When you think of a call center, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? You may imagine hundreds of employees in tightly packed cubicles with headsets strapped on – an idea supporting a detrimental stereotype of the call center as being impersonal and disengaging. But what happens when the call center is taken into the virtual realm?
A virtual call center – made possible thanks to telecommunication and Internet technology – provides its customers with all of the amenities and major tools of a brick-and-mortar call center (i.e. ACD, WFM, IVR) as well as all the advantages of allowing call center agents to work from a variety of dispersed locations. When evaluating call center offerings today, there’s almost always a more flexible, hosted option that is most times preferred over traditional counterparts – and with good reason. A virtual call center enables agents to be located anywhere, whether in a number of small, off-site locations or from within their own homes. While consumer interaction within the call center continues to meet high expectations, your call center operations will experience a truly amazing transformation.The benefits of the virtual call center are more than evident. In fact, it’s currently an explosive $6.1 billion industry. According to a recent study by Stanford University:
Data from the United States Census Bureau shows that 9.5 percent, or 13.4 million individuals, worked from home at least once back in 2010. And Forrester Research projected that 43 percent of U.S. workers, or 63 million individuals, will be working from home by 2016 – a figure that is no doubt directly impacting the growth of the virtual call center industry. Now the question is: Are you prepared for this growth?To check out Stanford University’s study in more detail, click here.
