The COVID-19 pandemic has forced 95% of contact centers around the world to work-from-home (“WFH”). While some businesses have been working with remote contact agents before the pandemic, many more were not and cannot seem to figure out how to do so seamlessly.
Are you just trying to figure out how your agents can work from home successfully? Are you looking to adopt work-from-home best practices to improve your on-premise center’s performance? Are you concerned with data security including PII, PCI, PHI and GDPR compliance?”
Well, whichever the case, you need an exceptional tool with a capable work-from-home module. This is because your business is going to face two significant problems during this pandemic time.
Key Takeaways
- The pandemic forced remote work fast. COVID-19 pushed about 95% of contact centers to work-from-home, often without the tools to manage security and productivity remotely.
- Remote work creates two core problems. Without the right system, it’s hard to confirm agents are working and easy to lose the team engagement that comes from being on-site together.
- Webcam monitoring covers environment and engagement. An agent-facing webcam watches surroundings and facial expressions, engages complacent or frustrated agents, and records events for compliance and QA.
- Screen capture supports investigation after the fact. Recording tied to keyboard and mouse activity flags suspicious behavior and stores playback for supervisors to review.
- Supervisors can still help in real time. Agents can virtually raise a hand, chat, or share screens with a supervisor, and escalate issues without putting the customer on hold.
What Problems Come With Agents Working From Home?
With practically every city on lockdown due to the pandemic, there really is no choice but for your agent to work from home. However, this will bring on some anxiety, especially if you’ve never worked with agents remotely. The question is, “How would you maintain security & productivity standards when agents work from home?”
Likely Difficulties As agents are working from home, you would be unable to ensure that they are putting in the necessary work. It would be difficult to patrol their actions, view their monitors, prohibit cellphone use, and more. Ineffective Physical Security Besides agents’ engagements with clients, their engagement with you and with each other is also essential. Working from home means there would be no daily kick-offs meetings, team camaraderie, new trainer-agent nurturing, and more.
What Solutions Exist for Agent Monitoring and Engagement?
There is now a system that bridges the gap between traditional premise-based centers and the urgent need for agents working remotely.
With this system, you get comprehensive monitoring to log agents’ activities, flag suspicious behavior, and information required to respond to incidents. You also get to engage with agents and motivate them to work hard while working from home.
What Does an Agent-Facing Webcam That Broadcasts Do?
- Monitors agents surrounding environment
- Watches facial expressions and engages complacent/frustrated agents
- Records events for compliance & QA
How Does Agent Screen Capture and Recording Work?
- Screen record upon keyboard/mouse activity
- Searches and flags video for suspicious activity
- Playback stored for investigation
What Real-Time Agent-to-Supervisor Aids Are Available?
- Virtual “hand-raising” for assistance
- Chat and screen share between agent and supervisor
- Escalation team concurrent to agent-customer engagement without putting customer on-hold
- Stores chats as internal notes for future reference
Contact Cloud Tech Gurus to learn more about this amazing solution and how it can improve your Work From Home contact center. Book a meeting with a Guru.
Related reading: Contact Center Quality Assurance Modernization: Full Interaction Auditing · Contact Center Workforce Management Software Guide
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did contact centers need new monitoring tools during the pandemic?
COVID-19 forced about 95% of contact centers to shift to work-from-home, and many lacked a way to maintain security and productivity standards for agents working outside the office, creating two core problems: oversight and engagement.
What are the main difficulties of managing remote contact center agents?
Without a dedicated system, it’s hard to confirm agents are actually working, patrol their actions, view their monitors, or restrict distractions like cellphone use. Remote work also removes daily kick-off meetings, team camaraderie, and new trainer-to-agent nurturing that happen naturally on-site.
How does agent-facing webcam monitoring work?
A broadcasting webcam monitors an agent’s surrounding environment and watches facial expressions, engaging agents who appear complacent or frustrated so issues get caught in the moment, and it records events to support both compliance requirements and quality assurance review.
What does screen capture and recording provide?
The system records agents’ screens based on keyboard and mouse activity, then searches and flags that video for suspicious behavior. Recordings are stored for playback, giving supervisors the ability to investigate incidents and verify what happened after the fact.
Can supervisors help agents in real time while working remotely?
Yes. Agents can virtually “raise a hand” for assistance, chat or share screens with a supervisor, and bring in an escalation team alongside the live customer conversation without putting the customer on hold, with those chats stored as internal notes for later reference.
