"Going Green" in the Contact Center

"Going green" has increasingly become a hot topic of conversation.

At every level

The good news is that "going green" in the contact center is a win-win situation. New contact center technologies not only reduce environmental impact, but also simultaneously reduce costs and improve the customer experience. With virtual contact center technology, agents can work from home rather than in a traditional onsite contact center. Moving to a distributed model reduces carbon emissions, eases traffic congestion and lowers pollution as agents eliminate trips back and forth to a central location. The remote agent value proposition is a green initiative that delivers shareholder value while helping to reduce the depletion of natural resources and the negative impact on the environment.

In addition to green benefits, virtual call center technology lowers costs and improves the customer experience. Moving to a distributed model reduces the cost of maintaining brick and mortar centers and minimizes energy consumption. Organizations can also benefit from a more efficient scheduling system that takes advantage of the more flexible schedules that agents can work when not constrained to a physical location. Customer satisfaction is improved by enabling businesses to staff more effectively by increasing the pool of part-time agents and experts in different areas too far for a traditional commute. In addition, with a more flexible pool of agents, organizations can staff up quickly to manage spikes in traffic.

Home-based or remote agents is one of the fastest growing segments of the contact center industry today The home-based agent workforce in the U.S. is approximately 500,000 strong and growing. It is estimated that the average remote agent saves over 450 gallons of gas per year by eliminating their commute to and from the office. And with each reduction in daily commute by car, these agents are eliminating carbon emissions as well. Experts estimate that by eliminating the need for agents to commute to a centralized contact center, these agents are reducing carbon emissions by as much as 3 million tons per year. If each of the 15 million call center agents in the U.S. were to move to working from home, it would result in reductions of more than 90 million tons of carbon emissions per year.

The technology that enables businesses to utilize home-based agents is often called virtual contact center technology With this technology, agents can work efficiently from anywhere in the world with 360-degree views into customer interactions and real-time business intelligence. Virtual call center technology enables calls to be seamlessly routed over VOIP or to home phone lines, with corresponding customer data available to agents over the web on their home PCs with a secure connection to enterprise CRM information. Even though agents are working remotely virtual call center technology captures every interaction and provides a unified view of each customer, enhancing customer satisfaction and driving down support costs by enabling agents to resolve service requests in one call.

One situation that many organizations are struggling with is how to cost effectively supplement traditional brick and mortar contact centers with remote agents to address real-time staffing needs such as seasonal spikes in traffic, or to implement a disaster recovery system in case of an emergency Natural disasters such as hurricanes, blizzards and firestorms no longer need to bring a business to a grinding halt. With virtual contact center technology, agents can login remotely from home and start taking calls, or traffic can be diverted to another center.

Businesses can leverage hosted virtual contact center technology to get remote agents up and running quickly without a large up front capital expenditure. An affordable monthly service cost becomes an operational expenditure rather than a capital expenditure. Hosted contact center applications like Oracle's Siebel CRM Call Center On Demand provide businesses with a turn-key web-based solution. However there are many different options available for deploying the technology to meet different business needs and budget constraints - including on-premise and hybrid solutions.

On premise virtual contact center solutions such as Oracle Contact Center Anywhere enable organization to centralize technology reducing energy consumption and technology waste by better utilizing servers in a reduced number of locations. Instead of having large technology installations at every center, technology can be centralized in a single location and route calls to agents located at home or in multiple centers across the country or around the world. It also reduces technology waste by leveraging outdated hardware to deliver calls to agents connected to a PBX, while layering on next generation capabilities including network-based routing, multimedia queuing and remote supervision. By consolidating centers and technology Oracle Contact Center Anywhere significantly reduces power consumption to run both the technology and physical infrastructure required to operate traditional centers.

Solutions such as Oracle Contact Center Anywhere provide a method for deploying globally distributed remote agents in conjunction with existing call centers and enables businesses to tap into a workforce that extends beyond the local area, all without requiring agents to commute to work. Leveraging agents located around the world helps companies address staffing needs with follow the sun scheduling. This improves the customer experience by ensuring customer service agents are always available to help when needed, without long wait times.

