Launched last year at the Call Centre Expo, Birmingham LiveXchange demonstrated its  homesourcing service with remote contract agents taking calls on behalf of both British Gas and, half a world away, the Canadian Automobile Association,

Following a network route, but boasting a unique set of benefits, LiveXchange has now taken on ACT Conferencing to provide an on-demand audio, web and video service, its second client in the UK although it already handles US volumes for this client.

LiveXchange’s UK manager Scottish Borders-based Jeff Swanson (right)  says that in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), ACT has dramatically lowered on-demand collaborative conferencing service costs by nearly a third, which is why EMEA volumes are up by 20% since last year with conferencing services up by more than 40%. And  ACT’s web services business has increased 63% year-on-year, meaning inbound customer volumes in EMEA are also increasing rapidly.

“ACT has come to us at LiveXchange because we are able to offer a homesourcing service, where they can select and train self-employed certified remote agents through our unique ContractXchange hub,” explains Swanson. 

Most major UK call centres are now seriously evaluating home agent systems as a means of flexibly supplementing their own bricks and mortar operations. Their big question is the best way to do this? Until recently the choice has been either to “Insource” (your employee home agents, your network) or “Outsource” (their home agents, their network). 

Now the ability to  Homesource (with a directly contracted remote agent pool, and shared network) has arrived and is offering a third route for significant economic and service quality advantages for the call centre.

Where once ACT would have commissioned a contact centre to handle inbound volumes, or would have had to recruit and train its own inhouse pool of agents, but by using self-employed certified remote agents, the benefits are commissioning speed, flexibility, integrity and much lower costs.

Home worker view point
With few job prospects around and  many households being lucky to have  a single income earner,  the most popular and immediate solution for job seekers is self-employment. But with the a credit crunch limiting business opportunities for white collar graduates with above average interpersonal skills and their own home computer, one opportunity route could be Home working for a contact centre.

At a modest 20-hours a week on the computer, answering inbound  customer or technical support calls,  will generate self-employed revenues of up to £1200/month, only potentially taxable after costs. Computer, connectivity, energy, child care and even a part of the mortgage qualify as for home worker costs.

Swanson at LiveXchange says, “Less than a year ago, we set up a remote network centre on a hub in Newcastle. This interactive hub is the catalyst for clients wishing to reach our Homeworkers and vice versa. This whole system is unique and provides a dedicated connection channel between our clients and the homeworkers."

"Importantly, with ContractXchange the Homeworkers are self-employed, which benefits both the companies looking to establish or supplement their customer response teams and the Homeworkers themselves. The sign-up process is simple. A candidate  visits the LiveXchange portal at ContractXchange.com.  The relevant briefings can be read and applicants can sign up for ‘Remote Certification’ training.

Swanson says training could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on the client's type of work, and payment for this training ranges from around £75 to £100. Working on the network does require a fortnightly license fee of £14.50 paid to LiveXchange in order to satisfy authorities that 'Certified Agents' are not part-time employees.

Other key points are that a ‘Certified Agent’ will agree to set time inputs and hours to be worked – normally a 15-hours minimum a week. The dedicated software is separated from Windows systems and so does not overlap any personal work on the agent’s PC. 

The key finding by nearly all LiveXchange clients is that ‘Certified Agents’ are invariably of a higher calibre compared to a contact centre. Swanson emphasises the importance of the independent agent being contacted direct by the client company, maintaining the ‘trading as’ self-employed status for tax reasons.

He  has already signed up several hundred Homeworkers, although he can call upon a mature pool of certified homeworkers in Canada, where the system was piloted. “National boundaries are no impediment to this new customer response system,” he says.