As more and more of us are transitioning to a “new normal” brought about by the global pandemic COVID-19, many businesses with contact centers, too, are embracing the WFH (work from home) arrangement these past few months. 

But, what exactly is WFH? And, how can it benefit businesses? Is it really beneficial for businesses with contact centers? Everything will be discussed in the following sections.

Further Breakdown And Definition Of Terms
Basically, WFH can also be called remote working or telecommuting. These mean that policies and procedures are arranged for employees – in this case, the agents – to ditch the traditional office and work from a remote location. Agents working from home are equipped with a personal computer (if they do not have one), a modem or a router that can provide a very fast internet, and communication software. As such, let us focus more on remote working.

Remote working itself is not limited to just working from home. Agents can still work remotely in other places such as coffee shops, libraries, or also in co-working places. 

There are a number of reasons why contact centers of companies want their agents to work from home: absence of commuting, increased productivity, and an improved work and life balance. This will all be discussed later in the next section. 

Although this may be new for some, especially to those who – in their whole lives – have worked from an office, modern remote working has actually been quite prominent for a very long time now. In fact, the idea of working in an office only began before the Industrial Revolution, in which working from home was more of the norm than of the exception due to the type of jobs and livelihood back then.

Now, going back to the modern remote working setup, it does have quite a number of advantages. Some contact centers prefer a remote working setup because of the following advantages it brings:

Advantages Of Remote Working

1. Agents are happier
Naturally, agents will become more happier working remotely than going to an office on a daily basis, not counting their rest days. According to Owl Labs, remote workers are 29% happier than their on-site worker counterparts. 

To deliver a better customer experience, seeking agents to do their job efficiently is not the only thing needed, they must also enjoy the job that they are doing. Satisfying agents is more possible when they are working remotely; it makes them more flexible, improves their work and life balance, and makes working more comfortable. 

Additionally, they do not have to commute anymore, as working remotely can obviously be done at home.
 

2. Businesses can cut costs
Correspondingly, it does not only benefit the agents; it also benefits the business, itself. Businesses with brick-and-mortar centers require a lot of money spent for its building, maintenance, and improvement. And, with the growing number of employees, expect spending to drastically increase over time. 

There are solid evidences of this. For example, one company in US stated that they saved an estimated $5 billion utilizing the work from home setup. Real estate savings by hiring full time remote workers is $10,000 per employer yearly.

So, we can conclude in this section that businesses can capitalize on trying to increase their revenue by upping their agent satisfaction strategy, therefore increasing productivity and efficiency, as opposed to the maintenance of a contact center which is generally costly.

3. Businesses can continue even amidst significant events
As I have mentioned above in the introduction, right now, we are experiencing one of the most prominent and deadly global pandemic in recent times.

With this, many businesses were stopped. And, it is not an overstatement to say that many have lost their businesses and livelihood because of the implemented regulations disallowing many industries and commercials from operating.

As such, establishments that imposed a home-based work scheme or plan are not one of them. With proper Disaster Recovery plans, it not only ensured that operations will not cease to continue, but it also made sure that operations will function with stability. 

This is not limited to just the COVID-19 pandemic or any other outbreaks, in general, but also to other disasters – natural or man-made – that can happen at any given time such as earthquakes, strong super typhoons, or the man-made ones like terrorism and war.

Additionally, there is also an added benefit, namely reduced absences. Working from home – or from other remote locations, with correct implementations – can reduce the possibility of agents getting sick from a flu or other diseases and spreading it to others. This will protect high-risk agents and ensure that they can work without the fear of getting sick.

Conclusion
Remote working, especially in the time of writing this blog, is a vital strategy in making sure businesses still operate, even amidst the strict regulations imposed by the government. 

This strategy will only come into fruition with proper planning, along with an excellent communication platform (which Tegsoft provides) to make both your employees (agents) and customers happy.

It has many benefits that businesses can enjoy. Additionally, even after this pandemic, the situation will not change; remote working will still become more prominent in the future.

References:

https://www.niceincontact.com/-/media/niceincontact/resources/white-papers/2020/03/0320_niceincontact_remote-contact-center-agents.ashx?rev=6602623faf9743cf89c36e991ebe3a23
 
https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/complete-history-of-working-from-home/