Whether on premise or hosted, Oracle's virtual contact center solutions provide an effective means of supervising agents working from home. As companies move to a home-based model, there is a natural tendency to be concerned about maintaining quality. Remote supervision systems enable supervisors to monitor agents in real time. They can listen in on calls and coach agents via whisper coaching or chat. Supervisors can also join or take over a call if escalation is required. Multiple levels of color-coded alarms enable supervisors to view at a glance calls that have exceeded normal lengths and listen in to see if an agent is in trouble. They can also see current statistics for all agents in the workgroups they manage by media type.

One company that is utilizing virtual call center technologies is LiveXchange, based in Canada and servicing businesses across North America. LiveXchange is a new kind of Application Service Provider that provides both on-demand technology and people over a network. Their turnkey remote enablement platform offers a unique solution for businesses interested in moving to a distributed model. LiveXchange provides the remote switching, remote security and remote management to route calls to a completely home-based workforce. They also recruit customer service reps that are interested in becoming at-home agents and match them with companies looking for contract agents through their service, ContactXchange. Companies can create their own pool of contracted remote agents in order to seamlessly supplement their contact center's internal staff on an as-needed basis and gain significant improvements in overall efficiency and service quality.

In keeping with their slogan, "doing remote right", LiveXchange provides all the tools a company needs to expand their business with a remote workforce including online agent training and a security system with a bio-metric sign-in device to verify identity every time an agent logs on. LiveXchange leverages Oracle Contact Center Anywhere in order to provide intelligent routing and call control capabilities, IVR menus, and remote supervisory features. The complete multimedia hosted contact center solution enables companies to expand their lines of communication to include chat, email and web callback requests in addition to both inbound and outbound phone calls.

With over 20,000 remote contract agents and growing, LiveXchange is partnering with their customers to make a significant reduction in the amount of carbon emissions produced by their employees. And while making a positive impact on the environment is a welcome side effect, most of their customers initially employed remote agents for a different reason - to meet service level agreements. Spikes in call traffic throughout the day are difficult to address with in-house agents, who aren't willing to drive into the office for a short shift of less than 4 hours. But remote agents can sign-up for short shifts throughout the day that fit into their lifestyle, augmenting the workforce with additional agents to ensure calls are answered quickly and service levels are met. The flexibility to staff in intervals of as little as 30 minutes at a time enables businesses to optimize staffing levels and dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of their employees that otherwise would be in their cars commuting.

Reduced costs are also a pleasant byproduct of a flexible scheduling model. Businesses can leverage the the remote agent's flexible staffing schedule to streamline call center operations by eliminating the need over staff throughout the day to ensure spikes in volume can be met. The cost to keep centers open 24x7 can also be eliminated by utilizing homebased agents to staff night shifts. And in cases of bad weather when its difficult for in-house agents to get to work, remote agents can be brought on line quickly and start taking calls from home. Because contracted agents essentially work for themselves as independent businesses owners, there is also an increased sense of pride in one's work resulting in an improved customer experience.

"We're proud to be providing a service that enables businesses to make a positive impact on the environment by reducing daily commutes and resulting carbon emissions," said Brian Pritchard, CEO of LiveXchange. "We encourage businesses to consider the benefits of operating their own home-based workforce. And there isn't an easier, more efficient way of operating one than with LiveXchange."

Organizations around the globe will continue to struggle to "go green" as energy prices rise and concerns about carbon dioxide emissions continue to grow. The good news about "going green" in the contact center is that technology can often bridge traditional compromises while reducing costs. Enabling a home-based workforce provides staffing flexibility and extends the geography of available agents. It reduces the costs of maintaining traditional brick and mortar contact centers and the energy required to power them. And it reduces the amount of pollution created by daily commutes. "Going green" in the contact center is a win-win situation every organization should evaluate.

ABOUT ORACLE

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's leader in CRM with 5,000 CRM customers, 4.6 Million CRM users and 125 million self-service users. Our customers rely on Oracle customer relationship management, business intelligence, and customer data integration solutions to deliver dramatic improvements in identifying, acquiring, retaining, and serving their customers. These solutions are the product of more than $2 billion in direct and partner investment and reflect over 11 years of CRM industry leadership. Oracle's CRM products include Siebel, Siebel CRM On Demand, Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and Oracle Contact Center Anywhere. With an unmatched range of products, industry expertise, and deployment options, Oracle is the right choice for CRM. To learn more visit Oracle.com/CRM or CRMOnDemand.com.