What Is The Importance Of The Human Side Of Remote Work?

After the pandemic, the workplace will always look different. Companies that would never have allowed employees to work from home have now discovered a level of productivity they didn’t know they had. This is the new frontier of the workplace, and with it comes new challenges. When all employees go virtual overnight, how do you stay on top of productivity?

Working outside of the office, it can be difficult to know if and when the team is working. Are they doing it right? Are they sticking to the schedule, logging in on time, or working overtime when not needed? Are customer inquiries addressed successfully across all channels?

The reality of this new virtual workplace offers many benefits for both the company and the employees. However, there are challenges that, if left unaddressed, can affect productivity and ultimately the customer experience (CX). Also, consider the technological aspect of working from home: cloud solutions and the implementation of new technologies help reduce the burden of inbound interactions with users.

What Is The Importance Of The Human Side Of Remote Work?

There is also the human side of remote work that requires a productive and cohesive environment. The change that led to the onset of lockdown due to COVID-19 overnight had CEOs working at their kitchen tables, vice presidents with children entering their “offices” in the middle of a videoconference; all experienced work from home life. This experiential jolt has humanized us all, giving us things to laugh about and experiences to share that have brought virtual teams together in a way never seen before.

As we settle into the new normal, contact center managers are challenged to manage the balance of productivity, virtual fatigue, and the ability to maintain a cohesive “team” that can meet customer demands with a quality service. This presents new hurdles on both the people and technology fronts and why workforce optimization is more important now than ever.

What Does It Take To Balance Customer Satisfaction With Agent Performance?

Engage, acknowledge, and motivate teams through performance management and self-service scheduling options. Many companies hesitate to go down the path of workforce optimization; however, this can be one of the areas that companies can influence and that not only enables the work of local agents, but also guarantees a superior and uninterrupted service for customers.

How?

1) Implementing AI self-service tools for real-time decision-making.

2) Supporting agents with prompts that offer better contextual and specific contact actions, increasing their ability to successfully resolve customer requests quickly creating lasting loyalty.

3) Improving visibility into team performance with real-time analytics and gamification. 

4) Offering access to team control panels so that agents can see the performance of the entire call center and their own performance against their peers, creating a level of connection that is essential to keep teams motivated.

In conclusion, the human side of this virtual environment is more important than ever: staying connected, motivated, empowered and trustworthy is key to agent performance, overall job satisfaction, and customer satisfaction. Let’s not forget, we are all in this together!