Everything You Need To Know About Running an At-Home Call Center

00:00Hi guys, Tom Laird here. You've heard breakdown contact center technology on the podcast time and time again. Now it's time for me to help you with your challenges. As your contact center technology advisor through our new company, Expivia Digital, I can help you with things like CCaaS selection, any type of AI implementation and nice studio and integration services. It's the same honest advice you hear on the geek applied specifically to your operation. Visit ExpiviaDigital.com to get started, that's ExpiviaDigital.com. This is a weekly podcast with a focus on all things call center, we'll cover it all from This is an evolving industry, with a creative mind and ambitious people, like this guy. Not only is his passion call center operations, but he's our host. Interaction Marketing Group and the call center geek himself, Tom Laird. Welcome back everybody to another episode of advice from a call center geek the call center and contact center podcast. We try to give you some actionable items to take back your call center, improve the overall quality, improve your agent experience and hopefully improve, the, the customer experience as well. How's everybody doing?

01:20Happy Friday. As I record this, it is April 17th. It's actually snowing again here in in Erie, Pennsylvania, we got no snow during the winter. so it's hanging on now. So I hope everybody, everybody's doing well. I hope everybody's staying safe. It's again, it's a some crazy times that we're going through, but we'll try to help each other and kind of get through this stuff together, especially when it comes to kind of the new. [QA coverage remark omitted] So again, for those of you who do not know me by now, my name is Tom Laird. I am the CEO of Expivia Interaction Marketing. Expivia is a call center outs, outsourcer that is located as I just kind of said here in Erie, Pennsylvania......

02:09So a couple of quick things before I get into today what I want to talk about today too, just to kind of give you a kind of a heads up is I wanted to wait to do this episode until we kind of had everything the overall re-overarching way that we are now managing our at-home agents. So, not just to pick maybe one or two things, but to look at the whole deal from the computers that they're using or how they're taking them home, how we're managing, how are supervisors doing QA, how are they monitoring and managing during the day, a security aspect that we're looking at, some policies that we're talking through and have some of the reps sign. And just, you know, kind of the overall way that I think can be helpful for those of you who are new to this, kind of like we were, right, or are, but really have dug full on bore here to making sure that we're doing this the right way.

03:03And I think that we're trying to innovate a trying to innovate a little bit in. bit in the space too because like I said in a couple podcasts ago there you know there wasn't a lot of people giving you information on really how to do this it was very generic but it was I'm pretty detail oriented so I like to get really deep into the, and again try to give you actionable items not just theoretical items to take back that your center so before we get going on on that just a couple quick things. I just need a favor from everyone I appreciate all the reviews that have been been coming in I'd like to take this a little bit more to social media I'm just going to ask If any of you have found some value in this and if there's any way you can maybe throw a tweet out or throw a post on LinkedIn, just maybe talking about the geek a little bit.

03:44Maybe some of the things that we've done to help you or how maybe it can be a recommended podcast for some of your other call center friends. Just want to keep growing the audience. The audience has been crazy. We're over 30,000, almost 32,000 downloads of the entire podcast for about the year and almost a half now that we've been doing it. So really happy with that, but if there's any help that I could get get with that I would really appreciate it if you guys could do that for me. And then the only other thing, and I talked about this last podcast and I'm going to do this very quickly, is we do have another site or another value offering. It's called, it's the callcentergeekconsulting.com. So callcentergeekconsulting.com and for any of you guys that are looking to maybe your call centers. Maybe you're looking to buy a new piece of telephony software or move into the cloud from your premise-based solution.

04:31Let me know. Just kind of put your name down. There's a little form on that landing page and we can have a conversation. It's totally free for you. I do get paid, you know, and if we do refer any type of software, I'm fully transparent with that on the back end from the software providers, but I can, I think, guide you into some of the different platforms that are out there,. of even your negotiation team when it comes to it I kind-of know the players and know a lot of the games that they play. So again take that if you're looking for any any help I'm more than happy to do that and even if you just want to talk about a solution that maybe you're moving to more than more than open to having that that conversation anywhere I can help. Alright so let's talk about today's podcast and kind of get into this so you know as everybody's known you know everybody's really moved virtual everybody that is still operating really is in the cloud right now I'm sorry is in the cloud and is at home. It might not be totally in the cloud. There's some other ways you could do it, but most of you guys are at home. So the first thing I want to talk about is kind of our take home policy. So I know a lot of Rtial call centers that I already operating. Some of you are allowing your reps to use the computers and you just have, you know, certain criteria that they have to have certain internet connectivity. You know, for us, all this happened so fast, we actually have given the computers to our agents, our agents sign a pretty lengthy document that just basically says that it's only gonna be used it for work purposes, that they understand that they can only use it during work hours.

