Incentive Programs for Home-Based Call Agents

Driven by today’s tight economy and increasingly strong and vocal consumer preferences to speak with on-shore representatives, home agents are now common place.  There are numerous benefits for both the agents and the organization.  However, the few but significant differences between home based and office based agents create challenges.  Unless you recognize the differences and update your employee recognition and incentive programs accordingly, you’re wasting time, effort and money.

The most significant and obvious challenge is that traditional workforce motivational practices are no longer as effective because the agents are not onsite.  To a high degree, you’ve disarmed yourself.  Thus, delivering effective employee incentives that drive Key Performance Indicators (KPI) becomes a more formidable challenge.

What has been lost that affects KPIs and morale?

• The feeling of camaraderie and belonging to a team
• Public recognition, like a “wall of fame” and award presentations
• “One on one” and peer recognition such as the boss personally delivering a hand written “thank you” note
• Social relationships and interactions (coffee breaks, lunches, pizza parties, ride sharing)

Here are critical recommendations for updating your employee incentive program to include home-based agents.

Your incentive program must be simple, easy to explain and use powerful and specific motivators.

• Clearly identifiable goals visible at any time
• Show current status compared with goals
• Allow the easy review of goals, accomplishments & reward history
• Give small rewards frequently for small precedent activities rather than large, infrequent rewards for large goals
• Make having fun a key and frequent goal in the reward process. Games played at the office can be replicated electronically to include remote agents, and should be offered at every opportunity (spin the wheel, draw a ticket from a fish bowl, select a sealed envelope)
• Provide immediate & visible reward credit for every achievement
• Offer a very wide choice of desirable rewards

Home agents have reached critical mass and constitute the biggest growth segment of contact centers.  If your agent incentive and employee recognition program correctly addresses & compensates for the lack of a physical, common presence, you will achieve the maximum benefit of using home agents.

About Snowfly
Snowfly is the leading provider of Internet based employee incentives, recognition and loyalty programs.  Snowfly’s incentive system allows clients to harness the enormous motivational power of immediate positive reinforcement to focus employee behavior on company objectives.  Compared with home-grown programs, Snowfly significantly improves KPI’s almost immediately, reduces a huge administrative burden and reduces costs.  The results are easily seen within weeks and there is no long term contractual obligation.  Customers include multiple Blue Cross/Blue Shield providers, Hyatt Hotels, Time Warner Cable, financial institutions, utility companies, cable/satellite providers, various BPO companies (business process outsourcers), and collection departments/agencies.  Snowfly’s web site: www.Snowfly.com.  For more information, contact Snowfly at 1-877-SNOWFLY (766-9359).  Or email Bob Cowen at rcowen@snowfly.com