Benefit of Call Center Agents Working Remotely
Most of us have a mental image of a call center as a large room staffed with employees in headsets whose responsibilities each day are primarily focused on fielding customer calls and little else. This image immediately conjures ideas of the budgeting and staffing needs that must be met in order for a traditional call center to function properly – needs that many small and medium businesses were unable to meet until recently.
This scenario was commonplace in most business environments until advances in communications technology were made that have enabled businesses to decentralize their contact and call centers and function more efficiently without the need for a dedicated call center location.
A Modern Call Center Solution
Unlike traditional call centers, which were located in a central location, today’s call centers are often spread throughout a company’s existing offices and departments. This enables call center representatives to function as needed from disparate locations while also fulfilling various other functions. This helps businesses field customer inquiries and issues more selectively and efficiently, allows for better use of assets, and saves expense overall while improving the functionality of call centers.
Benefits of Remote Call Center Operation:
- More Effective Call Routing
- Decentralizes Call Center Operations
- Better Employee Utilization
- Cost Effective Interdepartmental Integration
Technology Catches Up
Modern networking and communications equipment have made remote operations of all kinds more accessible to businesses of all sizes – particularly small and medium sized companies that may not have had the budgetary wherewithal to fund a traditional network spanning multiple locations. The latest Unified Communications (UC) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone equipment allows for farther reaching networking capabilities for any business, and has allowed more complex contact and call center technologies to be used to effectively enable seamless remote operations. These solutions are now cost effective for almost all businesses, and customizable options are available to help your business get the most effective use of both your existing infrastructure and your new technology.
Remote Call Center Logistics
The day to day operations of a remote call center are much simpler to define than you might think. In most cases, businesses already have employees in place who are the best fit to field specific inquiries and/or issues from your customers. In many cases, it is simply a matter of call routing and an addition of responsibilities for certain (already existing) positions. The employees that function in support of your sales staff, for instance, are the most likely candidates to field calls regarding sales issues as they are already your resident experts in that department. This becomes largely an issue of routing and support for your inbound calls. Outbound calls can be handled in much the same manner, and can be delegated on an as-needed basis during particular campaigns.
Decentralizing call centers and enabling remote operations amongst existing office locations and departments has helped many companies to get a better handle on the expense and managerial complications that have traditionally come along with call centers. A modern call center solution could very well be the system that your business needs to boost productivity without adding to your bottom line.
