Virtual call centers validated

Up until recently, when you asked an analyst firm for insight on the virtual call center market, they sent you to the contact center folks, who in turn talked about bricks-and-mortar organizations and overseas outsourcing and didn’t seem to know what you were talking about.

Now that the topic’s hot, reports are piling up - from IDC (sister company of Network World), Booz Allen Hamilton and Purdue University. Overall, the research holds no surprises, just sweet validation. Here are some highlights. 

The meatiest of the three, the IDC report, “An Alternative to Offshore Outsourcing: The Emergence of the Home Based Agent,” recommends “organizations closely examine the benefits of home-based agents as they consider the best route to a balanced and effective customer care solution.”

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Up until recently, when you asked an analyst firm for insight on the virtual call center market, they sent you to the contact center folks, who in turn talked about bricks-and-mortar organizations and overseas outsourcing and didn’t seem to know what you were talking about.

Now that the topic’s hot, reports are piling up - from IDC (sister company of Network World), Booz Allen Hamilton and Purdue University. Overall, the research holds no surprises, just sweet validation. Here are some highlights. 

The meatiest of the three, the IDC report, “An Alternative to Offshore Outsourcing: The Emergence of the Home Based Agent,” recommends “organizations closely examine the benefits of home-based agents as they consider the best route to a balanced and effective customer care solution.”

The report analyzes how business process outsourcing (BPO) is creating new models with which to compete globally, then it counts heads: There are 100,000 home-based agents currently in the U.S.; 4 million agents working in bricks-and-mortar call centers; and 115,000 agents working in India - up from 3,000 5 years ago. IDC highlights virtual call center outsourcers Alpine Access, Willow CSN and Working Solutions, as well as three traditional call center outsourcers with large at-home agent pools: Aspect, Intellicare and West.

The report says traditional call centers cost $31 per employee, per hour (including overhead and training), compared to $21 per employee, per hour for virtual agents.

The Booz Allen Hamilton report, “Home–based Agents an Emerging Contact Center Trend,” was based on an online interview of 200 call center managers -- mostly in banking, insurance telecom, and retail -- as well as interviews with users and potential users of home-based agents.

The report found more than 20% of companies already use at home agents, though in a limited way, mostly to handle call spikes. It highlights Jet Blue Airlines, which is pure virtual, and 1-800 FLOWERS, which relies on at-home agents to handle seasonal peaks. Eighty-two percent of adopters are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their performance, and 22% of non-adopters expect to add at-home agents in the next two years.

Moreover, 27% would consider using an outsourcer that supplies at home agents; firms prefer an end-to-end model, whereby the outsourcer supplies the workers and guarantees results. Vertical markets first to adopt the virtual model are financial services, retail and telecom. 

Last, Purdue University’s Benchmark Portal recently surveyed 493 contact center managers using home-based agents. The most cited reasons for using virtual agents is to “improve staff utilization and effectiveness” and manage peaks (43%). The most cited reasons for not using virtual agents are “technology limitations” (25%) and because they’re “difficult to train and manage remotely” (43%, sic).

Read more about telework in Network World's Telework section.