Watching a recent readout on a test of home based resources was a fascinating and educational experience for me.

We've long said that someday, the traditional contact center will, in part, "go away" – not from a business process standpoint, since customer care is in the long term one of the few sustainable differentiators, but more from a physical footprint standpoint. With a focus on green laws, fuel consumption, commute time, and other factors, the use home-based resources can potentially have a significant impact on the quality of life of customer care resources, and the stewardship of the corporation.

So what has held back a more pervasive use of home-based resources versus some of the more visible "home only' models? Typically, we hear concerns about security, the impact of "the barking dog" phenomenon, and not being able to "see" the resources and coach them "over the shoulder."

One leading company decided to be more scientific about the effectiveness of home-based resources. Using a combination of both existing resources (given an opportunity to work at home) and hired resources, a multi-month study produced some interesting outcomes. Most impressive was the better performance in every measurable category for the home-based resources – including lower ASA's, better AHT's, higher rates of attendance, and perhaps most impressive, much lower rates of fraud. The only measurable downside was a small decrease in availability due to the use of local telco residential vs. hardened business services. But the difference was fairly small.

Many factors were shared in assessing the factors behind the better performance. Among them, a generally higher level of education (more college graduates), the elimination of commute time, and viewing work-at home as a bonus. Additionally, the company was easily able to extend its critical reporting model using thin client desktops and remote soft phone log in procedures.

I had a friend once who said "if the black box survives the crash, why not make the entire plane out of it?" Might you be able to improve your contact center performance (and the satisfaction of your resources) by leveraging more home-based resources? At $2.87 a gallon, and an average commute of 30 miles in the U.S., think of putting $136 dollars a month back in the pockets of your resources. That's like a $2,400 yearly raise, with a lot of other benefits for you and your business!

Got any "Aha Moments" you'd like to share?