06:00They are the only ones that are allowed to use it, making sure that when they walk away that the system is is locked down, those types of things. And then obviously if they ever leave the company, just some policies with that, we actually just hold their check, right, until the computer comes back and then we kind of released that check. I haven't really had any issues with that, but just a little thing to kind of protect ourself, you know, from that standpoint. So basically we're still doing training right now here at Expivia. So, you know, we have a waiver from, the governor, to stay open as a business that can do that. We're dealing with a lot of 211, and emergency lines, and those types of things for coronavirus. So, you know we're doing some of that training here and, and then as soon as, you know, the training is done, the associates go home.

06:47When they go home, obviously they have a supervisor. And so supervisor management has taken a brand new, really a brand new role and a new way to operate. We have written so many different policies and procedures. And if you're not doing that, you need to, right, you need to come up with the new rule book Rbook, and how your team should be operating.

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07:34APIs that I- looking for. You know, kind of kind of after that that happens. Happens, the H. I'll do that through slack and then they'll just talk individually individual goals kind of again. Set the tone for the day. We set a 15 to 20 minute, I guess, guide to make sure that each supervisor is chatting with their Your team is a whole, at least every 15 minutes, right? So they need to say things like, hey, you're having a great day. or hey, service levels look really good. It doesn't have to be long, but it has to be another touch point, right? We're finding that multiple touch points are more important than just, you know, a couple longer ones. So they need. that the Supervisors there, they know that the, the Supervisors are monitoring. Having said that, QA staff is still doing QA, right?, They're still monitoring.

08:28They're still giving feedback. For us that filter through the Supervisors who gives the feedback. And the important tool now and really important tasks to make sure that the Supervisors, any type that there is, whether now, whether it's good, whether it's bad or bad. Really anything that anything that comes out from QA or the Supervisors monitoring, that feedback needs to happen because that's another touch point that we get to have. Really, nothing can happen. to have really the rep thinking about it. So monitoring takes a kind of a whole new level of importance when it comes to touching the at home agents and making sure that we're there. The other thing that we've seen is very important is that people can get I don't want to say lost. That's not the right word. They sometimes don't always stay on task as much at home. home. So we're finding that checklists are a huge piece of important policy procedure for us to utilize. So each each of the supervisors with their team have a specific checklist that we've created. Everything from their morning meeting that they make sure that they touched every single single associate that they've done a video with them that they've done a personal I am with them that they're monitoring a certain amount of monitoring reports and scoring, single day, and then the end of the shift, whether they have some payroll things to do or whatever those types of tasks that every organization has that's kind of unique to your organization.

09:55Make sure that stuff's in there so that they can, we make sure that as best we possibly can we're doing the same things that we were doing in house. Rjust doing them in kind of a, I guess a unique way. The other thing is, is security. And I just did a little video on LinkedIn on this the other day. But for us, before the associates take their computer home, we lock, excuse me, we lock the computer down, right? So no data, anything can be downloaded R- onto a flash drive or anything R- like that. We make sure that we have a, we use log me in, but it's a system that we can remote into the computer. If we ever have to remote in or maybe turn it off or do an update, or if the rep has an issue that they need help with, our help desk can kind of go in and remote in and kind of fix any type of issue that comes with that.

10:47Enterprise virus protection, obviously is still very important so we have virus protection that is on each of these computers as well. And then you talk about some other security things, right? So I've gone and talked about this a lot, but if you're have at-home agents, you're really not PCI compliant unless you're doing some extra things, right? So when I talk to call centers and like, hey, we have at-home agents, we're totally PCI compliant. And I ask, well, how you guys taking credit card information, why we just, you know, our systems are PCI compliant, our firewalls and, right, PCI, PCI goes way beyond that, right, and it goes beyond, you know, just the hardware, but it goes to your policies, the procedures, how each associate and rep is acting, and what are the proper things that they can do. So some of the things that we have done as well is we moved to basically an IVR system for collecting credit card information.

