I’ve been thinking about people working from home, from the business point of view.
Providing staff with the option to work from home, be it under extraordinary (such as now with the COVID-19 pandemic) or ordinary circumstances, should not impact your company’s bottom line. If you have adequate and powerful software that can be accessed virtually, your company can confidently say that it’s “business as usual.”
An enterprise whose entire business model relies on customer retention understands the value and importance of consistent and high-quality customer service.
This isn’t something to be underestimated, be it a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or part of your company’s day-to-day running, picking the right call centre technology to facilitate your remote workforce is essential.
Having the Right Tools
Empowering your workforce with the best cloud-based technology works wonders for optimizing their performance. For instance, virtual call centre software allows entire teams to work remotely while still operating as one consistent unit.
So a company that invests in contact centre technology like VoIP or cloud-based software enables its remote call centre agents to continue to perform effectively (providing they have a safe and reliable Wi-Fi connection).
Such contact centre solutions allow agents and customers to use a variety of communication methods, most notably:
- Voice calls
- Social media
- Instant web chat
- SMS messaging
- Mobile
Offering consumers multiple means of reaching your customer care team makes accessing customer support all the more practical for shoppers. Plus, it shows you’re an outward-facing company that cares about the service it provides.
Cost-Effective
If you have contact centre technology that allows for not only flexible communication options, but also location freedom for your agents, you can continue business as usual without affecting your profits and ROI.
How?
Your advance costs will be lower. There’s no hardware to install, no on-site IT department to employ and no large premises necessary to house equipment, staff, desks, computer terminals and so on. It also means your carbon footprint will be smaller.
You can employ people from all around the world. Your remote workforce can hail from literally anywhere around the globe (providing their comprehension and delivery of the English language is of a high standard).
It also means you’re potentially hiring agents living in different time zones, thereby making 24/7 customer service a more realistic option for your company.
Not to mention, if your call centre staff are working from home, there’s no room for lateness and commute-related problems. In theory, this means less lost time and better productivity. You’re also providing your workforce greater flexibility over their working conditions, which, in turn, should lead to higher work satisfaction levels and staff retention.
The right call centre platform should also give you access to analytics that enable you to keep on top of agent performance, customer satisfaction levels, call length, call resolution, cost per call and lots of other KPIs.
Easy to use, easy to implement
Choosing cloud-based call centre software will save you time and money. It’s easy and quick to install, with no hardware to configure. You can grow or decrease your workforce, depending on your seasonal business goals because it’s easy to scale (or shrink) according to your business’ needs.
The right call centre software to facilitate agents working from home will be robust, easy to install, with multiple features that enable you to monitor the competence of your staff. It should also offer tools to help enhance the overall performance of your customer care team and be user friendly.
