Call Center Survey Highlights Industry Adoption and Perceptions of At-Home Agents

Five9, Inc., the leading global provider of on-demand telemarketing, customer service, and call center solutions for customer interaction management, today announced results from its first annual At-Home Agent Report. The study, based on the responses of 200 call center managers from throughout North America, gauged the actual use, experience and perceptions of at-home agents among the call center industry.

“More and more call centers I’ve recently talked to are testing the waters of using at-home agents by hiring one or two to extend their traditional workforce, or diving in after an initial trial,” said Sheryl Kingstone, director, Yankee Group. “As the call center industry has become more competitive, it has become more important than ever for call centers to be flexible and nimble to ensure agent and customer satisfaction. At-home agents are one way to achieve this, and call centers need to ensure they are set up to leverage all the benefits of having an at-home or virtual workforce including the right selection and hiring processes, training and technology.”

While the respondents came from a wide-range of call center environments, the report was able to identify that the use of at-home agents is an increasing trend, and one that is poised for further growth. Key findings of the survey include:

• Thirty-nine (39%) of respondents are currently using at-home agents, and of those, almost a quarter of respondents use at-home agents exclusively or almost exclusively (90-100%). At the other end of the spectrum, 41% use at-home agents to provide 20% or less of their workforce.

• Of the call centers using at-home agents, 37% believe they are as productive and 28% find them more productive.

• Sixty-two percent (62%) of the call centers using at-home agents believed productivity gains to be at least 20% more than on-site agents

• Forty-three percent (43%) of respondents said they plan to add at-home agents within the next 12 months, and they cite cost savings, agent satisfaction and retention, and access to a wider talent pool as the driving factors.

“The call center industry is competitive so our mission at Five9 is to support our customers regardless of how their call centers are set up, so that they can succeed in today’s market,” said Cary Fulbright, vice president of marketing and products of Five9. “Because there has been so much buzz around at-home agents, and many of our customers are successfully using them, we conducted this study to gauge the broader market’s interest in and perceptions of the at-home agent model. What we find is a very intrigued response which tells us that this is a market that will continue to grow and define itself as the kinks are worked out.”