Remote work is slowly becoming the new normal these days. Many businesses have their teams working remotely from their homes, spread across different parts of the country or even the world. This trend exists across different sectors as well ranging from e-commerce to ITES. One of the sectors that remote work has been especially challenging is the BPO sector of India. With government easing norms that allow BPO companies to carry our remote work till 31st July, these companies need to quickly adapt to this new reality they exist in.

Managing the Remote Team

In a previous blog post, we had mentioned some tips on how remote teams could improve their productivity. Some of the key points that can be adapted to the customer support teams of BPO companies can be taken from that post too. Some of the ways that remote customer support teams can work in a better way are –

Video conferencing

There are several productive video conferencing tools out there that let remote teams have a meeting with each other to touch base on a daily basis. The same can be done for your remote customer support teams. You can have briefings with your agents at the beginning or end of each day to discuss the important updates from clients or to review the performance of the team. This keeps the feeling of normalcy and accountability going even during remote work.

Using Cloud-Based Tools

There needs to be a cloud-based reporting tool, whether proprietary or third-party through which the teams can share documents, day-end reports, and other important data. The security of this cloud-based tool should be kept a priority to avoid any cyber fraud or loss of important client data.

Regular Training and Feedback Sessions

Training and knowledge enhancement has to be continuous in the BPO sector, just like any other sector. Not only does this keep your team engaged but also develops there skills that will eventually help the company itself. These training sessions can be held with the entire team or certain individuals that need that specific training for their job roles.

Remote Support Team Challenges

There are various challenges that remote teams working around the world face. Some of these challenges are common for us all of who are working remotely, regardless of our industry. However, there are a few unique challenges that are faced primarily by the customer support teams of BPO companies as well as in-house customer support teams. Here are some of those challenges –

Increased Flow of Calls

During this lockdown that continues in different parts of the world, customers are all stuck at home with time on their hands. Depending on which product or service you are offering customer service for, this can lead to an influx of customers calls, more than you would get under normal circumstances.

Panic can also be the cause of the increased flow of calls of you deal with essential products or services like medicines or grocery supplies. In such times, it becomes even more important to provide excellent customer support. This is a tough ask though, especially when the teams are operating from their homes instead of the contact center.

With the use of proper technology and support from the management team, agents can handle this increased workload and pressure. The use of a dedicated CRM and cloud-based dialer system can make handling the call flow easier.

Lack of Guidance and Supervision

In call centers, in particular, there is constant supervision of agents to make sure they are performing their duties properly as well as there is an abundance of guidance for the agents from the supervisors. However, this same model of supervision and guidance cannot be translated over to the work from home model. At least not in the same manner.

In a situation, like we are all in now, what is needed from the agents is to be hyper-communicative with their supervisors. They need to let them know in real-time about what challenges they are facing. On the other hand, supervisors need to proactively check up on their teams to ensure they do not face any issues with their work or otherwise.

Reaching Customers on their Preferred Channels

Even before the world fell into the crisis that it is in now, customers were discovering new channels of communicating with brands. Each customer most probably has his or her preferred method of communication when it comes to interacting with customer support teams. In situations like the ones we are in, customers may not want to stay on long calls with you and may prefer to discuss their issues with you over your website’s chat.

Similarly, when customer support teams are working with less strength, it makes one agent handling as many customers as possible a sign of excelled productivity. This can be difficult to do over telephonic conversations but through chat support, one agent can handle multiple customers at the same time.

Another popular channel is email support. This can be used for less urgent matters where the customer wants a resolution to their issues but also wants documented proof of the conversation. Using multiple channels of communication while the team works remotely can actually help both their productivity as well as improve customer experience in these tough times.

Conclusion

The modern-day call center work may actually see more companies encouraging work from home, even after the lockdown and corona crisis is over. Because of that, there is a dire need for remote teams to get in shape for the long haul so that they can continue to work at the same level of excellence as before for their clients and their customers.