Posted by Kerry Engle on Mon, Nov 30, 2009 @ 01:17 PM
Michele Rowan, CEO of Customer Contact Strategies, specializes in helping call centers move customer contacts home. As former VP of Hilton Hotels Corporation, Michele led the expansion from 200 to over 1000 agents. She has written a ‘Go Home' Tool Kit, and conducts workshops on the subject throughout the US. See http://www.gohome.us.com/ for both. Michele was a speaker on our recent webinar on the subject of at-home agent programs and provided her answers to the following questions:
1. Do at-home agents typically get hired from a separate job description? If so, what is different?
"At-home agents need a couple of things that are exclusive to their position (vs. brick & mortar): 1) a dedicated work space that is free of distraction, 2) the ability and desire to work independently, and 3) strong technical skills. In my view, the balance of knowledge, skills and abilities (assuming the in-house and at-home position are like-for-like and not a unique job or offering) are usually identical, constituting a very similar job description."
2. Should you test or assess specific skills for an at-home agent that you do not consider for a brick & mortar agent (technical savvy as an example)?
"I think the majority of skills should be assessed universally amongst contact center professionals (in-house and at-home). With that said, very strong technical skills are required at home, as there can be more disruptions to service (i.e. ISP, soft phone, VPN) and recovery time, to provide continuity of customer service, must be minimal. Troubleshooting ability is just as important as technical savvy, for this very reason.
I recommend requiring a set of minimum connectivity, hardware and speed guidelines as part of the job posting, along with skills like basic use of the Internet, search engines, and whatever tools agents will have to use frequently. It also makes sense to include system diagnostics as one of the final stages in your application process.
It works like this:
a. You send the applicant to a diagnostics site that checks for software and hardware minimum requirements, firewalls, speed.
b. Applicants are provided with a set of instructions to run the diagnostics.
c. While your system is checking the agent's computer for basic requirements, you are evaluating the agent's basic knowledge level of troubleshooting, and technical savvy. I have both participated in and observed this method in play and it is extremely effective.
A very good point was brought up in this question that is worth expanding upon. Some at-home baseline functionality, like ISP connectivity, can sometimes be outside of our control in terms of continuity of service. It is important to closely monitor and manage up time, and if there is a significant variance from in-house vs. at-home agents, you must understand it and bring it in line, or it can quickly cannibalize the success of your program. It is equally as important to establish accountability for up time and call/connectivity control with your agents from the time of hire. In other words, if an agent is dropping calls or has extensive handle time as a result of some at-home technology that is not working properly (assuming it is not our equipment or technology issue), we can help but the primary responsibility sits with the employee. Agents that have patterns of unresolved downtime, regardless of why, might not be a good fit for the at-home position."
Here is a link to the full recording of the at home agent webinar.
Posted by Kerry Engle on Fri, Nov 20, 2009 @ 08:17 AM
Questions and Answers from the webinar, "Long Time No See - How to Keep At Home Agents Connected". Answers provided by guest speaker - Michele Rowan.
1. Did you ever have security issues or concerns with your at home agents? Yes. When you're moving people out of a brick and mortar environment where you can't see them, it raises a lot of questions and anxiety level. We created a list of what those risks were in the at home environment, then came up with plans on how to minimize those risks. For things like private data being imparted - we used a lock down security system that prevented our agents from copying, pasting, printing or going outside of our proprietary software. That was important to us and that was something we felt we had to get right before we could scale the program with confidence.
In terms of credit card data, we used the same encryption techniques in house as we did at home.
In terms of a secure work environment, what's to stop somebody from looking over the shoulder of an agent and stealing data? Nothing, and that's why you have to rely on your selection process to select the right people. But that can happen in an in house environment as easy as at home.
2. Do you really hire people without seeing them? At my last company, we hired people in the neighborhood but there are 3 - 4 large outsourcers who have hired at home agents for ten years without ever seeing them. This allows you to move away from geographical restrictions and hire best talent anywhere in the country. The technology is there.
