‘Onsite’ vs. Virtual Call Center Outsourcing: Who Wins?

Oct. 19, 2011 – Onsite vs. Virtual: It’s a perennial debate among outsourced call centers.  Is it better for customer service specialists and B2B lead generation telemarketers to work onsite within the brick-and-mortar call center facility, or at home? 

An industry trade publication recently ran an article on a healthcare call centers that has achieved a “60/40 home versus office staffing mix,” and made the case that this is an optimal balance.

But I maintain that the benefits of the home/virtual staffing model – be it inbound customer service and order processing or outbound B2B lead generation and sales appointment setting – are primarily in favor of the outsourced call center, not the clients. 

The primary advantage is lower costs: Virtual call centers spend less money on office rental space, saving them money.  Sure, some of those savings are passed onto the client in the form of lower fees.  But do the savings justify the undeniable disadvantages of having employees work from home?  To wit:

•    Quality Assurance: Virtual call centers by necessity give ground on quality because there’s less oversight of virtual agents.  Even call centers that record all calls will suffer a time-lag between a virtual agent committing a mistake and a supervisor correcting the error.  And truth be told, mistakes are less likely to be detected, since virtual call centers, no matter how vigilant, can’t listen to every recorded call.
•    Client Visits: Having agents onsite means clients can visit the call center, get to know their teams and supervisors, and keep everyone up-to-date on program changes.  Under the virtual model you can set up conference calls, but the personal interaction isn’t there.
•    Teamwork and Guidance: Agents who have not fully absorbed lessons taught during client training have less access to helpful feedback from colleagues and managers.
•    Morale: People are social beings.  Most of us thrive on being with other people.  Virtual employees who work at home alone can become lonely, dispirited and less motivated.  We all know employee retention is a major call center industry challenge.  Onsite agents are happier and happier employees tend to remain working where they are.

For these reasons all of our customer service, order processing and B2B lead generation agents work from our facility in Beverly, MA. 

As CEO of OnBrand24, I believe there’s no substitute for me walking the aisles, listening to our inbound and outbound telemarketing agents handling calls and getting a sense for how our employees are performing.  If they worked from home, this would be much more difficult.

Our supervisors also listen to our agents and give them corrective help.  Agents having problems or success compare notes with their teammates.  Managers call impromptu team meetings to congratulate good performance or talk about program changes.

In short, our call center is an active, focused and highly accountable environment.  We feel we’re part of a team, and there’s nothing more motivating than helping a team succeed.

Sure, our costs are a little higher, but so is our quality.  And our results.

Mark Fichera, CEO
OnBrand24
Beverly, Massachusetts