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Back in 2002, I used to work for Atlantic Tele-Center (ATC), a call center company with operations in Miami, Florida, Guyana in South America and St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. ATC was owned by the U.S. telecommunications company Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATNI) headquartered at St. Thomas. VoiceLog, the largest third-party verification company at that time, was one of its clients and I headed the team that set up, managed and maintained ATC’s call center software in the cloud, then called Application Service Provider (ASP), for VoiceLog. This way, their at-home agents and supervisors (home-based workforce) could access the software by way of each one’s home DSL connection and home phone. Besides managing technology for VoiceLog (IT folks call this managed service), we also provided 24×7 technical support to the entire at-home workforce, especially when at-home agent profiles were locked because of unanswered customer calls.

During a time when unified messaging was not available, support was also provided by chat through AOL’s instant messaging service. Supervisors would IM my team about VoiceLog agents who couldn’t receive calls or connect to the cloud-based software, and so on. Overall, the year-long project worked well and only minor issues ensued.

Fast track to today and Filipinos ask themselves why is it that almost a decade ago, at-home agent operations works well in the U.S. and it doesn’t seem to get a good head start in the Philippines. Despite the Filipino’s dominance in the call center world, with its advantages in American linguistics and culture (“as American as apple pie”), shouldn’t it follow that the country already began employing at-home agents a few years back? Or even last year or this year?

I’m sure there are a few of them out there but the mass culture of at-home agents never really took off in the Philippines and call center companies, big or small, still continue to rent enclosed office spaces lined up with tens and hundreds of workstations wired to dozens of servers and integrated into its global private network.

Let me describe five major factors that should seriously be considered to make the at-home agent program work for any type of business in the Philippines (not just call center companies), and how to implement each of these on a practical standpoint.

1. CONNECTIVITY

Though home DSL connection in the Philippines have improved that past decade, it is still not at par to provide the best quality VOIP service that large call centers want it to. It’s not speed that’s important – it’s uninterrupted connectivity between the home computer and the cloud-based servers. A majority of home DSL users surf the web, access e-mail, use Facebook or Google, but hardly run VOIP programs like Skype or Google Talk. This means only (browser) data is being fetched and sent between the home computer and the web servers their browsers try to access, not voice (data packets). The old stand-alone computer days of using Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRC) is similarly being used when you surf the net – if your web browser cannot connect to the web servers, your browser will retry connectivity several times until it successfully connects. Some web programs like YouTube also buffer data to provide a near-to-seamless view of their videos. This is not the case with VOIP. VOIP cannot live with these packets of interruptions that are called “timeouts.” VOIP needs uninterrupted connectivity.

Photo by kirklau at Flickr.com

After having used most DSL and cable internet providers in the Philippines, including the wireless ones, I’ve stuck it out with Globe Telecom’s DSL because it has the least amount of timeouts during an extended duration of use. Globe’s DSL may not have the best burst of download speed but it sure beats all others with the least amount of timeouts in my locations – Makati and Taguig.

How Do You Do It: Your business must conduct connectivity tests between your at-home agent’s home computer and your service provider’s cloud-based VOIP servers. “Ping tests” are the usual first-level tests. More comprehensive tests may include measuring Jitter, QoS (quality of service), MOS (mean opinion score) and packet loss that assess VOIP quality (I always use MyVOIPSpeed test by VisualWare). The connectivity test has to be done several times, at certain points of the day, to get a better overview of your at-home agent’s home DSL connection. Never assume that your at-home agent’s home DSL connectivity is workable even if they are subscribed to Globe’s DSL; telecommunications companies in the Philippines have different degrees of connectivity that depends on location. Other internet providers actually do better than Globe at other localities.

2. VOIP SOLUTION

There were several small call centers averaging 5 to 10 seats that started using the MagicJack system during the time when the maker of that device did not limit the number of calls per day. However, after testing this solution, I found out that it hogged as much as 250 kbps during a call. That’s a problem for your at-home agent’s home DSL connection because even if they lease a 1 Mbps subscription (that’s the maximum download burst speed, not a steady stream), all home DSL providers’ 1 Mbps subscription plan only allow a maximum upload burst of 250 kbps (or one-fourth of the download speed). Maximum isn’t always available. Thus, there will be moments of poor quality of the conversation leading to timeouts.

Photo by avaya at Flickr.com

Hosted solutions (also known as SaaS) being offered today mean that all the expensive servers and its operating systems and application software required to run your customer sales, marketing, service and support operations are owned by a third-party provider and leases (or rents) resource time to you and your at-home agents on preset terms, i.e. monthly subscription. What you and your at-home agents just need to have is a computer running a web browser like Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox where you enter the web address or URL of the hosted solution and do your thing. There are simple PBX hosted solutions and more complex hosted call center solutions out there, sometimes called cloud-based software or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

How Do You Do It: You have to make sure that the hosted IP-PBX or VOIP solution your at-home agents will be using should not exceed 100 kbps both ways. Otherwise, it will be difficult to realize good voice quality during customer contact, just like the MagicJack example above. Remember, besides the VOIP bandwidth requirement, your IP-PBX, VOIP or hosted call center solution will also need to refresh your at-home agent’s screen, meaning additional bandwidth. Therefore, you must conduct voice tests through live test calls between your at-home agent’s home computer and the origination or termination points, i.e. calls originating or terminating in the United States, before you allow your at-home agent to accept or place live calls.

