Podcast Transcript: Learn About Home Agent Models with Michele Rowan
Listen to the Original Podcast
FurstPerson (FP): Thank you for joining another FurstPerson Podcast. I’m Jeff Furst, president and CEO of Furst Person. Today we are speaking with Michelle Rowan. Michele leads Customer Contact Strategies which focuses on helping companies move customer contacts home. Michele, thanks for joining us today.
Michele Rowan (MR): Thanks Jeff, glad to be here.
FP: Great. So maybe for the audience Michele, can you just give a quick overview of your background and your current focus?
MR: My first contact center role was actually with a large, US based outsourcer. So I understand the partner side of the business, and then I moved on to Hilton Hotels and I spent 12 years with them. My last role was as VP of Performance Management, and one of the large initiatives that I took on as one of my final responsibilities was to lead the development and implementation of our scaled remote agent model in the U.S. We moved over 1,000 positions home in 18 months. The program was hugely successful and still is today and in fact the majority of Hilton’s U.S. based agents are now home based, like 70 or 80 percent of them. It has been a terrific success story and certainly was a terrific learning for me. So now Jeff, my current focus is helping companies develop and implement their remote agent strategies and as with any major initiative, there are many options for effective deployment based on a company’s culture and their vision and their objectives. So, I help organizations understand those options and then help them get the right stuff on their project plans. Vehicles that I use to do that are group workshops that I hold around the country. I also do group webcast training, and then I also do customized onsite consulting and gap analysis and project planning.
FP: Fantastic. Well, thank you Michele. It is interesting your experience with the home agent deployment at Hilton. We will talk some more about that. You moved agents from brick and mortar facilities to a remote agent model and now given your current focus you are working with different organizations around the country and globally about the remote agent model. What do you think is driving the growth of this concept?
MR: Here is what companies are telling me and I have worked with over 300 companies primarily in the U.S. and Canada and deployments of and implementations of the remote agent strategy. So, here are the very simple reasons. Number one, the home agent model reduces cost, if you do nothing else other than add or replace seats without adding buildings; you are already saving with this model. And I have many clients that have just put a stake in the ground and said I’m done signing leases, I am not going to build another building, I’m not going to take on that unnecessary expense when this model is at the ready and is mature and safe. So, that is the first reason, very simple. The second one, this model propels customer satisfaction. ; We are able to hire very experienced people, people with a lot more experience that the average brick and mortar agent. Once we get outside of the confines of the brick and mortar environment. And then third, it is taking employee satisfaction to new levels. Many companies have employee satisfaction as an objective on its own, to drive employee satisfaction and then also an increase in employee satisfaction contributes to better customer satisfaction as we know and improved retention. These aren’t assumptions I am making, these are facts. I have done a lot of research, surveyed again, many, many companies that I have worked with. And then we have a lot of data and research from the analysts, who are saying the same thing.
FP: Great, thank you. You have mentioned the work you have done with over 300 organizations. Our experience on the Furst Person side, we see different stages of home agent models. Where do you think most organizations fall in deploying the home agent model, in terms of what stage they are in and maybe if you could describe a little about each stage as we continue the interview.
MR: I asked this very question at a conference I had earlier this year, the 2011 Remote Agent Summit and there were 90 companies in attendance there that were active deployers of the remote agent model. Fifty-three percent of the participants said that they had a material part of their population in centers today. Which means 20% or higher, that is how I framed the question. So, the balance, the other 47% are at less than 20% and they are at an average of 10% of their population at home. But what I found really interesting Jeff, is that when I asked the same question for the year ending 2013, 71% of the participants said that a material part of their workforce would be at home. So, these results are far beyond the analysts’ projections, and I found that really, really interesting. The bottom line is that most companies have completed their proof of concept. They have run their pilots; they have chosen their strategic and tactical paths and they are now rubber and road. Because this model delivers different results even with small portions of the workforce at home and because we are so metric oriented, we can see those early, early day results very clearly which again inspires fast expansion in the model and I’m sure that is why we are seeing growth beyond the analysts’ predictions. In fact, today I just saw a post on LinkedIn, this is really interesting, from a client of mine. A global bank who is posting for virtual manager positions, to manage their remote agents from home. I met this organization a little over a year ago when they came to a workshop to learn about the model. Their pilot was less than 6 months ago and already they are hiring virtual managers. Isn’t that terrific?
FP: That is fantastic. That is really interesting. You mentioned a global bank. Let’s maybe get into the weeds a little bit about one issue that commonly comes up around home agents, which is the whole objection about security. In your experience, how have some firms eliminating this challenge with their home agent model?
