Most call center leaders now believe that the WFH model has been one of the great unintentional positive outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many organizations have discovered that the WFH model effectively delivers higher employee and customer satisfaction while reducing operating costs. These benefits can be categorized at either the agent, the call center, or organization levels. There are many benefits (e.g., higher agent Csat and Esat, lower turnover, scalability, and work-life balance) with the WFH model. Therefore, WFH agents go to the call center to fulfill those business practices. Some clients have successfully transitioned to a WFH model using more virtual business practices (e.g., onboarding, learning, training, hiring). In addition, after two years of operating in a COVID-19 pandemic, most call centers have struggled to transition their past practices (e.g., meetings, coaching, training) to support a fully WFH model. However, our experience is that agents and supervisors who work remotely go to the call center location for meetings, coaching, training, and recognition events. Put differently, in the majority of the cases, agents either work 100% in a WFH or call center model, but not both. For example, most call centers do not have agents working three days at home and two days at their call center facility to handle customer interactions. However, in most cases, the workforce location model for agents and supervisors is either WFH or call center facility-based but not the hybrid model. In addition, the hybrid model is picking up momentum for most organizations but more so for professional service jobs (e.g., managers, IT, HR). The current 87% of agents working from home among our client base is likely to decrease long-term. We are more confident that the WFH model is here to stay. That is not to say that at some point, more organizations will move back to call center facility-based model, however not in the near future. However, we have very few clients that have moved back to a traditional 100% call center facility-based workforce location model. Many organizations have either determined or are thinking about the agent workforce model that they want to use post-COVID-19. CALL CENTER BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF THE WFH MODELĬall Centers are Planning for their Workforce Location Model The below graph highlights the benefits and challenges of the call center WFH model. For example, if the telecommunication bandwidth is low for many agents, it will negatively impact their productivity and operating costs. The factors can differ by industry, line of business, culture, geography, technology, security risk, and telecommunication infrastructure. The call center WFH model could be viewed as a business disruption with many benefits and challenging factors to consider. As a result, SQM Group conducted a study of 500 leading North American call centers to determine the impact of pre/post-COVID-19 by assessing operational, employee, and customer experience data. This article focuses on whether or not the current agent WFH high percentage is here to stay.Īs most people know, companies have transitioned agents to a WFH model for their safety and to ensure they can provide customer service at the same level, or better, than before the COVID-19 pandemic. As most call center practitioners know, it was a sudden and drastic shift to a WFH model. Conversely, in 2019, 19% of agents worked from home. Furthermore, our 2021 call center employee research shows that 87% of agents are currently working from home. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, most SQM call center clients decided to have their agent and support staff WFH. Power poll showed that 86% of 124 customer service organizations they studied plan to implement a permanent WFH model after COVID-19 passes. Furthermore, a recent Gartner poll found that 48% of employees will likely continue to work from home at least part-time after COVID-19. A Gallup poll showed that two-thirds of employees would like to continue working remotely for employees who have transitioned to the work from home (WFH) model because of COVID-19. The call center (also known as the contact center) industry is starting to determine if their current work from home model is sustainable post-COVID-19. How Has Working From Home Impacted FCR and Agent Experience Call Center Work From Home Model
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