LiveVox Study Finds That Many Contact Center Leaders Do Not Want to Keep Agents Remote Despite Recent Business Benefits
July 27 2021 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
2nd edition of the study finds that technology,
training, and building an agent community are keys to a successful
hybrid work model for the future
LiveVox Holdings, Inc. (“LiveVox” or the “Company”), a leading
cloud-based provider of customer service and digital engagement
tools, has released the second edition of its LiveVox Work from
Home Report, entitled, “The Remote Tipping Point.” Overall, this
year’s report found that there is a push by management to return to
contact centers, but capabilities now found in the cloud and
advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence (“AI”), have
shown that a hybrid model can accommodate remote agents and improve
contact center productivity. For this report, LiveVox interviewed
over 300 contact center executives across North America, in more
than five industries, to understand the challenges and successes
they experienced while working from home. All participants in the
survey directly oversaw customer service and contact center
operations for their organizations.
As the title of the report suggests, the contact center industry
has reached a tipping point when it comes to the future of work.
While some organizations have decided to remain remote indefinitely
others are leaning toward a full return to the contact center for
agents, in spite of demonstrated remote agent performance gains.
For example, compared to last year, there was a 50% reduction in
the number of contact center decision makers planning to keep at
least a quarter of their workforce remote. All organizations can be
aided by the many innovative workforce optimization and AI
solutions, like LiveVox’s AI-enabled chatbots and speech analytics
that can enhance productivity, foster a sense of agent community,
and also help mitigate security and compliance risks.
“The global shutdown showed us that a remote workforce is a
viable option for many industries and, in the case of contact
centers, can improve the employee experience. However, a 100
percent remote future isn’t a viable option for every
organization,” said LiveVox CEO Louis Summe. “Technology, however,
is the answer to ensure the positives we’ve seen from work from
home continue in the future. Our report showed us that the
organizations who embraced technology and were prepared with a
cloud infrastructure performed better during the shutdown.”
Key takeaways from the report include:
- 75% of respondents experienced increased contact volumes on all
channels, with 20% reporting a dramatic increase of over 50%
compared to last year
- 30% of contact center decision-makers still plan to keep a
percentage of their workforce remote, down from 60% last year
- 49% felt that the biggest benefit to working from home has been
the ability to provide agents greater flexibility
- 48% surveyed saw no change to agent attrition as a result of
the shift, while 30% experienced a combination of high agent
turnover, layoffs, or hiring freezes
- The most commonly adopted new communications channel during
work from home was Webchat (24% of respondents adopted the
technology)
- 36% of survey participants reported a positive relationship
between working remotely and improved speed to answer for
agents.
“Beyond the technology implications, our report showed that
contact centers should focus on improving coaching and monitoring
tools to ensure that both agents and their managers are set up for
success, regardless of whether or not agents are remote. eLearning
and Speech Analytics proved to be key pieces to reducing agent
monitoring issues – a central challenge for managers,” continued
Summe. “The right investments in remote coaching and monitoring
provide contact centers with flexibility, opening the door to new
opportunities for satisfying workforces and improving customer
service.”
To download the full study, click here.
About LiveVox
LiveVox (Nasdaq: LVOX) is a next-generation contact center
platform that powers more than 14 billion interactions a year. By
seamlessly integrating omnichannel communications, CRM, AI, and WFO
capabilities, the Company’s technology delivers an exceptional
agent and customer experience while reducing compliance risk. With
20 years of cloud experience and expertise, LiveVox’s CCaaS 2.0
platform is at the forefront of cloud contact center innovation.
The Company has more than 500 global employees and is headquartered
in San Francisco, with offices in Atlanta; Columbus; Denver; New
York City; St. Louis; Medellin, Colombia; and Bangalore, India. To
stay up to date with everything LiveVox, follow us at @LiveVox or
visit livevox.com.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210727005315/en/
Investor Contacts: Alexis Waadt awaadt@livevox.com
Ryan Gardella livevoxIR@icrinc.com
Press contacts: Nick Bandy nbandy@livevox.com
Katie Creaser livevoxPR@icrinc.com
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