Make way for the virtual contact centre

Contact centres and call centres have a number of stereotypes attached to them, both in terms of working for one and customer experience. It’s a necessary evil; one that customers love to hate but simultaneously are seething with anger about when they learn that the company they need support from doesn’t offer the service. But the contact centre as we know it is changing and a new virtual call centre replacement seems to be the way of the future.

Can going hosted/virtual really make much of a difference? Well yes, it can. First, there’s cost. It’s estimated that employers can save as much as $25,000 per employee working from home. This is because businesses are able to cut down on overheads such as office space, utilities, equipment, infrastructure, maintenance, office managers, cleaners, employee facilities and more.

Then there’s scalability. A virtual contact centre solution is much easier and more cost-effective to scale, as there’s no need to upscale your call centre premises as your business scales. Expanding your business or customer support department is as easy as creating a new extension in your communications system.

You can also expand your talent pool: in opting for remote agents, you open up your business to receive talent that might otherwise not be available locally. If the right person for the job is located in the UK, India, Greece or Argentina, there are no complications about hiring them; geographic restrictions about where team members can be based are non-existent.

Finally, consider the benefits of remote working to employees. It’s been proven time and time again that remote workers are more productive, and more happy. In a study by Airtasker, it was found that remote employees “worked 1.4 more days every month, or 16.8 more days every year”. In companies that adopt a virtual solution, employee turnover significantly decreases: studies have shown that retention rate for virtual agents is 80% versus 25% for on-premise call centre agents.