Top 5 contact center links: remote agent work from home

One of the fun aspects of monitoring articles, blogs, and Tweets about the call center and contact center space is that it’s easy to see trends emerging. Predictions aside, a few observations from monitoring the contact center news and blog feeds this week: the attraction of cloud-based services is on the rise, and hand-in-hand with that comes the appeal of using remote agents working from home. 

• Contact center managers embrace home agents as a smart move (from Forrester Research) The title says it all: Forrester’s 2010 survey of contact center decision makers found that
  35% of companies had plans for expanding their home agent program
  during the next 12 months.
• Likewise, Forrester reports that Cloud communication stirs buyers’ interest: For contact centers only 2% use the CaaS (Communication as a Service) model today (with IVR as a
  major exception). However, 23% of decision makers stated they would
  consider both UC and contact centers as a cloud based service in the
  future.
• Simultaneously, one blog featured a case study showing Work at Home agents damage net promoter and customer satisfaction: “It is estimated that the work at home agent model is growing by 40%
  annually. Attrition among work at home agents is only 10% compared
  to attrition rates of nearly 50% in typical call centers.” And “previously top-performing agents struggled to maintain even average-level performance” when sent home to work.
• As a counter to that study, Donna Fluss offers advice on Managing remote call center agents by providing a best practice model
• The argument for the positive effects remote agents working from home can have on the U.S. economy: Arise Virtual Solutions CEO Angela Selden on the push to bring American jobs back home