Things to consider to roll out a successful remote work from home strategy

As this pandemic continues, globally organizations are having to grapple with the huge remote work experiment that they were forced to shift their operations into overnight.  Although customer expectations have lowered due to this pandemic, it will not be long before they rise as hour long waits for service is totally unacceptable.  The organizations that are successful are the ones that are quick to react and some are already decreased their wait times and are reaping the benefits of additional business.

Customers still expect you to be able to help them in their channel of choice. They do not care what you must do to achieve that.  They just want it to be seamless to them.  This is your opportunity to optimize your digital transformation to meet your customer expectations.

We have heard a lot about remote workers in the last few months.  A remote worker can be any employee who works from home.  The main reason for the drastic reason for remote work is due to the pandemic.  Previous reasons were the ability to source employees from different geographical locations, able to staff for peaks or provide 24/7 service and because it helped in agent retention.

If you have or are planning on deploying work from home (WFH) workers, then here are some key practices to consider:

1. Have a solid WFH Policies and Procedures
   • It should clearly highlight your mode of operation so that everyone is clear on process, rules, and regulations.  This includes guarding customer sensitive information.
   • It should highlight how their work environment should be set up i.e. speed of internet that is secure, what their workspace has to look like away from noise and distractions, and is a safe space free from hazards and loose cords.
   • Clearly outline what hardware you will provide i.e. phone, headset, computer with webcam and if not provided then you must outline minimum system requirements.  It is not recommended to allow personal computers as you will be unable to verify the technical specs. You should also outline if you will be giving a stipend for chair, desk, monitors, home internet, etc.
   • Be clear on the tools such as the cloud, internal ticketing systems and CRM that they will have access to while working from home so that they could do their job effectively.
2. Give people choice
   • Some employees see it as a huge benefit of working from home while others like the thought of going in to work.  Give people a choice so that you have groups of happy and energized employees motivated to provide great service.  If you are going completely remote, then hire for people that genuinely want to work from home.
3. Ensure support is readily available
   • Always use technology to show availability of support. You will have to look at additional technologies like task management and messaging platforms such as Slack, Trello, Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Team, to be able to communicate effectively in this new virtual environment.  In addition, your supervisors should have the ability to view and record agents’ screens for coaching and training purposes.
   • You should also schedule regular 1-1 video meetings as if they were in the office to discuss progress and review KPIs.  They should be clear on what their expectations are.
   • Include the remote team in team meetings to share information and have fun by having games, celebrating birthdays, recognizing achievement, etc. Establishing a company culture will be more difficult in the Zoom era if your remote workers are dispersed around the country.  So, you must find creative ways to establish a sense of belonging for all your employees.  Your rewards and recognition program must be solid.
   • Have a strong remote onboarding process and continually train your remote workers to keep the skills alive through eLearning programs and video training.  This will require establishing strong training protocols as you will be training virtual staff over time zones. You might even consider assigning new hires to a virtual ‘work buddy’ as part of your onboarding process.
4. Inspect what you expect
   • This involves real-time monitoring, quality recording and setting expectations.  You need to hold them accountable to productivity goals just as if they were in the office through real-time and historical reporting.  Make use of dashboards and other analytical tools for agents to visually view their performance on their screens.
   • Look at agent utilization to ensure that agents are being productive.  You should be aiming for 80% of talk time or waiting for a call and 20% not ready/disposition time.
   • If you have given your agents all the tools to be successful, then you must empower and trust that they will do a good job and not micro-manage.
5. Do not forget security
   • You will not have the onsite firewalls and other security measures that you have onsite, so you must be able to mitigate those risks by establishing security protocols.  The level of cyber security will depend on the type of sensitive information that you are handling but you should be minimizing all risks. 
   • Breaches are expensive, so protect your organization against it.  In fact, security was the biggest reason that organizations were not moving to remote work however the pandemic forced their hand and the majority are doing just fine.  Sometimes all it takes is taking that first step and things fall into place.
6. Have the right technology for remote work in place
   • If your operation is global, then work with a proven cloud provider that has data centers around the world to ensure voice and service quality.
   • Collaboration technology will be essential for effective communication. Quality recording and reporting software will be another consideration.
   • Source if necessary, a cloud SaaS dialer platform.  It should have inbound dialing, multi-outbound modes, and built-in dynamic scripting. 
   • An omnichannel platform is crucial to meet your customer expectations.  This should include enhanced self-serve through a well-designed IVR, AI driven reporting capabilities, natural language processing and chatbots.

Benefits of WFH

1. Remote workers will allow you to reduce your operating costs from a decrease in office space, facility upkeep costs, maintenance, utilities, decreased employee turnover and other overhead.  Possible lower wages based on region will be another benefit and your talent pool will dramatically increase especially with find hard to find skills like language, certifications, specific competencies, etc.
2. If you hire the right agents that see it as a perk to work from home (i.e. saving money on commuting costs, more family time, work from anywhere, flexibility on work schedule), then you will see that their productivity will actually increase because they are very motivated not to lose that perk.  You will have historical and current data, if you have a hybrid model, to compare it to. In general, studies have shown that productivity increases with flex work like WFH.
3. Remote agents will give you flexibility in the sense that there are no travel times in case you need people on the phones quickly. You could also set it up so that you have a flexible on-demand remote work force that would be available shift work to cover volume fluctuations.  This will allow you to increase your occupancy and decrease costs.  In addition, because you could hire people in different time zones, you could staff remote workers during their local regular work hours which is more attractive to employees.
4. Remote will allow flexibility in your business operation to become more efficient, if done right, and will broaden your talent pool exponentially.  There will also be remote people that might now consider your company if you are offering remote work. 

At the end of the day, you must make sure your people are productive and happy, your customer experience is top of mind and your bottom line is protected with the right strategic mix. The right policies and procedures and the correct technology for your WFH initiative will ensure that you embrace this digital transformation that is changing the workplace forever.