Planning For Hybrid Homeworking: 6 Things to Consider

Planning ahead when the future is as uncertain as it is today is difficult. But you’ve got to start somewhere. So how about with a list of objectives, and a list of ‘highly probable’ circumstances and conditions under which you are likely to operate in 2021?

When it comes to running customer contact operations, your objectives for 2021 may well look similar to those this year. For example, to deliver excellent customer experiences and create positive outcomes. To improve customer satisfaction & loyalty. To keep your people engaged, motivated and happy, while looking after their mental health & well being. To cut costs…. and so on.

The problem comes when trying to define the circumstances and conditions that will prevail next year. For the truth is we simply don’t know. Social distancing and staggered rotas look set to remain, and with a strong possibility of future Covid-19 spikes, no-one can confidently base their planning on the likelihood of having open and fully populated offices. We also don’t know what effect a subsequent Covid-19 spike would have on the nature and volume of customer contacts, people’s ability to travel, or on employees’ mental health & well being.

So where does that leave contact centre planning? Well we know (if you believe the research) that the majority of businesses are planning to open their bricks and mortar (B&M) contact centres in 2021. Indeed when asked ‘What Will Your Working Environment Mainly Look Like in 2021?’ 57% of UK contact centre leaders interviewed as part of the Call North West/SWCCF/Talkdesk Post Lockdown survey said that they expected it to most closely resemble a Socially Distanced B&M Centre, with 35% expecting it to look like a Work-from-Home centre, and only 7% a Normal Contact Centre. And if that’s the case then the vast majority of contact centres are highly likely to be operating hybrid models in 2021 (i.e. part B&M centre working and part homeworking).

If you are considering a hybrid model, here are six things to consider:

  1. Homeworking isn’t for everyone: The public debate around homeworking during lockdown has often focused on whether homeworking is a good idea or whether office workers are more productive. But is that the right question? I would say that it’s more important to ask ‘When would homeworking work effectively for us?’ and ‘Who would make an ideal homeworker?’ If you’re operating a hybrid model, prioritise those who WANT to work from home as full or part time homeworkers, not those who don’t want to or those who are less productive working-from-home.
  2. Flexible scheduling is key: Almost three-quarters of contact centre homeworkers choose to work-from-home to have a better work-life-balance (WLB) according to the 2020 UK HomeAgent survey, with 44% saying that they can self-select their working hours. Flexible hours is a key benefit of homeworking especially if it means people can fit work in around their other daily priorities. So consider flexible scheduling as an incentive to encourage people to homework, including the use of split shifts. 49% of Employers responding to the 2020 UK HomeAgent survey said that they currently allow their homeworkers to work multiple shifts on a single day.
  3. Don’t just assume your in-house technology and systems are suited to homeworking: Just because your technology is cloud-delivered doesn’t mean that it’s optimised for homeworking. Does your workforce scheduling technology enable homeworkers to self-schedule and work split shifts for example? Does your training platform support virtual training? Does your communications technology provide a virtual community workspace for homeworkers with live chat and team rooms? If not, you may benefit from a technology ecosystem that’s purpose-built for homeworking.
  4. Pay particular attention to people’s well being: Anxiety/Mental Health has been the biggest concern for organisations operating work-from-home centres during the current crisis according to the Call North West/SWCCF/Talkdesk Post Lockdown survey, with 66% of contact centre leaders stating that it had been a signiïŹcant or very signiïŹcant issue. Only 25% of leaders saw Anxiety/Mental Health as being less of a challenge across their entire estates in 2021, with 30% seeing it as more of a challenge.
  5. Treat homeworkers and in-house personnel the same (wherever possible): If you are operating a hybrid model it’s important that you don’t penalise employees for choosing to work-from-home or work from the office. While it’s not always possible to deliver the same advantages to both sets of workers (e.g. you can’t lay on free fruit, coffee and games machines for homeworkers), it’s important that you set similar expectations when it comes to contact handling quality and performance.
  6. Recognise the uniqueness of the work-from-home environment: As many organisations have found to their cost in recent months, if you simply lift employees out of a contact centre, ask them to work from home, and then not give them the right tools then the move can be counterproductive, leading to lower productivity, lower morale, high instances of absence, mental health issues and lower revenues/profit. Do it properly, and there’s plenty of evidence that homeworking can boost productivity, reduce absenteeism/attrition, cut costs and generate huge work-life-balance benefits. Recognise the uniqueness of the work from home environment and ‘overcompensate’ and ‘overcommunicate’ if appropriate!

