TELECOMMUTING: The Work-From-Home Option

Telecommuting or the concept of virtual call-center, is one area, which
Indian BPOs have stayed away from due to lack of broadband infrastructure-a
key to make this concept work from homes. As broadband infrastructure in the
country improves, telecommuting will open a huge opportunity for companies to
explore.

Call-centers of tomorrow will not be the ones operating from under a single
roof, instead, it will be a network of customer service agents (CSAs) working
from their own homes miles away from each other. Telecommuting or virtual
call-center, as it is known elsewhere in the world, is probably the ideal
solution to the biggest challenge that BPOs face today — which is that of high
attrition rate.

The concept of working from home is quite popular in the USA with almost 30
million people already working from home, according to international statistics.

Indian enterprises are yet to explore this huge business opportunity due to
lack of infrastructure. The 'real' broadband, which is the key to make this
concept work, is yet to penetrate in Indian homes. However, with all the push
that the Government is giving to increase broadband penetration, this concept
will trigger a revolution in the way call-centers of today operate.

Few months ago, Hyderabad-based HyperSoft announced its intention to begin
the concept of virtual call-center here in India. However, Dadi Bhote, Director,
HyperSoft, has put this decision on hold until the country gets a robust
broadband infrastructure. "The Government is serious about building the
broadband infrastructure in the country. Hopefully, in six months we should be
ready for it," says he.

ADVANTAGE ABOUND

Telecommuting offers plenty of benefits to both the employer and the
employee. A survey conducted in the US suggests that a growing number of call
center agents have shown liking towards telecommuting. Given a chance, they
would prefer telecommuting for many reasons.

Who
wouldn't like to work at will? Most call-centers in India work in three to
four shifts. CSAs are usually put on different shifts on a rotational basis.
This causes many agents to upset their biological clock and eventually get bored
of this schedule. While some get used to this irregular schedules, many drop out
from the job.

Call-center companies are aware of this fact, but are not in a position to
come up with an alternative that can make the life of CSAs easy. So, to
compensate for the same, they continue to lure youngsters with high salary,
perks and a high fashioned lifestyle. Most youngsters get attracted to this
lifestyle and once they realize the tough part of working in odd shifts, they
leave the job.

Telecommuting gives agents the opportunity to take up flexible working hours.
Since agents are given the option to operate from home, they save on the
commuting time and get a chance to choose multiple shifts broken in to slots of
different hours.

The survey also suggests that giving flexible options to the agents improves
employee retention and productivity. The agents become more productive when they
work from home. According to the survey, the productivity of the agents working
from home is much higher than the agents of traditional call-centers.

WIN-WIN SCENE

For the employer, the telecommuting business works out a lot cheaper and is
an efficient option than setting up huge contact centers. Companies need not
invest in huge real estate and expensive infrastructure. By letting employees
work from home the company is saving almost 80% of the infrastructure cost.

The company saves on indirect costs like Internet connection,
telecommunications equipment, computers, buildings, transportation, electricity,
air-conditioning, allowances, bonus, insurance, medical, leaves, and many other
associated expenses.

In the case of telecommuting, companies make use of CSA's home
infrastructure to provide customer service. A typical qualified agent is
required to have an up to date, reliable computer at their home, with a minimum
of 128MB of RAM, and at least a 350MHz processor is recommended. A broadband
Internet connection (cable, DSL, T1, ISDN, satellite) is required for most
projects. Call center projects also require a telephone line, telephone headset,
and most importantly, a quiet, uninterrupted work environment during all working
hours. Some companies recommend installation of VoIP gateway to efficiently
handle voice calls.

Using web-based technologies, all calls are routed right to the agent's
home office. The chances of work getting disrupted due to transport strike or
natural calamities like heavy rains causing trains to stop and road blocks can
be avoided with telecommuting.

TECH HURDLES

The concept of virtual call-center appears optimistic, but there are experts
who believe that telecommuting is not the ideal alternative. According to them,
without in-house agents, the quality of service can be an issue.