3. CULTURE

It’s not about discipline but more of the culture of the Filipino. It takes some time for a typical Filipino family to understand the difference between work and play, or the work-at-home mind-set. Doing work at home has always been somewhat of a taboo because family members see the humble abode as it is – a place to relax, get together with family members, and do things that are seen as personal and comfortable. Thus, conducting uninterrupted, continuous hours of work at home is not impossible but a challenge.

A well established, multinational call center company in the Philippines tried the at-home agent method and failed because the inborn Filipino culture and value system treated the home as a family’s turf. For example, when the at-home agent’s spouse demands their time, the former can’t negate that exact moment no matter how trivial it is, lest he or she allows that little issue to balloon into a marital World War III. It may take some time for the spouse and the other family members to form the habit of not disturbing the first-time at-home agent.

Photo by at ikaw_ay_pinoy Flickr.com

Another negative impact is ambient noise. A huge majority of would-be at-home agents do not live in posh, gated villages where the constant noise of pedestrian and vehicular traffic are almost non-existent. Lucky you if the at-home agent lives outside the city and in a place where the only background noise would be birds chirping. Many Filipinos do not have a sound-proof room in their house unless they so desire to build one specifically for this type of job. It would be one for the record books to hear a customer to ask the at-home agent, “What was that noise?” and we could only imagine the comical answer coming from your at-home agent, “Oh, that was a five-passenger motorcycle passing by.”

How Do You Do It: Always ask your at-home agent applicant to describe his or her workplace inside the house, specific to the details of construction materials used for the room including a rough-draft floor plan of the house, a vicinity map and where public transportation ply about, the volume of pedestrians passing by, animals living inside and near the home, and many more items you should consider before hiring the at-home agent. If you have a Sound Level Meter at hand, ask the at-home agent applicant to bring it home. Then, there’s also the interview about family members living at home, their routine and schedules, babies to tend to, kids to take care of after school, sleeping hours, and so on. In summary, you need to know the exact living and working conditions, and lifestyle habits of your at-home agent applicant down to the nitty-gritty detail so you know what to expect.

4. AGE

I mentioned previously of the well-established, multinational call center company in the Philippines experimenting with an at-home agent program and failing on it. Even before the year ended, they folded the project and absorbed some of the agents into their office-like centers. Some of the reasons for the failure were the factors I mentioned above. However, the other major factor was  maturity, or the lack of it. But it is difficult to measure maturity and so, the better way to categorize this section is to use “age” when recruiting at-home agents.

Statistically (based on the 2008 Philippine Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Report by CallCentres.net), about 80% of the call center agent workforce in the Philippines belongs to the 18-34 years old age bracket where almost half are ages 18 to 24. Another related fact about the industry is that 60% of its employed population is female. In a closed office environment where team leaders, supervisors, managers and senior executives are physically near the agents, on-demand supervision is the norm and productivity can be managed on the spot. But at home, there are no supervisors or managers. The at-home agent is on his or her own to manage their productivity and discipline to the best of their ability. This requires maturity, and maturity generally grows as one ages.

How Do You Do It: Though it may seem discriminating to do so, it is reasonable that your best bet for hiring at-home agents should generally be no younger than 35 years old. Also, the female psyche of maturity still holds more weight because this gender group can do better in multitasking than its equivalent. Multitasking is necessary in a home environment and women are genetically good at juggling every activity at home, being born homemakers, generally speaking. A married spouse with no full-time job that’s about 40-50 years old (life begins at 40, eh?) will probably be a better at-home agent, especially if her kids are already in high school, attending college or university or best, in the daily grind of a job. True, there is always an exception to the rule. So, always use your good judgment and sound interview techniques to find out if a younger at-home agent applicant possesses the required maturity and at-home multitasking skils you so desire.

5. THE REST OF THE SKILLS

I’m not going to go through the other work-related, project-specific skills you need for your sales, marketing, service and support campaign, be it in a captive or outsourced corporate environment. You may be thinking of hiring at-home agents to conduct Philippine local calls, not necessarily in an outsourced situation where your agents receive calls from U.S. customers. “The rest of the skills” mean the ability of your at-home agent to express and communicate properly, common sense, technical skills, and so on. That’s up to you.

Photo by kingratt82 at Flickr.com

IN SUMMARY

So, the at-home agent idea can actually work in the Philippines (and probably other Asian or developing nation) if all these five factors are seriously considered and even enhanced. This makes work more available to the Filipino homemaker whose responsibilities have now been diminished – kids all working or married, spouse is still a workaholic and wouldn’t think of retiring, too tiring to get a part-time field sales job, and other things that makes your work-at-home program more appealing than anything else.

However, these are not surefire ways of successfully implementing an at-home agent operation. Motivation, skills training, professional development and a bigger sense of understanding about the at-home agent work have to come from you, and how to go about conducting these activities is another thing worthwhile to consider. So, don’t quote me as saying, “Hey! Raffy said this and that.” Based on my experience, knowledge and practical intuition, I listed these few, major items that need to be addressed before attempting to employ an at-home agent program. But if you become successful, do let me know so we can inform the entire country that truly the at-home agent program can work in the Philippines using “Your Way!”