Virtual call centres are likely to become the global standard in the future, says cloud-based software service 1Stream cofounder Bruce von Maltitz.
He tells Engineering News that companies have adopted this call centre model owing to the ease of provisioning and the ability to manage multisite and remote agents.
End-user research released in the past year by consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan notes that although homeshoring – the transfer of service industry jobs to electroni- cally connected home-based employees – is still in its infancy, the number of work- at-home agents is increasing. This represents an appealing alternative to the current model of fixed facility call centres, states the firm.
Information technology and advisory company Gartner says one out of ten international call centres is likely to shift at least partly to home-based agents.
Von Maltitz adds that more companies have moved towards virtualised call centres in the past five years.
“Companies can create a queue that includes agents in multiple centres, or allow skills-based routing, which does not require agents to be in the same location,” he explains, pointing out that managers are also able to schedule and monitor agents from any location in the world.
“Homeshoring is not as popular in South Africa as it is in countries like the US, but we are seeing increased uptake. South Africa is particularly well-suited to the at-home agents system as we have many different languages indigenous to different geographic localities. Therefore, rather than building call centres nationwide, we could have skilled workers in different areas dealing with customer queries in their preferred language,” says Von Maltitz.
“This not only enables a workforce to operate at optimal levels, but also reduces operational costs significantly,” he concludes.