Many businesses today are looking closely at how to create an AT HOME worker program. This is particularly true in the call center and services industry. There are many advantages for the employer, the employee and the local community. In fact, it is the ability of NICE CXone to facilitate the AT HOME worker that attracts many customers to NICE CXone. Tools such as inTouch, allow supervisors to view all agents, at homes and offices that may be scattered across the country. Viewing and managing these agents as a single entity is very nice. My discussion focus is actually on how to distinctly identify those agents for performance and trouble shooting purposes. AT HOME agents will be more likely to have a specific set of problems, and knowing who the AT HOME agents are, can help you in your trouble shooting efforts. Common issues for the AT HOME agents will include;
- Training – it can be harder to train these people and enforce policies and procedures
- Quality of data and telephone services for residential users tends to be less or different from business telecommunication services.
- Distractions and supervision issues
- Availability of technical expertise at the desktop level.
These issues should not deter you from using AT HOME agents, they simply need to be recognized and accounted for in your daily business operation. May I recommend the following ways to identify an AT HOME agent within the NICE CXone system (besides just personally knowing who is who).
1) Create an AT HOME skill. You can assign skills to agents for tracking purposes as well as for call routing. Doing this will allow you to use inTouch to view just AT HOME agents.
2) There is a new set of CUSTOM fields when setting up agents in Webmanager. Next time you are in Webmanager, go to the Workforce/Agent section and select an agent. Open the PROPERTIES tab and you will find a new set of CUSTOM fields. Those fields can contain any type of information, and if you contact your CSM, you can also arrange to have the name of the CUSTOM field changed as well.
AT HOME agents are powerful additions to the workforce and NICE CXone can help you implement an AT HOME agent program.