MR: The simple fact is that the risk for security breach seems larger at home, because sight unseen, people can write down credit card information or other sensitive non-public information or the other risk is that a housemate can come in and look over someone’s shoulder and write down that same sort of data and this is the core issue that many companies wrestle with. No getting around it, it is a risk. So again, I asked 90 companies at the summit the conference I spoke of earlier this year about the frequency of security breaches at home compared to in house. It was a survey question that I put forth. Ninety-five percent of those companies said they had same or less occurrences of deviant behavior at home. So, while the risk is greater, the occurrences are not greater. Here is what companies are doing though to mitigate that risk, and we must do that. Number one, virtual desktops are in high utilization, which means that applications and related data are housed at data centers, not on desktops. Lock down desktops are in high utilization with very specific rules and restrictions for computer utilization. Regardless of who owns the computer, companies are able to customize those business rules to make sure that employees are actively engaged in a work session and only using the tools that the company knows they need to use within a work session. The next point is that some companies are turning webcams on all throughout entire shifts. Some do it intermittently, but certainly that is an option that is available today and of course, we would want to invite our employees in on that knowledge and have them sign off on it. But companies that really struggle with that out of site challenge utilize webcams as a way of mitigating that risk. Frequent I.D. authentication is also very common. Often in a brick and mortar environment, we identify or authenticate our I.D. at the beginning of a shift and then we sign back on after breaks, etc. Some companies are even turning up the dial on that idea of authentication more frequently throughout the day and also some companies are using electronic observation of navigation. They are expanding that perhaps more than what they currently utilize in the brick and mortar environment. And then finally, I think the most important point of all is careful selection. I think that goes without saying, the real focus in the sourcing and hiring process is key.
FP: Absolutely, from the FurstPerson standpoint of seeing that with a lot of our clients where we can create profiles, if you will. Understanding the different types of behavioral components that go into the home agent job and looking at integrity type issues is certainly one of those. Not to say that we wouldn’t look at that in a brick and mortar basis, but that individual who needs not only a little more autonomy, but also potentially a different degree of integrity to be an efficient and effective home agent, that is something that we have seen in our job family analysis work. Let’s think about the people who might be listening who have thought about the remote agent, home agent concept, but they are not doing anything right now. If you were sitting in a room with them, what would be the 3 things you might tell them to first think about doing?
MR: Well, the first thing that I would certainly do, and that I would recommend organizations do, and I do recommend companies do this, is to understand the options available to you before you begin. Having a clear view of what other companies are doing, what the benefits and limitations are of various practices and business processes and technologies is really, really important. So in other words, get an education from people who have done it first and foremost. Then the third thing would be to define your program objectives and your pilot objectives really well before you begin your pilot and they are very different things. I see companies get confused about what they are measuring and what they are experiencing once they go into pilot, because they were not clear to begin with from the onset on defining their objectives and expectations and articulating them well to those that are involved in executing.
FP: It sounds like the pilot concept is a really critical early effort when you think about the remote agent concept. I know that you are busy and do a lot of traveling and you mentioned some of your workshops and things you have done. What is on your agenda for the next 6 months?
MR: I have an At Home Strategies for Success workshop at the end of July. It is July 26 and 27 in Boston and again, that is a day and a half drill down and education on best practices and process and technology on all areas that are impacted by remote agents. It is a terrific opportunity to get an education and to establish relationships with 30 other people who are either expanding the model or learning about the model. And then I have a series of tactical webcast trainings later this summer and through the fall. One is on hiring and sourcing virtual agents, because we need to fish differently in order to attract the kind of fish that we are after. Two is on critical competencies for supervisors, because their jobs change. And then three, the third one is on the road map for transitioning from classroom training to virtual training. So, that is the stuff I am going to be focusing on between now and the end of the year.
FP: Fantastic Michele, those are all topics that we talk about to our clients who are looking at the home agent model or have the home agent operations up and running. The hiring element is obviously very critical. Many of them wonder about the supervisor position, how do they manage that, the ratios. All those things that become very different and what are other organizations doing. It sounds like your session will be able to speak to that and the whole learning element if you have remote agent processes set up where they are not coming into a physical facility for any type of training, which most people are not doing. It is fantastic to hear that you are working on those sessions and if people are interesting in learning more, can they go out to your website to find out more information about these or other research you might have available?
MR: Please go to www.gohome.us.com.
FP: Michele, thanks so much for your time today, we have been speaking with Michele Rowan who leads Customer Contact Strategies, an expert on the remote agent model. Until next time, thank you for joining us.
