CRM - October 2008 - (Page 27)

employee model cannot. “The equipment is supplied by me…but the upside is we’re self-employed, so everything is tax-deductible,” she says. Lenci agrees, but states have differing tax regulations concerning deductions for working at home. Due to New York State laws, Lenci says her accountant advises her not to write off her actual home office. “Because I own my home, I didn’t take the break for my home office,” she says. Alternatively, in the employee model, WAHAs are fully vested in the company. Convergys’s Krinhop says this means his WAHAs are eligible for 401(k), paid time off, health and medical insurance—“a big added benefit versus the contractor model.” West, one of the more wellknown WAHA providers, decided to switch from a contractor to an employee model in September 2007 largely because of what its customers and partners were requesting.“It really is monitoring, measuring, and managing,” says Mark Frei, senior vice president of sales for West at Home. He maintains that his company can now utilize direct management capabilities and the full extent of its quality monitoring tools to provide feedback and direction to its WAHAs that cannot be done in the contractor model. Meade says she felt like part of the West family under the employee model from the moment she applied. “[The com- Teaching WAHAs in Their Own Backyard M any virtual contact center vendors train agents using teleconferencing, the Internet, and other tools to connect with them wherever they are. One company that utilizes home agents, Dulles, Va.–based NEW Customer Service Companies, a third-party administrator of extended service plans, takes a slightly different approach. Barry Danoff, NEW’s senior vice president of information systems and technology group leader, says that after his company recruits agents to work from home in a particular region—NEW currently employs 650 agents across 26 states— it will send representatives to that area and train agents face-to-face. “We actually lease space in the community and provide training with real trainers, and after a nesting period then we let folks get on the phone,” he says. Since deciding to go this route, Danoff says results have been better than ever, and agents feel more assured that they can do their jobs. “We’ve had the highest level of graduation from this type of training and better-quality scores from these agents,” he says. “People just feel more prepared this way, instead of just trying to do it all virtually and then just set them free. It’s been a good evolution for us, and it’s a great addition to what we do.” —CM would] never move into an at-home model with contractors,” he recalls. DeSalles says this is a common fear.“The truth is that most companies…have some mistrust around the contractor piece because [agents] can work for a different company,” he says. “Businesses can’t control that.” Ultimately, though, the decision of whether to operate as an independent contractor or as an employee rests in the hands of the WAHAs themselves. “It lit- “Not everybody can work from home whether you think so or not; it takes a different type of skill set.” pany] made the application and interviewing process very easy and friendly,” she recalls. “Everything was just seamless.” Part of the joy, she says, is that the process created expectations of what would happen next—and the reality never deviated. Frei adds that West customers in verticals such as financial services, healthcare, retail, and telecommunications were leery of independent contractors acting as their customer service representatives.“Some verticals flat out said [they www.destinationCRM.com erally becomes a matter of which one an agent wants to choose,” DeSalles says. WHAT’S NEXT? “Now the big question is, ‘What’s the next work product?’” Houlne posits, pondering the future of contact center– specific WAHAs, and what they’ll be able to handle going forward.“Will we be able to support accounts-payable and -receivable functions, support claims, or different types of back-office processes that normally have been in a facility?” He believes homeshoring has the potential and opportunity to expand far beyond handling inbound and outbound calls. Field-service organizations can particularly stand to benefit, he says. “They’re normally out in the field, but now not only can they be a centralized call center, but a home-based [one] that can still be geographically dispersed,” he says. “That’s powerful.” No matter what the future holds for WAHAs, one thing is certain: A vast majority don’t want to leave once they begin. DeSalles says that agent happiness is a factor for many companies looking at this model. His research finds the average attrition rate is close to 50 percent for brick-andmortar contact center agents—and as low as 10 percent in the homeshoring model. Hamilton, for one, says she has received multiple offers to go back to brick-and-mortar contact centers—but she says that it would take an offer that knocked her headset off before she’d willingly become an attrition statistic— maybe. “Honestly, unless they’re willing to come to me with $250,000 on salary, I’d still be right here at home.” Contact Editorial Assistant Christopher Musico at cmusico@destinationCRM.com. 27 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | OCTOBER 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - October 2008

CRM - October 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality�Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Sprinting Toward Disaster? SAP�Retains Market-Share Lead in�CRM A�Week of Strong Customer�Service CRM�on Twitter Build a Good Event and They Will Come Required Reading There's No Place Like Home The New Breed of CRM�Consultant The Price is Right...You Hope How Much Marketing is Too�Much? The�Sweet Smell of High-Quality�Service The Next Act! For An Acquisition Some Stories Never Get Old CRM�Eases the Pressure For WIKA�Instruments Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - October 2008

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