American businesses are struggling with retaining experienced customer service agents as demands and contacts increase along with higher expectations in the customer-driven economy. At the same time, the marching orders to the contact centers are to keep costs down, reduce call time, increase satisfaction rates and up-sell, that is, get customers to buy more profitable products and services.
The offshore solution to customer service does not always work, especially for high-priority, high-touch customers. Among other problems, cultural differences, dissimilar lifestyle and language nuances can irritate the customer and threaten branding.

Another solution — telecommuting customer service agents — is being increasingly adopted, and technological advances through Web services architecture, telephony, multimedia, high-speed connectivity and myriad of other capabilities have literally brought the concept up to speed.

Companies spend up to $15,000 to add a new call center agent to their staff, with an average retention of six months and a 40 percent annual churn. In comparison, a virtual-contact center using telecommuting customer service agents can provide high quality personnel with an annual turnover rate at or below 10 percent, Elio Evangelista, senior analyst for research and consulting firm Cutting Edge Information, told CRM Buyer.

“Three percent of the U.S. population works in call centers,” Evangelista notes. As a result, competition for the best and seasoned customer service representatives (CSR) is fierce. “Telecommuting is becoming more of an option as technology is improved. You can create a virtual call center. With telecommute you can recruit at the national level,” Evangelista pointed out.