FurstPerson (FP): Thank you for joining another FurstPerson Podcast. I’m Jeff Furst, president and CEO of Furst Person. Today we are speaking with Michelle Rowan. Michele leads Customer Contact Strategies which focuses on helping companies move customer contacts home. Michele, thanks for joining us today.
Michele Rowan (MR): Thanks Jeff, glad to be here.
FP: Great. So maybe for the audience Michele, can you just give a quick overview of your background and your current focus?
MR: My first contact center role was actually with a large, US based outsourcer. So I understand the partner side of the business, and then I moved on to Hilton Hotels and I spent 12 years with them. My last role was as VP of Performance Management, and one of the large initiatives that I took on as one of my final responsibilities was to lead the development and implementation of our scaled remote agent model in the U.S. We moved over 1,000 positions home in 18 months. The program was hugely successful and still is today and in fact the majority of Hilton’s U.S. based agents are now home based, like 70 or 80 percent of them. It has been a terrific success story and certainly was a terrific learning for me. So now Jeff, my current focus is helping companies develop and implement their remote agent strategies and as with any major initiative, there are many options for effective deployment based on a company’s culture and their vision and their objectives. So, I help organizations understand those options and then help them get the right stuff on their project plans. Vehicles that I use to do that are group workshops that I hold around the country. I also do group webcast training, and then I also do customized onsite consulting and gap analysis and project planning.
FP: Fantastic. Well, thank you Michele. It is interesting your experience with the home agent deployment at Hilton. We will talk some more about that. You moved agents from brick and mortar facilities to a remote agent model and now given your current focus you are working with different organizations around the country and globally about the remote agent model. What do you think is driving the growth of this concept?
MR: Here is what companies are telling me and I have worked with over 300 companies primarily in the U.S. and Canada and deployments of and implementations of the remote agent strategy. So, here are the very simple reasons. Number one, the home agent model reduces cost, if you do nothing else other than add or replace seats without adding buildings; you are already saving with this model. And I have many clients that have just put a stake in the ground and said I’m done signing leases, I am not going to build another building, I’m not going to take on that unnecessary expense when this model is at the ready and is mature and safe. So, that is the first reason, very simple. The second one, this model propels customer satisfaction. ; We are able to hire very experienced people, people with a lot more experience that the average brick and mortar agent. Once we get outside of the confines of the brick and mortar environment. And then third, it is taking employee satisfaction to new levels. Many companies have employee satisfaction as an objective on its own, to drive employee satisfaction and then also an increase in employee satisfaction contributes to better customer satisfaction as we know and improved retention. These aren’t assumptions I am making, these are facts. I have done a lot of research, surveyed again, many, many companies that I have worked with. And then we have a lot of data and research from the analysts, who are saying the same thing.
FP: Great, thank you. You have mentioned the work you have done with over 300 organizations. Our experience on the Furst Person side, we see different stages of home agent models. Where do you think most organizations fall in deploying the home agent model, in terms of what stage they are in and maybe if you could describe a little about each stage as we continue the interview.
MR: I asked this very question at a conference I had earlier this year, the 2011 Remote Agent Summit and there were 90 companies in attendance there that were active deployers of the remote agent model. Fifty-three percent of the participants said that they had a material part of their population in centers today. Which means 20% or higher, that is how I framed the question. So, the balance, the other 47% are at less than 20% and they are at an average of 10% of their population at home. But what I found really interesting Jeff, is that when I asked the same question for the year ending 2013, 71% of the participants said that a material part of their workforce would be at home. So, these results are far beyond the analysts’ projections, and I found that really, really interesting. The bottom line is that most companies have completed their proof of concept. They have run their pilots; they have chosen their strategic and tactical paths and they are now rubber and road. Because this model delivers different results even with small portions of the workforce at home and because we are so metric oriented, we can see those early, early day results very clearly which again inspires fast expansion in the model and I’m sure that is why we are seeing growth beyond the analysts’ predictions. In fact, today I just saw a post on LinkedIn, this is really interesting, from a client of mine. A global bank who is posting for virtual manager positions, to manage their remote agents from home. I met this organization a little over a year ago when they came to a workshop to learn about the model. Their pilot was less than 6 months ago and already they are hiring virtual managers. Isn’t that terrific?
FP: That is fantastic. That is really interesting. You mentioned a global bank. Let’s maybe get into the weeds a little bit about one issue that commonly comes up around home agents, which is the whole objection about security. In your experience, how have some firms eliminating this challenge with their home agent model?