Long term homeworking on the rise as city dwellers escape to the country

According to Rightmove, the number of City residents contacting estate agents to buy a home in a village rose by 126% in June & July 2020 compared to the same period last year.

This increase in buyers looking to move outside cities began in April according to the company and is continuing, with the uplift in village enquiries most notable among people living in Liverpool, Edinburgh, Birmingham & London.

Rightmove’s announcement mirrors our own experiences.

“The current crisis has led to a lot of people re-evaluating and re-prioritising various aspects of their work and home life” said Mark Walton, CEO of SensĂ©e “and it is no surprise to read that some are opting for a simpler life away from the cities.

“The rise of homeworking over the last few months will have played a part in decision-making as many people have not only come to realise that they can work from home but also that they can do so effectively.”

74% of long-term homeworkers say that a better work-life-balance is a key benefit of work-from-home according to The 2020 UK HomeAgent Survey.  86% say that they incur no travel-to-work costs, and 81% that they have removed time wasted travelling to work.

(Pic) SensĂ©e homeworkers – some views from the office window. Top row L-R: Tracey (Menai Strait, Gwynedd, Wales), Nicola (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan); Bottom row L-R:  Cherie (Looe, Cornwall), Beverley (Snowdonia National Park, Wales), and a cycle ride after work with Hannah (Wasdale, Lake District)

 

 

 

(eBook) Contact Centres in the Fast Lane: The Rise of a New Operating Model

Contact Centres in the Fast Lane CoverCaught in a wider organisational response to the pandemic, contact centre leadership is busily responding to the demands of customer, employee and organisation.

Their combined impact is starting to redesign the way that contact centres work.

Imagination has been liberated as new responses are urgently demanded.

Many outstanding ambitions such as digital first engagement, omni-channel effectiveness, actionable insight, AI fuelled decision making, front line empowerment are now in production and being scaled.

This eBook explores why the contact centre is likely to remain in a state of accelerated change and what it might look like as part of a broader digital first capability that now underpins most organisational transformation.

View here (no need to register)

 

(eBook) Contact Centre Homeworking: 10 Key Operational Challenges

How do you:

  1. Recruit and onboard homeworkers?
  2. Maintain visibility of homeworking activities?
  3. Manage Performance?
  4. Communicate with homeworkers?
  5. Train homeworkers?
  6. Ensure your homeworking environment is compliant?
  7. Ensure your homeworking environment is secure?
  8. Deliver homeworking work-life-balance benefits (such as split shifts)?
  9. Enable real-time collaboration?
  10. Manage homeworkers?Read our eBook today and get on top of these major remote management issues.

Read our eBook and learn how to get on top of these and many other remote management issues.

View here (no need to register)

(Webinar) Homeworking, Digital First and Cutting Cost-to-Serve

– Thursday Aug 13th, 12 – 1PM (BST) –

On this webinar, Emotive CX specialist Martin Hill-Wilson will discuss the contact centre industry’s next major challenge – how to deliver CX at much lower cost – as well as the Digital First agenda that a growing number of organisations are adopting.

SensĂ©e homeworking specialist Rob Smale will then ask ‘What contact centre homeworking model is right for your business?’ discussing the pros and cons of a range of options:

  • 100% homeworking Vs hybrid (home/office) working
  • Single flexible shifts Vs split shifts
  • Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)/Bring Your Own Broadband (BYOB) Vs company-provided equipment
  • Company-supplied desks and furniture Vs homeworker-supplied

If work-from-home is not your area of expertise, Rob will also discuss what help is at hand to help you through the initial stages of your homeworking journey.

Register Today

 

Home delivery companies face significant customer service challenges in the run up to Christmas

(Reprinted courtesy of Internet Retailing magazine)

Fabulous news from Hermes last week with the delivery specialist announcing over 10,000 new jobs and predicting a near-doubling of parcel volumes in the run up to Christmas. And it’s not the only good news from delivery firms during lockdown. DPD announced 6,000 new roles as part of a £200m investment, Kingfisher 3-4000 jobs, and online giants Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Amazon and Morrison thousands more. Online fashion and cosmetic retailer Asos revealed a 10% boost in sales to £1 billion in the four months to June 2020.

They are exciting headlines. But they also beg the question ‘how will the sector cope with the severe service centre challenges this expansion will create?’

