How to Start a Remote Contact Center

How to Start a Remote Contact Center

Analysts predict that remote contact centers will represent 53 percent of the contact center workforce by the end of 2023. Remote work is not only appealing to today’s workforce, but it also provides businesses with the opportunity to save on overhead costs like rent, utilities, and property taxes.

Learn more about remote contact centers, as well as how to start your own virtual call center to benefit your business and customers.

What is a remote contact center?

A remote contact center offers your customers many of the same services as physical contact center office locations. The key difference with a remote contact center is that your agents are instead distributed throughout a variety of places, including personal homes and co-working spaces.

Discover more about what contact centers are, as well as some advantages and disadvantages to operating a virtual call center. Then, read on to find out what your remote agents will need to effectively overcome customer challenges as a team.

Consider these must-have features for a remote contact center

A remote contact center is defined by the platform it runs on—but not all software will work for your organization. In fact, there are metrics and KPIs your call center organization should be tracking that can be affected by the software you choose to implement. Here are some criteria to keep in mind that are specific to starting a virtual call center:

User-friendly design

Clunky or complicated software user interfaces can slow down each step of the customer service experience—culminating in hours of wasted time throughout the remote contact center. That’s why before starting your own virtual call center, make sure your software vetting process satisfies key questions like:

• Is the user interface intuitive?
• What’s the learning curve?
• Is it scalable?
• How flexible is it across various browsers and devices?

Remember: the software you select should meet you where you are, while providing a framework that’s growth-friendly.

Security features

Another major factor to consider when starting up your virtual call center is the secure management and storage of all customer interactions and personally identifiable information (PII). The geographic diversity of a remote workforce can mean employees are spread across local, national, and international jurisdictions that all govern how customer PII gets used and stored.

In the event of a security breach, the impacted company risks suffering a massive financial blow—even if it used third-party remote contact center software. For this reason and many more, it’s vital to thoroughly vet your provider’s security practices and offerings.

Cloud-based architecture

Low hardware overhead is one of the greatest benefits of operating a cloud-based remote contact center. Outdated on-site centers required miles of cable and large server rooms staffed by IT associates to support the call center system. But with Voice Over Internet Protocol provided by the cloud, employees can more conveniently make calls from anywhere in the world via a desktop browser interface or smartphone app.

Seamless routing

Many call center agents have had bad experiences when they were forced to route from department to department to pinpoint the contact center employee that can address their specific need. While their dedication is commendable, at the end of the day this leaves the customer with a memorably awful experience with your brand.

No matter how their interaction begins—whether via email, tweet, or call—intelligent routing systems can leverage unified routing logic and prioritization to seamlessly connect your customers to the agent that’s best equipped to solve their challenges. Keep this fact top of mind when thinking about how to start a virtual call center business.

Robust self-service options

With intelligent routing, a flexible and customizable self-service menu can optimize connecting customers to the right person in your remote contact center—especially for brands offering a broad and complex array of goods or services.

Intelligent self-service systems efficiently guide customers to the correct answers while simultaneously capturing and storing their responses. Doing so enables any employee working with that customer in the future to leverage their communication history to more effectively resolve issues as they emerge.

Full programmability

Excellent software solutions are customizable to your workflow, while subpar ones require your business to work around the software. Look for a remote contact center solution that both suits your needs and can be tailored to address new requirements as they emerge.

Create new processes and channels of communication

Even with the best system in place for launching a remote contact center, trust, communication, and flexibility is necessary to establish a remote contact center that offers excellent customer experiences. In a survey of roughly 800 businesses, 94 percent of employers reported that workers maintained or improved productivity while working remotely. But in order to achieve these high levels of success, businesses needed new processes and methods of communication to facilitate management and staff collaboration.

Though workers may be physically separated, business leaders can still create a sense of community and support. Managers can offer flexible schedules that help employees maintain productivity and quality of service, while hosting events like virtual coffee breaks and happy hours to create a space for those employees who thrive on relationship building.

When you start a virtual call center, it’s vital for individuals in supervisory roles to communicate clear expectations to workers as they adjust to the new work environment. Email marketing platforms take on new importance in facilitating real-time conversations, while customer relationship management systems and web chat integrations ensure equal access to pertinent information. Setting staff up for success with the tools they need to do their jobs and stay productive fosters trust and creates a flexible workspace equipped to handle any issue as it arises.

Aim for omnichannel contact center service

Breaking away from the traditional siloed call center model to a cloud-based remote contact center system can help elevate your customer service quality across the board.

Multichannel systems enable your contact center employees to better connect with your customers via mobile, web, chat, or email using information stored throughout the customer’s entire communications journey. With more communication options, your agents deliver better service that’s targeted and optimized—all without requiring the customer to repeat themselves. The seamless transfer of conversation between tweet, text, email, and phone also provides individuals the means to communicate in the way that best suits them.

With the prioritization of a system that offers a full suite of supervisory tools, you can do your best work monitoring your team from a more hands-off position. A great supervisor user interface tracks productivity and customer interactions, so you can intelligently infer a complete picture of the customer experience your entrusted employees are delivering.

Take the first step and start your remote contact center

Companies across the globe have already adapted to a larger remote workforce. The tools to support this cultural shift have been in development for over a decade and have seen significant improvements necessitated by the mass influx of remote workers since the start of the pandemic.

To that end, establishing a remote contact center can be a feasible next step for your customer service organization to make you more competitive in this new workforce landscape.

Learn how to start a remote call center with Twilio Flex, a leading solution that elevates the omnichannel customer experience.