Home Based Agents: Expanding your Talent Pool and Realizing Cost Savings

Hilton has been raising the bar by providing outstanding customer service with an at home call center representative t program comprising 40 percent of call center representatives. Hilton has saved money with at home versus in house while getting quality call center representative staff. Michelle Rowan, former director of Customer Contacts and Performance Management, talks about how Hilton successfully increased voice of the customer (VOC) and the company’s quality scores. Rowan is passionate about reaping the benefits of an expanded talent pool, valuable for the company, the employee, and for the customer. With decreasing budgets and off-shoring tax law changes, domestic work-at-home programs for call centers are growing exponentially.A work at home strategy, according to Rowan, increases quality, and cuts costs. Homesourcing is making waves in the call center world through improved call center technology as well. The good news includes the major technology improvements enable straight-forward transition to the at-home call center model, reduced capital investment, and reduced labor costs. Hilton successfully reduced recruiting costs dramatically by creating an employee referral program. While the concept of at-home agents has been around for several years, interest and utilization have grown exponentially because of the current economic climate and associated cost pressures. Also, President Obama’s initiatives around removal of tax breaks for offshoring U.S. jobs (which will invariably drive up out-sourcing costs). In this podcast Rowan will also dive in the customer focused virtual training program headed up by the Hilton and discuss how homesourcing greatly reduced Hilton’s overhead costs within the call center.