Deploying home agents minimizes facilities costs, reduces turnover and bolsters productivity. Many people would stay longer with an employer if they could work from home.

Home working attracts high-quality people who wouldn't otherwise work for call centers, such as baby boomers and those with child or eldercare responsibilities. Work from home agents, or in home agents, are on the rise. There are many opportunities for those wanting to work from home as in home agents and with more possible employees wanting to be stay at home agents the two should be able to have a great chance to fill each others needs.

'Offshoring', 'nearshoring', and 'onshoring' call-centers are outdated. Today's companies are looking at another approach to outsourcing. More call-centers are gradually realizing that the best place to handle customer contacts may be at agents' homes. They are increasingly developing and investing in home working, either with their own employees or by hiring outsourcers that employ home workers or that recruits self-employed home agents. In some instances, this approach has led to lower costs and greater flexibility, and has allowed companies to provide better customer service.

" More companies are realizing the value of home working compared with traditional outsourcing and offshore," says Houlne. "We offer (at home) agents who generally have better skills than what brick-and-mortar call centers can typically attract within commuting distance. These are agents who are available when clients need them."

In some instances, the lower costs and greater flexibility have allowed companies to provide better customer service. Willow CSN (Miramar, FL), another self-employed home-agent outsourcer, picked up an airline client that it provides with after-hours customer service.

Willow also expanded its CyberAgent network into Orlando, FL, and Phoenix, AZ.

" Our client's customers now receive immediate attention; they are not waiting for service or leaving voice messages," says Basil Bennett, Willow's CEO. "Customer satisfaction levels are improved by providing a seamless customer experience while increasing the client's revenue in serving more customers."

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At-Home Agents is one of the most dynamic trends in the Call Center industry. Advances in technology have made it easy for employees to telecommute and to distribute calls over a large geographic area or even across the globe into an employee's home.

In the past, there has been some concerns about quality of the call in a home environment, but as a result of these concerns, for the most part, call centers that utilize at-home agents are MORE supervised and their quality is tested MORE often and there is MORE monitoring than in a traditional call center where the supervisor walks up and down the floor.

Another advantage of the at-home agent model is that you can find client specific skill sets so much easier than in a traditional call center. Suppose you were a company that sold scuba gear. Your customers are sophisticated and knowledgeable about scuba and the related equipment. A typical call center would draw from the existing labor pool to try to find a few agents that have some scuba experience, but would only be able to find a small handful, because they are constrained by geographic limitations. People will only drive so far to work in a call center (and you only get a certain type of people willing to work in a call center).

However, if you selected a work-at-home call center, they are not limited by geographic limitation. They are also able to attract a higher educated employee. People that would never consider going to a call center to work are now willing to work out of their home. In the case of the scuba company, the work-at-home call center would be able put together a team of agents that are ALL scuba-certified if you wanted. Imagine the rapport that these qualified agents will have with your customers, when they can speak intelligently and from personal experience about scuba, about the best dive sites, and about the best equipment. It is the ultimate in One-to-One marketing ¨C matching call center agent skill sets with your product and with your customer's needs.

Some of the top companies in the Fortune 500 have now gained confidence in the quality and effectiveness of this model. If I had to choose a call center today, I would look seriously at call centers that employed at-home agents.

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