3 "Work From Home" Trends For Contact Centers

Customer Contact Strategies has worked with 200+ companies who have scaled work at home models in 2014-2015. We've been collecting and sharing benchmarking data, thought leadership and best practices, with an emphasis on contact centers and support functions.

That data has revealed three trends regarding the "work from home" model:

1. More companies are hiring directly to home-based positions (vs. moving experienced in-house people home exclusively). Working from home for contact centers has evolved into a mature business model, with tangible, appealing returns and very low failure risk.

The core driver for hiring direct to home is simply the cost of real estate. As organizations find that they are running out of space, and need to consider expansion strategies, work at home is included as a channel strategy consideration.

The heavy lifting in developing a sound strategy that aligns with company culture and business objectives is choosing the right technologies to easily and securely connect people, re-shaping business process to reflect a work-anywhere perspective, and sinking some real time and thought into preparing staff at all levels of the organization.

2. More companies are moving away from physical classrooms and into virtual ones for both on site and remote training. In order to hire people direct to home, and potentially do that without geographical restrictions, virtual training is a must. And it's one of the most labor-intensive components of effective remote working.

The first requirement is a content review, and often times a complete rewrite or major refresh. In many cases, companies have added on to new hire training, and made some modifications where necessary. But when transitioning to a completely different way of design and delivery, an entire content review or redesign is warranted, to ensure that the content reflects objectives, timing, outputs, resources.

Second, design software may need to be procured for both live and self-directed training. A live meeting platform including video becomes the platform for education and exchange. And as a third point, virtual classrooms require two resources for facilitation - always. One person delivers training, and one "produces", ensuring that employees are engaged, contributing, and understanding against the company's intentions.

3. More companies are investing in "one click" technology to easily connect people. If your organization has made the decision to include remote working as a strategy, you are wise to make it supremely easy for employees to see their colleagues across the enterprise and to share knowledge and socialize with them with just one or two clicks. If it's anything less than easy, the risk rises for declining outputs.

Next, don't underestimate the value of face-to-face interactions. Video is high impact and should be included in most - if not all - meeting formats. On line recognition/reward or gamification helps companies motivate and applaud high value behavior. It also reduces time and effort required call out the best, and run meaningful contests and promotions.

The Annual 2016 Remote Working Summit is February 17-18 at the Dallas Westin Galleria. There are 20+ speakers on remote work and 200+ attendees sharing best practices and benchmarking data.

Learn more here: https://www.customercontactstrategies.com/2016-remote-working-summit