There are now over 44 million people working from home and
away from an office. With this change, work from home teleservices
have revolutionized the telecommunication industry. There are those
who claim that work from home teleservices have greater and clearer
advantages than traditional bricks-and-mortar call centers, because
work from home teleservices offer higher and more consistent service
levels and a larger pool of agent skills and talent.
In addition, companies who run distributed networks of remote and
work from home teleservice agents claim that the overall cost per
agent is much lower than that of a call center.
Work
from Home Teleservices – Survey Talks
In a recent
survey conducted in January 2002 by CallCenterCareers.com, about 504
call center professionals were asked to determine their call center
experience. 30.4% stated that their call centers allowed work from
home teleservices and remote networks and said they were successful
in this venture. Only 7.1% said that work from home teleservices had
poor results for the call center.
Out of the 504 call center
professionals, 9.1% stated their call center was going to allow work
at home teleservices for their agents within the next year. However,
53.4% voted said their call center wouldn’t allow work from home
teleservice anytime soon.
“While potential benefits of
telecommuting have always been compelling, many initiatives launched
in the early to mid 1990s did not get much beyond the trial stage,”
according to Brad Cleveland, President of Incoming Calls Management
Institute (ICMI).
He further added, “In recent years, the success rate has been
much higher, which can be attributed to better planning before
launch, more disciplined pilot studies, robust security
capabilities, lower network costs, and more ‘how to’ information.
This is an area that deserves consideration.”
Work
from Home Teleservices Job Requirements
A work from
home teleservices job requires little to no previous experience. At
most, the highest educational attainment would be high school level
but this category is negotiable. What you’ll most likely need in
order to do well at a work from home teleservices job is a very
clear speaking voice, good communication skills and a quiet work
environment.
A clear speaking voice means a voice
that carries well on the phone. Work from home teleservices
will probably be done through telephone wires so you’ll need to be
heard and understood clearly by the person on the other
line.
Having good communication skills is
closely related to voice, although communication which means being
able to clearly express your ideas to the other person. You need
both of these skills in order to do well in a work from home
teleservices job.
As for the work environment, it’s obviously
a must for anyone who spends his or her time on the phone to keep
the background as quiet as possible in order to prevent any
unnecessary noise from carrying over the line. Noise can be
distracting for you and the person you’re speaking to.
