Coronavirus and Contact Centers: Is It Time To Rethink Remote Working?

As you’re aware, the Coronavirus and how it’s affecting our lives is an ever-changing situation. It is a challenging time for all of us and many contact centers will be facing difficult decisions regarding the safety and well-being of their staff.

We’ve put together the following information on how your contact center platform can help you manage remote working for your team to maintain business continuity. Some useful links to government resources and advice are also listed.

Remote System and Application Access

Most cloud contact center solutions will be able to provide remote configuration with a web-based agent desktop and web-based system management and configuration. All your agents need to do is log on from home using a URL link and enter their unique username and password.

Call (Voice) Delivery and Quality

VoIP via home broadband and remote office locations can provide voice connectivity by simply gaining access to your corporate network or utilizing an agent to cloud VPN. An integrated softphone requires no installation on the agent desktop. Managers can utilize a SIP compatible softphone to connect to your solution in order to monitor agents remotely.

Security

We understand how important security is for remote working agents. Access to all applications must require a unique username and password and secure access via your corporate network or VPN. All traffic should be encrypted in transit using the latest Transport Layer Security (TLS).

Other areas to consider for supporting flexible work environments include:

• Enabling a more flexible workforce – this will encourage organizations to look at different pools of skills, perhaps those that are unable to travel to an office, live further away or have other commitments that mean they can’t conform to standard shift patterns.
• Motivating your remote workers – consider Gamification mechanics to continue a team spirit while working remotely. Competitions can be set based on your KPIs and motivating your contact center consultants to constantly improve on these targets.
• Maintaining agent quality – promoting quality across a distributed workforce is a concern for managers with remote workers, however speech analytics can monitor 100% of all communications and then e-coaching, perhaps in conjunction with Gamification, can ensure that the workforce remains highly skilled and quality assurance is maintained.
• For contact centers taking payments over the phone, securing Payment Card Data is a priority. With solutions like Secure Payment Assist, you can protect sensitive customer data by managing payments in a protected environment using touchtone and data masking to minimize the risk of fraud and theft and improve customer service.

Please find below some of the key official sources of guidance on the virus:

• Government response: US | UK | Australia
• Economic support and guidance for employers/employees: US | UK | Australia
• Updates from disease prevention authorities: World Health Organization | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention