Outsourced Home Agents: Virtual Contact Center Hype Gets Reality Check (Strategic Focus)
Datamonitor, November 2009, Pages: 30
The use of home agents by contact center outsourcing vendors has increased rapidly in the last few years. Datamonitor examines whether the model has the potential to become widely adopted.
Scope
- This report examines the rise of the use of home agents in the contact center outsourcing industry, on a global basis.
- It includes estimates on the number of home agents deployed, and a forecast of the growth of this market to 2012
Highlights of this title
While the growth of the home agent market has been slow due to a fixation on labor arbitrage, home agent growth will continues to outstrip that of the contact center outsourcing market.
While there are significant cost benefits of using home agents, the savings cannot compete with its fellow remote model offshore outsourcing. In a survey of vendors, cost savings was seen as only the sixth most important benefit, while improved quality and flexibility came out on top.
Key reasons to purchase this title
- Gives an independent assessment of the potential of the home agent market, cutting through some of the hype that has been generated in media
- Provides results from a survey of outsourcing vendors that provide home agent services
- Contains an estimate of the size and growth of the home agent market
Overview
Catalyst
Summary
Key Messages
Home agent growth will outstrip facilities-based contact center outsourcing market growth
Home agent growth has been slower than expected due to fixation on labor arbitrage
The main benefits of home agent delivery are quality and flexibility not cost savings
Home Agents is not a one-size fits all solution
Security is the number one challenge for home agent vendors
MARKET OPPORTUNITY
Immaturity leaves enormous room for growth
Limited appeal outside US
Potential to take a significant part of US market...
...but will not become the dominant delivery model
Disappointing growth in last two years
False start for some vendors
Changes that have led to increased viability of home agent programs
Telecommunications
Tech savvy public
Rise of flexible working
War for talent
Remote delivery acceptance
Client demand
Benefits of using outsourced home agents
1st - Provides customer with higher quality of service
2nd - Ability to recruit better quality of employees
3rd - Allows greater flexibility for dealing with variation in customer demand
4th - Allows better retention of staff
5th - Easier to scale workforce
6th - Lower overall cost
=7th - Lower absenteeism
=7th - No real estate required
9th - Resilient service in face of external disruption
10th - Empowers employees
11th - Environmental benefits
12th - Allows client to keep work onshore
Challenges in using outsourced home agents
1st - Ensuring security is not breached (data protection/fraud)
2nd - Training and coaching home agents remotely
3rd - Technology issues (including call quality)
=4th - Minimizing home environment distractions
=4th - Fostering collaboration / team ethic
6th - Cost of compliance
7th - Remote monitoring / management of staff
8th - Recruiting appropriate candidates for home agent work
Services provided by home agents
Verticals supported by home agents
Cost savings using a home agent model
'Hub and spoke' versus 'fully remote' model
Hub and spoke
Benefits
Challenges
Fully remote
Benefits
Challenges
Payroll versus Contractor Model
Payroll model
Benefits
Challenges
Contractor model
Benefits
Challenges
Competitive Landscape
Contact center outsourcing companies with major home agent programs
West Corporation
Convergys
Teletech
Sitel
Stream Global Services
Sykes
Teleperformance
Pure-play home agent vendors
Alpine Access
Arise
Live Ops
Working Solutions
Go to Market
Recommendations
Vendors should not market home agent delivery as labor arbitrage
Hub and spoke approach cannot deliver full benefits of home agent delivery
Pure-play home agents will thrive in some sectors, but will not threaten major contact center companies
Investment in collaboration and communication tools
APPENDIX
Methodology
Further reading
Ask the analyst
Datamonitor consulting
Disclaimer
List of Tables
Table 1: Contact center outsourcing market model and forecast (2007- 2013)
Table 2: Outsourced home agents worldwide (2009-2012)
Table 3: Ranking of benefits in deploying home agents
Table 4: Ranking of challenges in deploying a home agent
List of Figures
Figure 1: Contact center outsourcing market model and forecast (2007- 2013)
Figure 2: Outsourced home agent positions worldwide (2009-2012)
Figure 3: Survey of end users on criteria for choosing contact center outsourcer
Figure 4: Has your company considered using outsourced home agents as an alterative to offshoring?
Figure 5: Broadband penetration in US households 2006-2014
Figure 6: Which party is the main driver for the take up of home agents?
Figure 7: Ownership of hardware used by outsourced home agents
Figure 8: Estimated split of home agents by service
Figure 9: Estimated breakdown of home agents by vertical market
Figure 10: Cost savings on home agent versus facilities-based agent
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