In comparison to all other businesses, running a call center remotely presents a unique set of challenges. Since remote work has emerged as a viable option following the COVID pandemic, businesses have started adapting to this new normal. However, even though the trend of remote work started in unfavorable circumstances, both businesses and employees quickly recognized the advantages of remote work. Small businesses usually struggle to accommodate enough people in a tiny office space. Not to mention the infrastructural upgrades it requires and the costs involved with the same, Remote working is in everyone’s favor. Business owners can hire talent from anywhere, as geographical limitations barely play a role in remote work. The only thing that the employees are required to have is a strong internet connection, along with other basic equipment to get started. Virtual call centers are also preferred by employees, who get the option of working from a place that best suits them.
However, it also has certain disadvantages that only get aggravated in the absence of the right tools and strategy. Even then, it is the implementation of the strategies and the proper use of these tools that determine the productivity of call center agents. With the right work from home call center solutions, it becomes easy for businesses to get maximum productivity from their employees.
The Advantages of having Work from Home Call Center Agents
While it may appear that remote work is beneficial only for the employees, this is far from the truth. Remote work is equally beneficial for businesses as they can get their employees to be more productive. This is so for several reasons, such as:
Flexibility of Schedule
When employees work from the comfort of their homes, most of them prefer to keep a flexible schedule. They don’t mind putting in an extra hour in order to finish a task. Taking frequent breaks allows them to de-stress, and they are more focused when they get back to their workstation.
Convenience and comfort
No matter how comfortable office space is, it cannot compete with the comfort found in people's homes. Working from home allows employees to work in a stress-free environment. It also helps them multitask better and achieve more. Working from a comfortable environment of their choice helps them stay focused. Moreover, spending more time with their family and loved ones keeps them in the best of health. As a result, they are able to give their best in their professional lives.
Less time wastage and better productivity
A lot of time is wasted in the office on trivial things. Meetings get stretched for no reason, and people end up wasting time that could’ve been spent doing more productive things. This is not the case with remote work, especially since all communication can be carried out telephonically. Moreover, with the right work from home call center software, team leaders can stay updated with agent-wise and task-wise reports. This eliminates the need for frequent phone calls and meetings and helps businesses save valuable time. Not to mention the time wasted on the daily commute and the physical exhaustion that comes with it. Working remotely helps people become more productive.
Disadvantages and Challenges
Just like every other thing or idea in the world, the concept of having employees working remotely too has its disadvantages. Although the advantages outnumber the disadvantages, if left unaddressed, they can become a big deterrent to productivity. Some of the most commonly seen disadvantages of remote work include:
Reduced productivity
The work-from-home lifestyle doesn’t necessarily suit everyone. While some people find it more convenient to work remotely, others find it difficult to stick to a routine and end up underdelivering. This can be due to several reasons. Especially in the case of people with families, pets, and children, as they are surrounded by too many distractions. Others find it difficult to keep their morale high and work better in teams. This can also be due to a feeling of isolation and stress resulting from the same. Therefore, team-building exercises become more important when employees are working remotely.
Monitoring agent performances
Businesses, especially call centers, find it difficult to assess the performance of their employees when they are working remotely. Agents’ performances need to be tracked and assessed from time to time for several reasons. By assessing the performance of their employees, businesses can track progress, identify problems, and come up with effective solutions. However, all of this becomes difficult in the case of employees working remotely. This can be tackled with the help of web-based call center solutions.
Communication and teamwork
This is one of the biggest challenges and also the most difficult to tackle. While the lack of communication is not an issue in offices, it emerges as a big problem in the case of employees working remotely. Lack of communication and poor teamwork can be seen clearly when information is not being passed on to other members and deadlines are not being met. It becomes difficult to maintain the flow of information within an organization when its employees are scattered in different corners. While one tangible solution lies in web-based solutions that facilitate easy streamlining, it takes more than just software solutions to overcome this problem. Managers and other senior-level players need to come up with the right strategies to ensure good teamwork.