3. Is your recommendation to clients to hire agents to start at home rather than start in the center and graduate them to work at home? It depends on an organization's objectives. If they just want to relieve themselves of some facilities' costs and they're not really growing, they can move their workforce home. But, if they want to take advantage of higher levels of engagement, incremental revenue, creative compensation and benefits models, and reducing costs in some other areas, then hiring agents at home as your in-house agents attrit, is a great strategy.
4. Do agents really need to come into the office? In a truly virtual environment, we built modules and put them on line and made them available to our agents and scheduled them to go through them in an on line environment so our at home agents and our in house agents could do the same. In a truly virtual environment where agents never come into the office, organizations would use that same sort of product - a knowledge bank on line or an on line learning system - that would load training into an on line vehicle and deliver it to the agents or the agents go get it and take themselves through the training.
Listen to the full webinar on the topic of at home agents.
Posted by Kerry Engle on Wed, Nov 11, 2009 @ 01:30 PM
We recently hosted a webinar with inContact and Michele Rowan of Customer Contact Strategies was our guest speaker. Michele shared how she led the Hilton@Home program to success by addressing the issues dealing with people and processes as the biggest challenges to managing an at home call center agent program. She gave some great tips for keeping at home agents connected.
1) Email is ineffective. If it's an important piece of information, it needs to be in a knowledge bank so that if the agent has to refer back, it's much easier to find than in an email.
2) Let them collaborate on the design and development of their work schedule. One of the attractions for the people who work as at home agents is the flexibility with their work schedule. The more flexible and collaborative you can be on the schedule, the more likely you'll attract the right people.
3) Create a culture of reward. Offer a reward program that works for agents not on premise. For example, let the agents earn points for a behavior or performance that they can redeem on line for gift certificates.
4) Calibrate all of the touch points for the agents. The best and most efficient way to ensure that the agent is receiving streamlined information is to make sure that all touch points are calibrated and consistent for the agents. This means that the supervisor, training dept., Quality Assurance dept., and the Help Desk are all calibrated in terms of the knowledge they're imparting to agents. You can do that through scoring calls together on a monthly basis, reviewing knowledge banks together, etc.
5) Give them the opportunity to connect as a group. While they prefer less social interaction or touches from supervisors, what they do prefer, however, is to get together as a team on a monthly basis and share experiences in a group setting and learn from each other. Management can benefit by using that information as a focus session on what's working and what's not in your at home agent program.
WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HOW HILTON BUILT A SUCCESSFUL AT HOME AGENT PROGRAM? Listen to the webinar recording.
Posted by Shannon Cherry on Fri, Nov 06, 2009 @ 08:46 AM
Using agents at home is a strategy in call center operations that you may be currently considering or even already utilizing. The questions you may be facing are how to create a successful program or what best practices will develop your program to best benefit your business.
Knowlagent recently conducted a survey of more than 200 call center executives across a wide range of industries that provides insight into the steps necessary for successfully managing at home call center agents. Important to remember throughout the process is how managing at home agents varies widely from traditional agents. "Current brick and mortar agents are generally full-time agents who are very rigid in their scheduling and are often not really meeting their true efficiency because of that," said Krystal Sautter, CEO of Moving Beyond the Bricks, a consulting firm specializing in home-based workforce implementations. "At-home agents are more flexible. The employees themselves want more flexibility, and it benefits the company because they are better able to meet the customers' needs."
A few steps to consider when planning your at home call center agent initiative:
- Delineate costs & benefits
- Build a project team
- Determine if you’re going for a pilot or full roll-out
- Plan for your transition
Once you have your program in place and you are looking to expand, it is vital to have a strategy around keeping your at-home agents involved. Communication and training delivery will likely differ for at home agents than those in a physical center. Other considerations to be made are selection of the appropriate agents and managing your at home call center agents who are not in a centralized location.
Read this "Building Blocks for a Solid At-Home Agent Program" white paper if you're interested in learning more.