Q&A on Work-At-Home Agents with Michele Rowan, President, Customer Contact Strategies

Michele Rowan, president, Customer Contact Strategies, has walked the walk on work-at-home agent, or “WAHA,” programs. She had spent 12 years with Hilton Hotels as Vice President of Performance Management, where she was responsible for global training, quality and operations performance. While at Hilton she moved over 1,000 agents back to their homes from bricks-and-mortar, or “B&M,” centers.

 

Today Michele helps organizations develop strategic and operating excellence within the at-home arena. She conducts workshops throughout the country on At-Home Strategies for Success and holds supervisor training for front line personnel managing WAHAs. The next two At-Home Agent Strategies for Success workshops will be held March 25 in Orlando, Fla. and in Baltimore, Md. May 18. The next supervisor workshop, to be held virtually, will take place April 14.

 

TMCnet caught up with Michele, home office to home office (I work from my home in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) and raised several questions about making WAHA programs successful.

 

 

MR:     My experience, and that of most of my clients and workshop attendees, is that there is little (new) work to be done in terms of setting goals and performance measurements for WAHAs.

 

We have the tremendous benefit of mature technology in our customer contact environments that has enabled us to view and manage dozens of metrics for the last decade. We can and do effectively monitor and manage all aspects of call and data sessions through call management solutions, IP connectivity and call recording technology. Our ‘viewing’ of agent performance has evolved from physical observation coupled with monitoring technology tools, to monitoring technology tools.   We dedicate very little time to physical observation these days because we don’t have to. Even side-by-side monitoring is efficiently handled with technology today.

 

There are two metrics that warrant our attention in the WAHA model in terms of setting baselines and expectations:

 

1. Connectivity uptime

 

In the B&M environment, organizations report an average up-time (agent connectivity to proprietary software) of 99.7 percent or better. System outages or large utility provider outages account for the .3 percent in down time. At home, ISP connectivity is a variable factor and can impact up-time performance with companies reporting 97-98 percent uptime as an average for remote team members. 

 

Regardless of who provides the ISP (employer or employee), clear accountability guidelines and expectations for up time should be established.   Faulty wiring and overloaded utilization from certain providers are the usual culprits for ISP failures, and I have found that a very small percentage of the WAHA population drive the majority of the time. Daily review of uptime records coupled with quick response and attention to the end users with issues return up time to manageable levels. 

 

2. Average handle time (AHT) is sometimes reported as higher with WAHAs 

 

Why? Most often it is caused by heightened customer engagement and better selling performance. 

 

That said it is still prudent in my opinion to provide all new hires (in-house and WAHAs) with ranges for expected AHT as they move through the learning curve. Without guidelines, we could potentially be sending people home with little to no understanding of what is reasonable and what is outside of expectations in terms of average call length. And this behavior is much harder to undo than get right from the start.   If/when higher performance warrants different ranges, I suggest we adjust accordingly; providing clear guidelines from the start paves the way for success. 

 

 

MR: The key benefit of the satellite model is the ability to maintain a large span of control with little change to business process, except technology. Organizations can begin to move agents home with a single focus of getting technology right.

 

They can invest our energy into voice and data connectivity, while all else remains business-as-usual in terms of hiring, training and performance management. Companies immediately free up physical seats within the B & M environment while simultaneously building business processes of virtual support (i.e. remote hiring, training, help desk, call quality) for future growth.

 

The satellite model enables social connectivity. WAHAs remain fully engaged in B & M activities with frequent on site visits, as often as their companies deems necessary.  

 

Here are the key challenges with the satellite model:

 

1.        Requiring frequent B&M visits can impact agent retention. It adds readying and commuting time that WAHAs would rather do without, and they will tell us that. They are well aware of the fact that our technology is mature on all fronts and that the activities accomplished on site can be easily accomplished at home, if not more easily

 

2.         The satellite model places limitations on leveraging many of the benefits of virtual environment, particularly in the area of support. Training, performance management, help desk functions and quality can be (and should be) fully virtualized to maximize performance and reduce costs, for both in-house agents and home agents. When we go remote i.e. home, our hand is forced to make virtualization the priority it deserves to be; when we operate primarily in B&M, virtualization tumbles down the list and progress slows. We pay a premium for unleveraged technology

 

Here are the benefits of the constellation model:

 

1.        Unleashing geographic restrictions on hiring is a phenomenal plus. Companies suddenly have unlimited talent pools at their disposal. We have the propensity to reduce labor costs, increase revenue and satisfaction with best-in-class talent and reduce a host of operating expenses, if we choose to 

 

2.        Company positions in markets become very fluid. Ten year leases are replaced with quiet arrivals, slow, planned growth, and easy exit points, if firms choose. They have the ability to test a couple of markets simultaneously for best fit

 

3.        Disaster recovery and redundancy are the strength of a regionally or nationally distributed work force. A snow storm in the northern plains is no longer an issue when we can quickly get agents online in the South

 

There are limitations to the constellation model. For example individual state rules and regulations in terms of labor law, workers’ compensation and general liability can vary greatly, and can be tedious to manage. Also group gatherings and face-to-face meetings, even if only desired a few times per year, can be challenging with wide deployment of agents.

 

The ideal approach is to start with a satellite model and get really good at operating in a mixed environment before moving into the constellation model. Build out virtual technology in tandem with fine turning operating performance. And when ready, expand into a few select markets that meet your business objectives. Reap all the benefits of the at-home model and minimize the headaches of multi-state management. 

 

 

MR: The majority of my clients initiate their WAHA pilot programs and first phase of expansion by providing PCs or thin clients (and that is probably split about 50/50) to their agents.    A small percentage of them start out requiring agents to furnish their own PCs.  

 

As companies gain experience and confidence in technology and support, they often shift ownership of PCs to employees (i.e. 12-18 months after launch).    Note that the large home-based outsourcers (e.g. Alpine Access, Arise, LiveOps (News - Alert), West) have been requiring agents to furnish their own computers for years, so it’s not a new or a high risk strategy with the right minimum standards in place. And the outsourcers collectively employ an estimated 200,000 home agents today in the U.S. and Canada – not a small group.

 

Most organizations utilize VoIP (at least internally) and when investing in hardware now include it as a baseline requirement.   I see a lot of companies providing phones with VoIP capability. And a smaller percentage of companies are requiring agents to furnish their own phones. In this case (again, the large U.S. home-based outsourcers), companies make recommendations for low-cost products that can be purchased from local office supply stores or online.

 

Many companies are using a hybrid approach as a phased approach to full VoIP. The client software runs on the agents’ PCs but delivers telephone calls to the traditional telephone. Integrity of voice quality is maintained with PSTN with soft phone benefits and features. There is new product in the market – it behaves like a VoIP phone but is the size of a headset/phone adapter. And it is a fraction of the price of a VoIP phone. The product is Plantronics (News - Alert) IP 40 and it is very impressive.