs change over time

Agent Recruitment

	Traditional Call Center	Remote Agent Call Center
Recruiting	Limited to a 50-mile radius Quickly exhausts available talent Can drive up wages by competitors tapping same talent resources	Unlimited by geography, anywhere in the US Lager pool of qualified full-time and part-time workers to tap
Quality of Agents	Limited by 50-mile radius Limited to people who can work 8-hour shifts Typically young and inexperienced	Can recruit from a much more qualified pool who may only be able to work part time Can tap into a much more qualified pool of retirees, work from home moms, etc.
Attrition	More than 100% annual turnover	Less than 10% annual turnover

Agent Management

	Traditional Call Center	Remote Agent Call Center
Collaboration and Training	One to one supervisor to agent Classroom and on-the-job training not effective for all learning styles	Web 2.0 communities and Chat tools for better collaboration E-learning/Distance Learning and self-paced training for better learning
Supervisor to Agent Ratio	20 to 1	70 to 1
Agent Performance Management	One-on-one reviews conducted annually are not timely – can be ineffective Quality monitoring is subjective – affecting overall customer service	Real time Agent performance monitoring and feedback Objective quality monitoring based on success metrics defined and measured Agents know how they perform against their peers every day

Technology Benefits

	Traditional Call Center	Remote Agent Call Center
Technology	On-premise technology Requires IT support Deployment in 12-18 months Changes require IT and take days or weeks to implement New versions must be upgraded by IT	Highly flexible on-demand technology that scales up or down with call volume needs Deployment in 3-6 weeks On-going innovation and new versions provided seamlessly
Flexibility	Rigid and static – unable to change and adapt quickly	Infrastructure capacity optimized to call volume needs Flexible and nimble, enables business users to respond in real time to business changes, by using the easy Web User Interface

Cost Benefits

	Traditional Call Center	Remote Agent Call Center
Technology Cost	Average cost to set up: $15-$25M over 12-18 months Requires large IT resources 20% annual maintenance fees Requires 25-30% idle capacity to handle peak call volume Expensive hardware and data center costs	Pay-per-use No up-front capital Eliminates idle infrastructure Eliminates maintenance costs Requires no hardware or data centers
Other Costs	High recruitment and training costs due to attrition Cost of facilities & utilities	Lower recruitment costs Lower training costs Lower facility costs

Agent Benefits

	Traditional Call Center	Remote Agent Call Center
Agent Benefits	Interaction with co-workers during break and lunch time	No commute resulting in 8 weeks per year of productivity added per agent 15% virtual annual raise per agent (Gas, dry cleaning, lunch, etc.)