Ensuring Data Security
Data security is the most important aspect of any business. Call centers, especially, have to be extra careful while handling data as they cannot afford to lose critical information about their clients. While it is easy to safeguard data in a traditional office space with custom-built and secure software solutions, ensuring the same level of safety with work-from-home employees can be a challenge. Employees working remotely tend to use third-party software, thereby putting crucial information at risk. Therefore, it is important to invest in secure cloud-based work from home call center software to ensure data security. Using cloud-based solutions ensures that data can be recovered even if it is lost temporarily.
Lack of cost-effective tools and solutions
This is by far the most challenging aspect that virtual call centers have to deal with. Since the entire functioning of call centers depends on the tools and equipment, choosing the right tools is necessary. Another problem that arises is the cost of providing the right call center equipment to agents. Businesses should carefully assess their requirements and budget before choosing the right work from home call center solutions. Ease of use, scalability, adaptability, and cost-effectiveness are some of the factors to keep in mind while choosing the right software solutions. It is always better to compare the available options before zeroing in on the right solution. Even though there are a large number of web based call center solutions to choose from, not all of them will be the right choice for your business. You should only settle for a solution that meets your requirements.
There are several other things you need to carefully consider, such as the time taken to install the solution, its integration with your existing CRM and other setups, etc. Choose a software solution provider that offers installation support and can provide customizable solutions. Once you have installed the software and are ready to go live, make your team familiar with the solution. Training them would be a good idea at this time. Not only will this ensure the seamless functioning of your call center, but it will also foster team building. This is crucial as, even with the right tools and the best team, working remotely can be challenging.
The Most Useful Work from Home Call Center Software Solutions
Work from home call center software enables businesses to operate more efficiently and profitably. Businesses have been able to achieve work efficiency and profitability thanks to web-based call center solutions. Web-based software services have aided call centers in streamlining their entire operation. As a result, they can enhance customer satisfaction and improve their services. Cloud-based call center software solutions are simple to install and use. They allow businesses to manage and monitor phone calls as well as streamline all processes, allowing their company to run smoothly. The most significant benefit of such solutions is that they enable call centers to operate remotely.
Enterprise Resource Planning Software
Cloud-based enterprise resource planning software solutions enable businesses to do everything using one solution. An ERP, or enterprise resource planning software eliminates the need for multiple software solutions for everything. It acts as a one-stop-shop for managing leads, sales, inventory, accounting, and more. Leading businesses now use cloud-based accounting software with accounting and inventory management to review inventory, assist customers in the sales pipeline, cut labor costs, and improve accuracy. It's critical to develop a management system that can support your business's requirements. VedaERP is the perfect software-based, cloud-based solution for streamlining business operations and management. It can assist businesses with difficult processes such as E-invoices, CTI Integration, GST Return Filing, Lead Management, and Project Management, among others. It is one of the best ERP software for billing jobs available. VedaERP by SAN Softwares is a cloud-based ERP solution that helps you have greater control over everything, including your work-from-home team members.
IVR Solutions for Inbound and Outbound Calling
Call centers are required to make and receive calls in bulk. IVR, or interactive voice response, is an intelligent way of handling calls. Cloud-based or hosted IVR solutions are gaining popularity as they are one of the most reliable work from home call center solutions. EasyGoIVR is the perfect hosted IVR solution for contact centers.
The EasyGoIVR is a multi-featured system that does it all, from personalized call responses to real-time call reporting and monitoring. Apart from handling calls, it also helps in analytics as it provides a graphical representation of all connected and answered calls. It enables businesses to be available to their callers 24 hours a day. It is a highly cost-effective and secure system as it can only be accessed through KYC.
It has all of the necessary features, including:
Customer agent mapping
Time-based call routing
Multi-level menus
Automatic call distribution
Call recording, tracking, and blacklisting
Easy CRM integration.
