Groundbreaking Research: Is the Call Center WFH Model Here to Stay After COVID-19?

    COEUR D'ALENE, ID, March 28, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The call center industry is starting to determine if their current work from home model is sustainable after COVID-19. SQM Group has gathered customer and employee experience benchmark research to determine if the work from home (WFH) model is here to stay post-COVID-19.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, most SQM call center clients decided to have their agent and support staff WFH. Furthermore, SQM's 2021 call center employee research shows that 87% of agents are currently working from home vs. 2019 when 19% of agents worked from home. As most call center practitioners know, it was a sudden and drastic shift to a WFH model. SQM's research examines the impact of pre/post-COVID-19 by assessing operational, employee, and customer experience data.

Most call center leaders now believe that the WFH model has been one of the great unintentional positive outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to higher employee and customer satisfaction with reduced operating costs, most call center leaders will continue with a WFH model.

SQM predicts that the call center industry's post-COVID-19 workforce model will be 60%-80% agents WFH, and 20%-40% agents work in a call center facility-based model. This agent workforce allocation forecast is based on the fact that agents prefer WFH, forcing call centers to have a WFH model to attract and retain agents, especially when considering the current competitive labor market.

The following are SQM Groups major findings for customer satisfaction (Csat), calls transferred, average handle time (AHT), agent turnover, and agents WFH from 2019 to 2021:

- Csat (stayed the same or improved since 2019): In 2020 this percentage was 75% and in 2021 it was 63% which suggests that the WFH model is conducive for achieving high customer service
- Calls Transferred: comparing 2021 to 2019, 38% went up, 6% stayed the same, and 55% went down
- AHT: in 2019 AHT was 545 seconds and in 2021 AHT was 589 seconds (an 8% increase)
- Agent Turnover: 35% in 2019 and 28% in 2021 (7% increase)
- Agents WFH: in 2019 19% of agent WFH and in 2021 87% of agents WFH (68% increase)

To learn more about SQM's FCR research and the software they use to track and report on these metrics, visit their website.

SQM Group specializes in customer service management (CSM) software for the call center industry. Since 1996, SQM has been the market leader for the call center industry for measuring, benchmarking, improving, and awarding First Call Resolution and customer service. At the heart of our services is our ​​​​​​mySQM™ FCR Insights CSM software explicitly built for call centers. Combining our standard and Personalized Intelligence™ customer experience software features is a powerful approach to assist agents, supervisors, managers, and analysts in measuring and improving their FCR and customer service.

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