Should Your Customer Service Strategy Include Remote Workers?

In 2020, the way we do business is evolving more than it has ever done before. Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, the way that companies operate internally has changed to project-based work and, most importantly, the traditional workforce has transformed significantly.

The gig economy, which is made up of contingent workers such as contractors, freelancers, consultants and non-permanent workers, is a growing wave of skilled workers who want to work on a project-by-project basis often from remote locations.

The contingent workforce is growing, and will soon become an essential aspect of every successful company’s strategy - whether it be front line sales staff or backend IT experts. That’s why 83 percent of executives plan to increase their use of contingent, intermittent and consultant workers over the next three years, according to the Workforce 2020 survey from Oxford Economics.

In fact, an Intuit 2020 report estimates that roughly 25-30 percent of the US workforce is currently contingent. It is believed, however, that this figure could well exceed 40 percent by the end of 2020.

So, with that in mind, what benefits will remote workers bring to your organization? Advantage Communications has listed just a few of the key ones here:

1 - Filling skills gaps

Today’s businesses, no matter the industry, are facing critical staff shortages that make finding highly-skilled workers incredibly hard. Thankfully, the contingent workforce is made up of expert workers that can give your organization access to the specialized skills it needs.

2 - Increased flexibility

Market conditions change rapidly, and so does the growth of your company. Whether your business is in need of a new expert to meet customer expectations or you have suddenly hit a patch of business growth, the contingent workforce empowers you to easily and instantly scale your workforce up or down depending on your company’s immediate needs.

3 - Happier employees

Remote workers take up the contract with your business not because they need to, but because they want to work with your company. That means remote workers are happy in their position and passionate about your brand. This results in directly improved KPIs, since happier employees are directly linked to an improved customer experience.

Can you use remote workers in your customer service strategy?

If you run a small, medium or even large organization, you’ll know just how complex customer service is. Successful customer service relies on having the right resources, implementing state-of-the-art technologies, the ability to scale up or down depending on your company’s needs and having access to customer experience expertise.

Unfortunately, most companies simply can’t afford to invest in all of this. That’s why many organizations turn to nearshore call center outsourcing. The best nearshore call centers are now accessing the benefits of contingent workers through stay-at-home agents.

Advantage Communications, for example, has launched The Home Advantage program. This new offering allows you to access a virtual network of customer service representatives working from home, with more than 50,000 agents and over 23 languages spoken.

Not only that, but these remote workers also have access to the Advantage Communications line of world-class technologies, which make us the leading outsourced call center when it comes to customer experience strategies.

Are you interested in learning more about our customer experience strategies and The Home Advantage program that leverages the benefits of remote workers? Contact our team of experts today. We would love to answer your questions.