It’s also interesting that Hermes’ news should break on the same day as reports of a Covid-19 outbreak at a customer service centre in Scotland, and the same week as the announcement of the results from a major survey into the future of contact centre working. 89% of the 102 contact centre leaders responding to the “What will your contact centre be like post lockdown?” survey said that the Covid-19 crisis has changed the contact centre industry forever, with only 3% saying that it hasn’t (the remainder stating they were unsure).

When asked “What Will Your Working Environment Mainly Look Like in 2021?” 57% of contact centre leaders chose an image of a Socially Distanced Centre, 35% a Work-from-Home centre, and only 7% a Normal Contact Centre. The survey was conducted by the South West Contact Centre Forum (SWCCF) and Call North West (CNW) in partnership with Talkdesk.

In the current environment, there’s little chance of delivery companies expanding their bricks and mortar contact centre operations to meet the growing demand for service… which leaves just one realistic and feasible option: work-from-home (WFH).

Homeworking has been a business phenomenon during lockdown with 77% of UK contact centres having 50% or more of their employees working from home during the Covid-19 crisis according to the survey.

Despite these impressive statistics though, homeworking has not been easy, and has thrown up unique and significant challenges. For example, what makes a good customer service homeworker? How do you recruit and train people virtually? How do you manage people’s health and well being? How do you manage performance and quality, communicate effectively with remote workers, maintain infosecurity, stay compliant. And one can add to this long list the requirement for eDelivery support staff to understand the end-to-end customer journey and be familiar with common digital customer experience tools.

To achieve excellence in running a WFH customer service team calls for a very different mindset – one that starts with learning how to recruit the right homeworkers and extends to creating a virtual mindset across everything from training, planning, managing and reporting

 within a technology ecosystem that is secure, robust and flexible enough to scale up and down with the eDelivery company’s business needs.

With 35% of leaders predicting that their contact centres will mainly be homeworking in 2021 according to the SWCCF/CNW/Talkdesk survey, the need to find a practical service solution for the Festive Season retail peak is very much on.

Sensée: Our Homeworking Story (Infographic)

With over 1000 fully-employed and 100% home-based advisors supporting blue chip UK businesses, SensĂ©e is the UK’s largest homeworking company.

But how did we get to where we are today?

  • Who are our people?
  • Where do they live?
  • How old are they?
  • What benefits has homeworking delivered for them?
  • What do they feel about their roles?

Find out by viewing the full infographic here

Placing Data Security at the Heart of Homeworking

SecurityAt the core of any strong work-at-home offering is the ability to delivery seamless interactions in a manner that’s compliant with data protection norms. While no one is disputing that this is a tough task, consumers expect and deserve nothing less.

What’s key is to have appropriate technology platforms and processes that can efficiently navigate the labyrinth of information security requirements in a work-at-home environment. And it is in this spirit that the SensĂ©e Homeworking Strategic Framework sets out to deliver structure and value to businesses looking to make work-at-home a permanent element of their customer experience (CX) plans.

The Framework assists organisations in both migrating employees to homeworking, and optimising their strategies. The Six Pillars of SensĂ©e’s Framework are: Selection Of Model Homeworkers, Workforce Flexibility and Planning, Data Security and Compliance, Employee Contracts and Policies, Virtual Management and Training, and Employee Engagement and Support.

Over half of those who implemented homeworking since the outset of the pandemic feel that it will now be a long-term part of their CX operations

The proportion of businesses now looking at homeworking as a long term solution is significant. Indeed an April/May online poll of 156 UK contact centre professionals indicated that over half of those who implemented homeworking since the outset of the pandemic feel that it will now be a long-term part of their CX operations. This should come as no surprise. Firms that have taken on work-at-home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are now realising the clear business benefits realised by existing users of the model for some time: better customer outcomes, improved operational performance, lower costs, greater employee satisfaction, and more.

The question of homeworking data security still frequently comes up in discussion though and, make no mistake, it is an issue that’s of the utmost importance to CX professionals. In a recent Ryan Strategic Advisory survey, ‘data protection’ and ‘information security’ were rated the most important areas of investment for enterprise contact centre managers in the UK, and moving operations to individual home-based units certainly isn’t going to make managing these two critical areas any easier.