11:40So when a customer is on the phone with one of our reps, if we get to a point-and-call where credit card or ACH information needs to be taken, we have an API connectivity to our IVR, they press a button, customer goes to the the agent never hears it,. Or whoever's in the room with the agent, which may be even scar a little bit more than you probably would if you're in a brick and mortar and you're controlling cell phones and you're controlling all those types of Details, which you really can't control at home. You can tell them not to have. Have their cell phones but you really know you don't so make sure that you can do everything I guess programmatically and Leaving less up to the agent from a security standpoint than that. You, you possibly can I think that's that's really really important The other thing that we're seeing is taking a vital importance is is our dashboards, right?

12:52So your eyes and ears now went from being able to and down a row of call center agents to Really looking at dashboard. So seeing what agent states are, what is the occupancy, what percentage. What were the percentage of the time are they in an unavailable state. Right. Are they taking themselves out when they go into after call work. Is everybody going available every single time and just hanging out. Right. That was a little bit easier to see when you're in the call center because because you could see somebody just not working. Right. when you're working virtual. your dashboards become your lifline. So make sure that you're getting used to that. Make sure you have them beefed up. Make sure all the details that your supervisors are on those dash found this. So before maybe you were looking at quality scores and and surface level and handle time. Well you might need to add some productivity

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13:59become more important. So take a look at your KPIs, take a look at what you.re telling your supervisors to look a peek at them on LinkedIn you know things like using paper rock scissors and you know having some tournaments with that and you can still do some things with cards with sales and like playing cards and you know if the supervisors I guess kind of trustworthy so there's some some ideas that we have on there we're still kind of feeding that out it's weird. You know we had a game going on every single day in our brick and mortar and we're still trying to do that but it's been a little bit more difficult you know with the at-home deal. I think this is. It's really important now you know with the gamification and some of those different tools that the tools that are out there are really going to start to kind of blow up too. We're on inContact and we've been thinking about going with InView for a really long time. InView is kind of their advanced reporting and gamification platform. Took a demo with it today was really cool.

15:21So, thinking about doing some of that from advanced quality monitoring, using speech analytics more, and then really looking at some gamification and things that you can do with reps. Speaking of analytics, that goes hand in hand now with your monitoring. I think speech analytics takes on a whole different role and a whole new importance as well to make sure that you're doing everything you possibly can, can to keep your quality standards up while you're not being able to go and sit next to somebody and kind talk to them through it. The other thing is our monitoring tools are becoming, I guess, more useful. So with our platform, we can, to an agent in the customer, so we're just, you know, plain monitoring, we can do that, what I call the voice of God, right? It's basically when you just come into the headset and you talk to the agent while they're talking to the customer, the customer doesn't hear you to kind of guide them.

16:16And then third, we can barge in. So we

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16:48keep now, depending on the program, anything that is financial services, credit cards, any type of any type of financial administration, some credit unions and banks that we bork for they're going to come so type program, but we have a lot of other just general customer support without credit card information, giving more information, those type of programs that I think can can be. So we're right now working through setting up kind of a mission control kind of area where we're going I have a bunch of flat screen TVs and the supervisors monitoring the at home agents. I think we'll still work here from Expivia, but we'll have a real specific kind of a really cool area that they have all the tools in front of them to be able to manage from the technology side and keeping all that together I think is still important from a camaraderie standpoint..

17:51So that's, again, that's what I got for you guys this week. That's kind of how we've managed our new norm. I think the most important thing is the. The supervisors and how And you're seeing that too if you're struggling, that's probably one of the reasons is that you have weak management or weak supervisors. So make sure that you don't fix that, especially when we are allowed to come back, even if they spend a little bit of time in the home office and kind of go through some training with them to get them to where you need. But make That's what I got for you guys for this week. Again, just to kind of recap the couple things I said at the beginning. If there's any possible possible way you guys can shoot out some social social media, just maybe, I don't want to say thank you, but anything that's been really positive, or cool about the podcast that you like, so we can maybe get some other people to start to listen as well. I appreciate it. I will always take a take any reviews that you guys, guys, want to give.

19:03Appreciate that too, and for any of you guys that are looking, when this when the dust settles here to say, hey, we did not have the right call center to left any platform and maybe want some help all the way through kind of a cradle to grade deal so I can have one conversation and kind of talk with you or if you want me to be a kind of consultant for you, it's totally totally free to you to work with you, get the proper platform, I'll be there through the negotiating phase and kind of help you with that and I can even help you with an implementation and kind of we can talk some of those things through as well. Again, that's callcentergeekconsulting.com if any of you are interested in that. Stay safe guys, love hearing from you guys, check me out on LinkedIn, say hi on LinkedIn and I will talk to you guys next next week.