EasyGoIVR is an excellent call response system that assists callers, resolves their complaints, tracks calls, and guarantees that all routine processes run smoothly. It is a smart solution that helps organizations become more productive and successful.
As businesses grow and expand, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to keep up with the ever-increasing challenges. Therefore, it is becoming more and more feasible for businesses to invest in software solutions that help them be more productive and scale greater heights. Cloud-based IVR solutions provide businesses the flexibility they need. They are ideal for WFH employees and allow users to be more productive. Cloud-based IVR solutions are ideal for call centers because of the scalability and flexibility they provide.
About SAN Softwares
SAN Softwares, a leading software development company in India, has been providing the best cloud-based service solutions to several industries. We provide software solutions that are reliable and help businesses reap the benefits of cloud services. We customize hosted service solutions depending upon the nature of your business and its requirements. All our solutions are easy to install and use, and can be easily integrated with the existing setup. It is a one-time investment that helps large organizations and contact centers enhance productivity and profitability. Our multi-featured software solutions make it easy for businesses to streamline operations, thereby allowing them to work more efficiently.
Work From Home Call Center Solutions from SAN Softwares
SAN Softwares has been providing reliable and innovative call center solutions. SanCCS is the most effective cloud-based call center software solution for increasing productivity and ensuring customer satisfaction. Apart from handling calls, it can be used to make a variety of tasks easier, including ticketing, sales, appointment scheduling, and call routing. These web-based call center solutions enable businesses to serve their customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The SanCCS can handle all key operations such as ticket assistance, sales, appointment scheduling, and technical issues, and helps call center agents increase their productivity. It is a clever software solution that enables your virtual call center to reach its full potential. It has been created in such a way that it can easily adapt to several industries, including educational institutions, healthcare, and the service industry, to name a few.
In addition to work from home solutions, we provide the best-hosted telephony solutions, calling solutions, call billing solutions, order management solutions, ticket management solutions, and enterprise resource planning software solutions. All of these prove to be immensely useful for making your virtual call center a success. All solutions provided by us are scalable, meaning they can be scaled up or down to meet changing business needs.
Some other important features of SanCCS include:
IVR Solutions
IVR menus and sub-menus can be customized to meet customers’ requirements. The IVR solutions by SAN Softwares offer a number of features, such as voice mail, call forwarding, call barging, IVR bots, etc. The San outbound dialer is an effective IVR blasting solution that can be used for making outbound calls for several purposes.
Self-designable web-based CRM
We offer a customizable web-based CRM that can be integrated with the existing setup. You can also integrate our solutions with a third-party CRM of your choice.
Skill-Based Call Routing
This is the most important feature for ensuring productivity as the customer’s call gets directed to the most suitable agent.
Unified agent desktop
The Unified Agent Desktop allows users to have greater control. It ensures that agents get easy access to call details, customer details, emails, chats, and project details, among other things.
Call tracking and recording
These features make it easy for businesses to manage calls. All calls are recorded and stored on the server. The recorded calls can easily be accessed in the future.
Useful Analytics
You can get real-time reports and useful statistics that help you assess your agents’ performances. This proves to be useful as you can gauge your agents’ shortcomings and train them better.
Customizable Work from Home Call Center Software Solutions
Most software providers that provide cloud-based services leave ample room for customization. Customized software allows businesses to add the extra features they need and remove the ones they don’t. There’s no additional cost involved for unnecessary hardware or licenses. All of this gives tailor-made software a clear edge over regular, off-the-shelf software. Moreover, the customized software can be scaled up or down depending on the company’s requirements. These multi-functional and multi-featured software solutions go a long way toward helping businesses boost productivity and profitability.
Call centers often find it difficult to find cloud-based software that suits all of their requirements, especially when it comes to working from home employees. Software sometimes lacks important features that businesses need and is full of the ones they don’t. It is more feasible for businesses to create a custom-built software solution that allows them more control over the result. Customized cloud-based software solutions are scalable and can keep up with the evolving nature of an organization.
