Ever since call centres are introduced in the market to handle customers inquires via phone. It is efficient and effective in many ways. For your information, call centres are basically a department in the company where several call agents and management are allocated to handle incoming/outgoing telephone calls and emails. Common examples are emergency hotlines to contact police, civil defense (in case of fire), and hospital for emergency medical treatments. Call centres can also be catered for commercial purposes such as telemarketing or customer service department. Employees working in the call centres environment will fulfill their duties in a central location from their office and works on rotating shift most days of the week or 24/7 which depends on the company’s requirements.
In virtual call centres, there are options for call agents to work at home instead of traveling to office as the phones lines are no longer installed in a single location. Using the virtual call centre software, incoming phone calls can be routed to almost any locations around the world. This setup is beneficial to business that has client base on the global base and also cost less as compared to the on-premise call centre in terms of infrastructure and manpower in the long run.
From the employee’s perspective, working in the virtual call centres are definitely more convenient as companies allow their call centre staff to work from home. This will eliminate any long commute times and also helps to prevent the spread of illness such as flu or cough outbreak. Employees can save transportation money and it is much more pleasant to work from home as compared to an office environment.
Business also benefits from using virtual call center software as it helps to reduce the costs of infrastructure setup, buying servers, paying rent for the additional space for call centers and other custodial expenses. The management can also manage their call agent’s work performance, service level report and other operational needs using software programs provided by the virtual call centre. Since the virtual call center software are cloud-based, any IT maintenance for the servers and programs will be maintained by the service provider instead of hiring an in-house engineer to look after the servers which save money in terms of manpower cost.
Most importantly, statistics show that virtual call centers are the future of call centres as customers are generally more cheerful, empowered and satisfied with call agents that work in the virtual call centre which provides around the clock service, better customer-friendly technology of the virtual call centre that is suitable for all sorts of business around the world.