Best Practice:

Leverage the Home Agent Model to Increase Business Flexibility and Lower Costs

Once you have an on-demand contact center platform in place, you may be able to use it to support a remote agent model that allows agents to work from home. Many outsourcers are finding the home agent/remote agent model enables them to grow their business without having to invest in another costly brick-and-mortar facility.

It also provides significant competitive differentiation from a service and cost standpoint, as remote agent models enables them to:

• Handle spikes in call volumes and rapidly changing business needs
• Handle customer programs that would stretch your existing in-house resources or require more agents at hard-to-staff times
• Offer high service levels and low wait times for their customers – all at a lower cost
• Source agents for less desirable times (for example, the graveyard shift) more easily
• Enable more flexible work alternatives to help you overcome the challenges of finding and retaining qualified staff
• Increase the quality of calls by attracting more experienced, seasoned agents
• Support new business objectives and plans through the contact center and have the proper resources to execute on them
• Significantly reduce real estate and facility-related costs as well as employee recruitment, training, and retention costs

Call center outsourcing companies are starting to explore remote agent models more aggressively to leverage the significant cost savings benefits as well as to enable more flexibility to address call programs that are not well suited for brick and mortal call centers. However, two major barriers hinder outsourcer ability to benefit from this new model:

• Finding a technology infrastructure designed to support this type of remote model
• Find the best practices and staff with the know-how to implement it successfully

A number of contact center platform solutions may claim that they have technology to support a remote agent model, but it is important to look under the covers. Some solutions may be old legacy call center technologies that have just been repositioned for the remote agent/home agent market. Other solutions may require significant IT infrastructure and IT support to setup agents at remote locations.

Only solutions like LiveOps On-Demand Contact Center Platform were designed from ground up to support a true remote model. It’s used every day by the largest active remote agent pool in the world – LiveOps’ 20,000 home-based independent agents – to take all types of calls for some of the most well-known brands. We also have the consulting resources to help you implement the essential best practices and technologies to ensure your success.

Resources

Featured Resource

A Faster Way to Achieve Greater Call Center Cost Optimization using On-Demand Call Center Platforms

Learn the real costs behind traditional call center operations and how to substantially reduce them.
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Product Demos

LiveOps Call Center Integration with Salesforce.com Demo

Learn how the LiveOps call center integration with Salesforce.com CRM provides telephony management, call routing, CTI screen pop and more. Watch the demo »

Administration and Monitoring Product Capability Demo

Learn how to manage key contact center metrics through the real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities in our On-Demand Contact Center Platform. Watch the demo »

Results-based Routing Product Capability Demo

View results-based routing in action along with other innovative capabilities featured in our On-Demand Contact Center Platform. Watch the demo »

Videos

Maynard Webb - Chairman & CEO, LiveOps

1. Cloud Computing and SaaS
2. Mission-critical SaaS
3. The Future of Work

Wes Hayden - President, LiveOps

1. Contact Center Cost Optimization
2. Why Contact Center in the Cloud
3. Cost Optimization

White Papers

Contact Center in the Cloud: Helping Companies Manage the New Security Perimeter and Support Remote Agents

Learn how to manage the pressures, complexities, and security risks of day-to-day contact center operations.
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A Blueprint for Successfully Deploying Remote Agents

This paper overviews essential best practices for successfully deploying a remote agent solution.
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A Faster Way to Achieve Greater Call Center Cost Optimization using On-Demand Call Center Platforms

Learn the real costs behind traditional call center operations and how to substantially reduce them.
Get the white paper »

Best Practices for Recruiting and Managing Remote Agents with a Virtual Contact Center Model

Learn why many businesses are turning to remote agents to meet their customer interaction needs.
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Top Eight Ways to Optimize Contact Center Operations Using a Virtual Model

How to incorporate remote agents and SaaS technology for greater flexibility and cost optimization.
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Webcasts

Best Practices Blue Print for Remote Agent Success

Learn about selecting the right on-demand solution to provide outstanding customer service.
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Optimizing for the Ups and Downs of Your Call Volume

Watch this webcast and gain insights into the business benefits and implementation of a virtual call center model with remote agents.
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Case Studies

Optimzing Workforce Utilization and Reducing Costs

Read why West Marine chose to deploy the LiveOps On-Demand Contact Center platform and have their agents work from home.
Read the case study »