Work from home is a hot topic, whether seen as an opportunity or an obstacle. Many businesses are required to have some employees work from home, either because of local health regulations or because of an internal policy of employee safety.
When customer service agents work from home, things get particularly tricky. Service reps never work in isolation, as it is their job definition to be constantly communicating – with customers and colleagues. Below, we'll examine agent communications more closely and suggest methods to ensure they remain effective.
It is the primary duty of service reps to interact to customers. These interactions take place over different channels, such as phone calls, chat and messaging, video, and social media. Each of these channels presents its unique challenges:
You might think this is easier than talking to customers, but many employers cite internal communications and collaboration as the biggest downside of working from home. Here too, there are different types of communication, each presenting other challenges.
We can think of a solution to each of the specific difficulties discussed – either a technology or a method. However, the big challenge is making all of these solutions work together. In other words, we are talking about workflow.
According to a recent article in CustomerThink magazine, "More importantly in remote and future work-from-home scenarios, digital transformation and workflow mean that regardless of where a customer service agent (or any other employee is, for that matter), work can continue."
This is where Customer-Centric BPM (business process management) takes the driver's seat. By managing the workflow of handling the customer's case and customer-agent communications, such a BPM solution can provide the following benefits:
A perfect solution enabling customer service agents' work from home, includes:
Q-nomy offers all of the above, deliverable as a secure cloud service. Contact us to learn more.