Studie - Outsourced Home Agents: Virtual Contact Center Hype Gets Reality Check (Strategic Focus)

Introduction

The use of home agents by contact center outsourcing vendors has increased rapidly in the last few years. Datamonitor examines whether the model has the potential to become widely adopted.

Scope

*This report examines the rise of the use of home agents in the contact center outsourcing industry, on a global basis.

*It includes estimates on the number of home agents deployed, and a forecast of the growth of this market to 2012

Highlights

While the growth of the home agent market has been slow due to a fixation on labor arbitrage, home agent growth will continues to outstrip that of the contact center outsourcing market.

While there are significant cost benefits of using home agents, the savings cannot compete with its fellow remote model offshore outsourcing. In a survey of vendors, cost savings was seen as only the sixth most important benefit, while improved quality and flexibility came out on top.

Reasons to Purchase

*Gives an independent assessment of the potential of the home agent market, cutting through some of the hype that has been generated in media

*Provides results from a survey of outsourcing vendors that provide home agent services

*Contains an estimate of the size and growth of the home agent market

Overview 1

Catalyst 1

Summary 1

Key Messages 2

Home agent growth will outstrip facilities-based contact center outsourcing market growth 2

Home agent growth has been slower than expected due to fixation on labor arbitrage 2

The main benefits of home agent delivery are quality and flexibility not cost savings 2

Home Agents is not a one-size fits all solution 2

Security is the number one challenge for home agent vendors 2

Table of Contents 3

Table of figures 4

Table of tables 4

MARKET OPPORTUNITY 5

Immaturity leaves enormous room for growth 5

Limited appeal outside US 6

Potential to take a significant part of US market... 7

...but will not become the dominant delivery model 7

Disappointing growth in last two years 8

False start for some vendors 10

Changes that have led to increased viability of home agent programs 10

Telecommunications 10

Tech savvy public 11

Rise of flexible working 11

War for talent 11

Remote delivery acceptance 12

Client demand 12

Benefits of using outsourced home agents 12

1st - Provides customer with higher quality of service 13

2nd - Ability to recruit better quality of employees 13

3rd - Allows greater flexibility for dealing with variation in customer demand 14

4th - Allows better retention of staff 14

5th - Easier to scale workforce 14

6th - Lower overall cost 14

=7th - Lower absenteeism 14

=7th - No real estate required 15

9th - Resilient service in face of external disruption 15

10th - Empowers employees 15

11th - Environmental benefits 15

12th - Allows client to keep work onshore 15

Challenges in using outsourced home agents 16

1st - Ensuring security is not breached (data protection/fraud) 16

2nd - Training and coaching home agents remotely 18

3rd - Technology issues (including call quality) 18

=4th - Minimizing home environment distractions 18

=4th - Fostering collaboration / team ethic 19

6th - Cost of compliance 19

7th - Remote monitoring / management of staff 19

8th - Recruiting appropriate candidates for home agent work 19

Services provided by home agents 19

Verticals supported by home agents 20

Cost savings using a home agent model 21

'Hub and spoke' versus 'fully remote' model 22

Hub and spoke 22

Benefits 22

Challenges 22

Fully remote 23

Benefits 23

Challenges 23

Payroll versus Contractor Model 23

Payroll model 23

Benefits 23

Challenges 23

Contractor model 24

Benefits 24

Challenges 24

Competitive Landscape 25

Contact center outsourcing companies with major home agent programs 25

West Corporation 25

Convergys 25

Teletech 25

Sitel 25

Stream Global Services 26

Sykes 26

Teleperformance 26

Pure-play home agent vendors 26

Alpine Access 26

Arise 26

Live Ops 27

Working Solutions 27

Go to Market 28

Recommendations 28

Vendors should not market home agent delivery as labor arbitrage 28

Hub and spoke approach cannot deliver full benefits of home agent delivery 28

Pure-play home agents will thrive in some sectors, but will not threaten major contact center companies 28

Investment in collaboration and communication tools 29

APPENDIX 30

Methodology 30

Further reading 30

Ask the analyst 30

Datamonitor consulting 30

Disclaimer 30

List of Tables

Table 1: Contact center outsourcing market model and forecast (2007- 2013) 5

Table 2: Outsourced home agents worldwide (2009-2012) 6

Table 3: Ranking of benefits in deploying home agents 13

Table 4: Ranking of challenges in deploying a home agent 16

List of Figures

Figure 1: Contact center outsourcing market model and forecast (2007- 2013) 5

Figure 2: Outsourced home agent positions worldwide (2009-2012) 6

Figure 3: Survey of end users on criteria for choosing contact center outsourcer 9

Figure 4: Has your company considered using outsourced home agents as an alterative to offshoring? 10

Figure 5: Broadband penetration in US households 2006-2014 11

Figure 6: Which party is the main driver for the take up of home agents? 12

Figure 7: Ownership of hardware used by outsourced home agents 17

Figure 8: Estimated split of home agents by service 20

Figure 9: Estimated breakdown of home agents by vertical market 21

Figure 10: Cost savings on home agent versus facilities-based agent 21

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