The overwhelming majority of enterprises need the assistance of an expert partner to help ensure maximum compliance in their virtual agent strategy

This is why the overwhelming majority of enterprises need the assistance of an expert partner to help ensure maximum compliance in their virtual agent strategy, and where the Sensée Homeworking Strategic Framework comes into play.

With 16 years’ experience in providing clients with home-based customer management solutions, SensĂ©e has developed the mindshare needed to help enterprises with their migration out of the contact centre and into agents’ homes.

The security portion of the Strategic Framework is three-fold. The first is about making sure that enterprises deploying homeworking, and the data that they hold about customers, is secure. In the work-at-home environment, this has a great deal to do with the technologies that house information and the tools used to access data points. Sensée will advise on what provisions, solutions and procedures must be in place, alongside the right hardware required for agents.

The second part is about the operational integrity of homeworking once a campaign is off the ground. Sensée works with its clients to make certain that the right analytical tools are in place to detect and protect valuable consumer information from fraudulent activity. This includes monitoring agent desktop behaviour and validating agent identity.

The third part of the Sensée security framework is concerned with compliance. There are understandably more requirements laid out by different levels of government than ever before, and no enterprise is immune. Sensée works with its clients to make sure that home-based campaigns tick all the required legal boxes, minimising the chances of any adverse repercussions.

Homeworking is more common than ever, and this brings security challenges. Working within the Sensée Homeworking Strategic Framework, enterprises can efficiently navigate the security dynamic and ensures seamless interactions in a compliant manner.

Redefining Virtual CX Management

Contact Centre AdvisorLet it not be said that organisations did not have time to prepare.

Clearly, the opportunity of realising the benefits of homeworking has been available to companies for the past two decades, yet few have availed themselves of the chance to do so. And here we find ourselves in mid-2020, with literally the most important changes in a generation thrust upon us when it comes to contact centre management.

With so many firms needing to move agents home, yet having no blueprint on how to do so, the chance to make mistakes is pronounced.  This is where SensĂ©e’s Homeworking Strategic Framework comes into play, outlining the most important elements of operations, compliance and agent management when it comes to homeworking.  SensĂ©e has been in this industry for almost twenty years, and has made the beginner’s mistakes longago. Who better to learn from in the current environment

Six distinct, but interwoven elements constitute the basis for excellence in driving customer experience delivery from agents’ homes

The Homeworking Strategic Framework by SensĂ©e is simple. Six distinct, but interwoven elements constitute the basis for excellence in driving customer experience delivery from agents’ homes.  The obvious starting point in this comprehensive blueprint is recruitment.  The work-at-home model is so much more robust when the right people are selected for virtual support from the outset. 

Sensée lays out what any contact centre operator needs to do in terms of developing the right agent profile, finding the most efficient networks with which to attract this demographic, and making certain that they are equipped adequately.  This agent dynamic also includes planning the right resourcing around agents that are home-based.  This helps ensure the optimal staffing levels at all times. 

Another facet of the Homeworking Strategic Framework involves management of the remote working team.  As mentioned, this is a new business model for many organisations, and including the best interests of those virtual team members into corporate policies must be a priority.  The Sensée Framework can help human resource managers modify employment contracts and rules for work-at-home agents, while providing guidance on health & safety aspects related to remote employees.  This blueprint also allows for instruction on how best to ensure remote training is as robust as possible, whether during the onboarding process or on an ongoing basis. 

SensĂ©e’s advice on making certain that homeworkers are included in the broader morale of the organisation is essential in reducing attrition.  The advice considers advancement opportunities for remote customer experience workers, helping alleviate any sense of isolation that team members new to this way of working may experience, and developing activities that promote both fun and team-building.

SensĂ©e’s Homeworking Strategic Framework provides contact centre professionals with the know-how that they need to drive the most secure remote-working environment possible

No discussion about home-based delivery would be complete without addressing the issue of data protection.  In this spirit, SensĂ©e’s Homeworking Strategic Framework provides contact centre professionals with the know-how that they need to drive the most secure remote-working environment possible.  Some of these elements include how best to lock down data for remote workers to prevent fraudulent activity and maintaining full compliance with all relevant regulations.  This goes far in ensuring consumer confidence with regard to the agents that service their queries.

The fact is, moving to homeworking is a challenge at the best of times.  Not only can this change lead to uncertainty among the workforce, it also begs questions about best practices regarding operations.  By leveraging the SensĂ©e Homeworking Strategic Framework, customer experience professionals will be best placed to manage this transition seamlessly. Â