MR: The simple fact is that the risk for security breach seems larger at home, because sight unseen, people can write down credit card information or other sensitive non-public information or the other risk is that a housemate can come in and look over someone’s shoulder and write down that same sort of data and this is the core issue that many companies wrestle with. No getting around it, it is a risk. So again, I asked 90 companies at the summit the conference I spoke of earlier this year about the frequency of security breaches at home compared to in house. It was a survey question that I put forth. Ninety-five percent of those companies said they had same or less occurrences of deviant behavior at home. So, while the risk is greater, the occurrences are not greater. Here is what companies are doing though to mitigate that risk, and we must do that. Number one, virtual desktops are in high utilization, which means that applications and related data are housed at data centers, not on desktops. Lock down desktops are in high utilization with very specific rules and restrictions for computer utilization. Regardless of who owns the computer, companies are able to customize those business rules to make sure that employees are actively engaged in a work session and only using the tools that the company knows they need to use within a work session. The next point is that some companies are turning webcams on all throughout entire shifts. Some do it intermittently, but certainly that is an option that is available today and of course, we would want to invite our employees in on that knowledge and have them sign off on it. But companies that really struggle with that out of site challenge utilize webcams as a way of mitigating that risk. Frequent I.D. authentication is also very common. Often in a brick and mortar environment, we identify or authenticate our I.D. at the beginning of a shift and then we sign back on after breaks, etc. Some companies are even turning up the dial on that idea of authentication more frequently throughout the day and also some companies are using electronic observation of navigation. They are expanding that perhaps more than what they currently utilize in the brick and mortar environment. And then finally, I think the most important point of all is careful selection. I think that goes without saying, the real focus in the sourcing and hiring process is key.
FP: Absolutely, from the FurstPerson standpoint of seeing that with a lot of our clients where we can create profiles, if you will. Understanding the different types of behavioral components that go into the home agent job and looking at integrity type issues is certainly one of those. Not to say that we wouldn’t look at that in a brick and mortar basis, but that individual who needs not only a little more autonomy, but also potentially a different degree of integrity to be an efficient and effective home agent, that is something that we have seen in our job family analysis work. Let’s think about the people who might be listening who have thought about the remote agent, home agent concept, but they are not doing anything right now. If you were sitting in a room with them, what would be the 3 things you might tell them to first think about doing?
MR: Well, the first thing that I would certainly do, and that I would recommend organizations do, and I do recommend companies do this, is to understand the options available to you before you begin. Having a clear view of what other companies are doing, what the benefits and limitations are of various practices and business processes and technologies is really, really important. So in other words, get an education from people who have done it first and foremost. Then the third thing would be to define your program objectives and your pilot objectives really well before you begin your pilot and they are very different things. I see companies get confused about what they are measuring and what they are experiencing once they go into pilot, because they were not clear to begin with from the onset on defining their objectives and expectations and articulating them well to those that are involved in executing.
FP: It sounds like the pilot concept is a really critical early effort when you think about the remote agent concept. I know that you are busy and do a lot of traveling and you mentioned some of your workshops and things you have done. What is on your agenda for the next 6 months?
MR: I have an At Home Strategies for Success workshop at the end of July. It is July 26 and 27 in Boston and again, that is a day and a half drill down and education on best practices and process and technology on all areas that are impacted by remote agents. It is a terrific opportunity to get an education and to establish relationships with 30 other people who are either expanding the model or learning about the model. And then I have a series of tactical webcast trainings later this summer and through the fall. One is on hiring and sourcing virtual agents, because we need to fish differently in order to attract the kind of fish that we are after. Two is on critical competencies for supervisors, because their jobs change. And then three, the third one is on the road map for transitioning from classroom training to virtual training. So, that is the stuff I am going to be focusing on between now and the end of the year.
FP: Fantastic Michele, those are all topics that we talk about to our clients who are looking at the home agent model or have the home agent operations up and running. The hiring element is obviously very critical. Many of them wonder about the supervisor position, how do they manage that, the ratios. All those things that become very different and what are other organizations doing. It sounds like your session will be able to speak to that and the whole learning element if you have remote agent processes set up where they are not coming into a physical facility for any type of training, which most people are not doing. It is fantastic to hear that you are working on those sessions and if people are interesting in learning more, can they go out to your website to find out more information about these or other research you might have available?
MR: Please go to www.gohome.us.com.
FP: Michele, thanks so much for your time today, we have been speaking with Michele Rowan who leads Customer Contact Strategies, an expert on the remote agent model. Until next time, thank you for joining us.
