One in Three Call Centres in India to Switch Permanently to WFH

Almost one in three call centres (27%) in India will switch permanently to operate from home as a feasible long-term strategy, signalling the future of work in pandemic times, a new study said on Monday.

In the sense of the WFH plan, 53% of organisations have registered a decline in call centre agent productivity.

Internet access, telecommunication problems, functional limitations such as lack of privacy, space, noise cancellation, lack of desktops and laptops, accounts, were some of the challenges mentioned, according to the study by on-demand cloud communication and telephony solutions provider Ozonetel.

Mr. Chaitanya Chokkareddy, Chief Innovation Officer, Ozonetel said, “The pandemic has made contact centres look at the services that they provide and how they provide it”.

He added, “At the start of the lockdown in March, we promptly assisted many of our clients to move their agents to a work from home mode to help with business continuity plan very quickly”.

Nearly 71% of call centre agents referred to internet access as the main efficiency hurdles, 42% led by telecom problems.

The study found that while 61% of call centre agents were initially satisfied with structural jobs, their morale levels gradually fell.

Many businesses fail to understand the risk faced by commuting and working from the workplace. 55% of call centres encourage agents to opt for work from home, while 16% do not open offices and provide compulsory work from home.

Even if they do not permanently move to work from home or if they are still unsure, many call centres have seen the importance of having a robust work from home method.

Nearly 38% of call centres said they would create a comprehensive mechanism for working from home.

Mr. Chaitanya said, “We have analysed various metrics to determine and understand trends in customer experience as well as agent efficiency as call centres switch to work from home”.

The research was performed on 50 organisations during the lockdown of Covid-19 to expose the status of call centre agents.

The results showed that many of the efficiency problems faced by call centre agents can be solved when better hardware such as better handsets and headsets, laptops or desktops, direct telecom DID numbers and reimbursement of Wi-Fi fees are given.

---

Source: IBEF

---