On-Premise Vs Remote Call Center Agents: The Pros and Cons

January 28, 2020

Pros & Cons of Remote Call Center Agents vs On-Premise

Editors Note: This article was originally published on September 11, 2018, and has been completely revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Organizations of all types, including medical, real estate, professional services, and technical support, rely on call centers and answering services to scale their operations.

Over the past several years, the telephone answering service industry has steadily grown by 6.7%, according to MarketResearch.com.

As the industry grows, call centers are looking for opportunities to scale their workforce.

More and more call centers are replacing on-premise agents with remote workers. While this approach helps call centers:

Attract candidates from across the country
Lower operational costs

Depending on your organization’s needs, there can be advantages and disadvantages of working with a virtual call center.

In this article, we will go step by step to breakdown each aspect of hiring a company that uses remote call center agents versus a company that employs on-premise agents.

The first step is to define the role of a call center agent.

What does a call center agent do

A call center agent is responsible for handling both incoming and outgoing calls for an organization. Depending on the needs of the call center, the agent may handle a variety of tasks, including:

Account Inquiries
Complaints
Technical Support Issues
Appointment Management
Message Taking

There are other names for call center agents, including:

Call Center Representative
Operator
Live Agent
Contact Center Agent
Customer Service Representative
Telephone Service Representative (TSR)

Explore Remote Agents

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 26 million Americans work at least part-time remotely. Between 2005 and 2017, the number of people telecommuting increased by 159% based on a special analysis of the U.S. Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics by Global Workplace Analytics.

With these numbers, it would be no surprise for contact centers to be part of the telecommuting wave.

Remote employees have pros and cons, and call center agents working from home are no different.

Hiring Remote Agents Has Advantages

There are advantages to hiring remote agents. But many of them accrue to call center companies and not their clients.

Hiring both part-time and full-time remote workers, for example, saves call center companies time and money. For one thing, they don’t have to spend extra on IT equipment. Remote workers use their equipment.

It should be noted that some of the top call centers using remote agents typically provide hardware and call center software to their agents.

Having less, IT cuts maintenance costs for call centers. All maintenance is handled by the remote workers themselves since it’s their equipment.

Here are some other advantages that accrue to call centers using remote workers:

Don’t have to pay them in off-seasons
Have more choices in terms of the labor pool
Smaller staffs mean smaller carbon footprint
Eliminates some staffing issues
Frees center from hassles and costs of managing a larger team
Helps meet the staffing requirements of niche industries
Helps save money on currency value

As you can see, these advantages accrue mainly to the call centers themselves—not to their clients.

Disadvantages of Remote Agents for Client Companies

Many of the advantages revolve around cutting costs. And while call centers may tell you that they pass cost savings on to their clients, that doesn’t always happen.

While using remote workers is more convenient and productive for call centers, this approach presents serious disadvantages for clients—disadvantages that you don’t face on-site agents.

Security

Among the most critical disadvantages of remote workers is security.

Offsite workers present a challenging security problem. With workers using off-site technology in their homes or co-working spaces using unsecured connections, you have to rely on workers to protect your sensitive information.

If your data is especially sensitive, for example, medical details, using call centers with remote workers is a risk, no matter how tight the call center’s security.

Culture

Team spirit and unity are key ingredients to create a successful culture for any organization. When a contact center uses home call center agents, it becomes more difficult to create a positive team spirit.

Some companies work hard to overcome this challenge of managing remote agents by implementing special programs and events. The reality is that physical proximity has clear advantages when developing a healthy company culture.

Training

Worker training is another critical disadvantage of using remote workers. Since these agents often work off-site, training can be a challenge for call centers.

It has to be done via video and over the phone. And while there are things call centers can do to boost training for remote workers, it is unclear if it is as effective as on-site training.

Poorly trained remote call center agents to reflect badly on your company—not the call center. More importantly, the call the remote agent is answering may be the only time a customer contacts your company.

Making a good first impression on first-time customer calls is imperative. It boosts brand loyalty and generates positive word of mouth advertising.

Here are some additional downsides to using remote call agents:

Hard to manage/monitor day to day activities of remote workers
No sense of belonging/poor attitude on the part of remote workers
Remote workers don’t always share the call center’s culture or values
Communication updates are often a challenge
Lack of team spirit and unity on the part of remote workers

Customer Satisfaction

Poor training and processes could result in lower customer satisfaction and possibly damage your brand, no matter the location of the agent.

If a call center addresses some of the issues listed above in this article, it could deliver a positive customer experience.

Because of the proximity of on-site call agents, there is an opportunity for better controls and training. Thus, giving the call center the potential to deliver a more consistent and positive customer experience.

Weigh The Trade-Offs for Your Company

As you weigh your options of what type of call center to hire, weigh these factors:

How will I be billed, per call, per minute, additional fees, etc?
Will the call center be managing sensitive data
Where is the call center located; on-shore or off-shore?
Does your company need to support 24 7?
Will the call center work in your software?

Here is a list of questions you can ask when interviewing a provider:

What steps do you take to protect data?
How do you train your staff?
What certifications do you have? Example. HIPAA
What percentage of agents are remote?
What industry-specific experience do you have?
Do they have experience managing your types of tasks?

Choosing the right call center or answering service is a big decision. Switching services is not always an easy task depending on your processes.

The best step you can take is to educate yourself on the company’s processes and practices.

Devin Bailey

I've been in the call center industry for over a decade. A big part of my job is educating businesses on the role telecommunications and outsourced task procedures can play for their business. Understanding their processes is critical to verify and implement the right services. When I am not in front of clients I manage the technological infrastructure in the call center.