Unified Communication and Microshifts
The landscape in call centers has been shifting for a while now, with a large number of ideas applied. This post focuses on some of the more innovative and effective ones for the current landscape, and how to enable these ideas in the context of the corporate communications and information structure.
There has been a lot of work done to move the work, either off shore, or to lower cost centers in the US, mainly Southwest or Southeast. We are also seeing some work move back.
Some of the more innovative work has involved home workers and Microshifts. This utilizes a largely untapped pool of folks either in retirement or in Mid career child care break, who are perfectly willing and qualified for this work, but need a flexible schedule. Map this against the ebb and flow of call center peaks and valleys, and you have a pretty good match, with the added benefit of eliminating a commute requirement.
This is where Unified Communication comes in. Utilizing either standard telco or VOIP infrastructure, and ties between the desktop data work, the phone work, and the ability to now drive Voice, Data, and Chat over a high speed line into a home, you have the ability to enable a vastly more flexible work force which is good in communication, and needs scheduling flexibility.
Companies like Jet Blue use this model today for Customer service agents. I expect this model to get much more traction over time.
