Work At Home Study
July 2020 - 5th Talent Contact Center Industry Report #1
More Employees Reported that Performance is Better
If most agents are performing the same or better at home, it provides evidence that success can transfer from the contact center to the home. If customer satisfaction and resolution have increased, is there something we can learn from their experience to improve those KPls while working in the center?
The Top Choice of Employees is a Mix of Working Between Home and the Contact Center
Almost no employees want to return to working entirely in the center. However, less than half of the employees want to work entirely at home. The largest number of employees favor the flexibility of a mixed work arrangement. According to comment analysis, it appears that COVID-19 had little influence on their preference.
The Work at Home Model Has Challenges that Can Impact Its Sustainability
Employees expressed communication challenges as well as increased feelings of loneliness and technology issues while working at home. They also indicated that it requires more effort to work with each other and customers. If these challenges are not addressed, it can impact long-term sustainability.
Enable Supervisors to Overcome Work at Home Challenges for Themselves and Their Agents
Supervisors need to be trained in how to adapt their communication style, reduce the effort it takes to work with their team, and to develop each agent to become more self-managing. Also, reducing the size of their teams will increase the probability of their success.
Implement a Mixed Model to Improve Sustainability and Reduce Costs
A model that allows employees to work between home and center provides most of the benefits and reduces most of the negative factors of both work arrangements. This model is also the top choice of employees because it accommodates individual preferences and optimizes employee satisfaction. Since most employees want to spend most of their time at home, companies can significantly reduce their contact center capacity, and potentially replace a single center with multiple microsites.
5th Talent Contact Center Industry Reports
March 2023 - 5th Talent Report #5
The Crisis in Contact Center Management
The customer experience is at a 17-year low, agent turnover remains high at 7-8%% a month, and quiet quitting is 59%. This crisis is severely impacting company...
June 2020 - 5th Talent Report #1
The Work at Home Study
The contact center industry has never experienced anything like the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. It has led to a rapid and global shift of moving contact center agents and supervisors to a...
August 2022 - 5th Talent Report #4
The Leadership Challenge
5th Talent International interviews contact center leaders from 76 companies from July 2021 to June 2022 to understand the state of the industry. Many companies...
April 2021 - 5th Talent Report #3
The Work at Home Dilemma
This report outlines what we call the "Work at Home Dilemma." There are challenges to the sustainability of the work at home model, but employees do not want to...
Nov 2020 - 5th Talent Report #2
Work at Home Fatigue
5th Talent International recently interviewed 41 contact center leaders regarding their shirt to a work at home model for their employees. These leaders represented more than...