Telecommuting may not be a good idea to provide technical support, which
involves frequent updates and training on new product releases. A lot of
call-centers in the country provide extensive training to its CSAs, which
enables them to handle voice-based calls with the right accents. This may not be
possible in the case of virtual call-center. Even if the agents taking the calls
at home are trained to do so, the company will have to spend on additional
infrastructure to monitor them, which defies the purpose of saving cost.

So the best service a virtual call-center agent could provide could be
limited to general inquiries with standard, unvarying scripts and, therefore, do
not require daily hand-holding. These are jobs that can be monitored easily and
productivity measured as well.

While many call center managers remain unconvinced that they can get quality
service from remote agents, call center managers that do buy into telecommuting,
need to ensure they hire agents suitable to the job: those comfortable with the
work-at-home environment and who have the discipline to separate work from
personal distractions.

OPPORTUNITIES

For solutions providers who have grown big with large customer base, the
usual practice has been to provide technical support and telemarketing
activities with a large work force. In many cases, they have even opened their
own call-centers within their office premises to do this. Some have even
outsourced their support activities to other firms. Setting up in-house
call-centers involves tremendous cost. Telecommuting can be a feasible option
here. Solution providers can think of telecommuting for its support activities
and apply its existing work force for other productive work.

Similarly, a number of vendor companies believe that spending big money on
call-center activities can adopt telecommuting for their own needs. Even BPOs
currently having call-centers can expand their enterprise by embracing the
telecommuting business.

According to William F Marren, Senior Project Manager with Colorado-based
Telecommuting Success, call-Centers are an ideal environment for telecommuting.
Call-center employees adapt well to telecommuting and are accustomed to
performance measurement based upon Automatic Call Distributor reporting and
monitoring systems.

Each project can be different, with scopes ranging from phone work to data
entry projects. Call center projects can include order processing, reservations,
enrollments, customer service, sales, market research, technical support, etc.

"For a telecommuting program to be successful, and the results sustained
over time, the telecommuting program within the call center network requires an
Integrated Approach to program establishment and ongoing administration.
Balancing and blending the people, technology and work environment factors are
the key components that differentiate a successful telecommuting program,"
says William.

GOVT CAN CHIP IN

The Government should actually promote telecommuting for the simple reason
that it has environmental benefits too. Besides the benefits that business
houses and customer service agents have. If telecommuting becomes popular in
every business and not just call-centers, it would mean fewer vehicles on the
road, creating a less polluting environment.

In some countries, the state governments are taking note of the benefits of
telecommuting and giving tax benefits to employers encouraging telecommuting.
Rising real estate costs, increasing competition, better life for CSAs and need
for increased productivity are some reasons why enterprises should explore
telecommuting.

 NELSON JOHNY

TELECOMMUTING: GO FOR IT

• Saves real estate and infrastructure cost
• Attracts more skilled and qualified workers
• Wider options to provide 24x7 service
• Flexibility in working hours for agents
• Improves productivity and profits
• Increases employee retention rate
• Scope of workers increases
• Fewer vehicles on the road benefits environment
• Reduces disruption of work due to commuting calamities

FEASIBILITY OF VIRTUAL CALL CENTER

Hyderabad-based HyperSoft Technologies is one of the first few companies to
have evinced keen interest in starting home-based call-centers in India. While
HyperSoft is actually a publicly traded software development firm, it started
call-center activities to make use of the unused office infrastructure during
night times. Now, Dadi Bhote, Director of HyperSoft wants to explore the concept
of virtual call-center perhaps in another six months of time when India will be
ready with a robust broadband infrastructure.

According to Dadi, there are few challenges in setting up a virtual
call-center business. Recruiting freshers as agents for virtual call-centers can
spell disaster in terms of quality requirement. "Freshers won't
understand the quality requirement and may not take the job seriously. And
hence, our plans are to recruit agents with experience in the BPO segment
initially."

Dadi says the concept of virtual call-centers can work out to the company's
advantage only if certain type of customers and specific segment is serviced.
Companies should take care that these are not regular customers where continuity
of service is a must and where high level of commitment is involved.

A typical type of telecommuting activity would be telemarketing, data entry
or transcription, where performance can be measured in quantifiable terms. If
critical jobs have to be put on telecommuting network, then the cost involved in
monitoring would be very high, making it less viable.