Industry experts rate work at home provision as a vital tool in the belt of any contact center. As of now, the ability of organizations to work remotely will be at the forefront of the customer’s decision-making process when considering contact centers.  Industry expert Mark Hillary sees the significant benefits BYOD can provide to work at home strategy, as well as insight into the blended model of on-prem/work at home that is becoming more popular. Building off of this topic, in this blog, I wanted to touch on how BYOD can enhance contact center’s offerings to their customers in 2021 and onwards, specifically in terms of:

• Higher quality CX from more qualified hires
• Resilience in future events
• Reduced customer cost

1.) Higher quality CX from more qualified hires

A concern for many is how to maintain a high level of quality when employee numbers are dwindling, organizations across the board report that 80% of their staff have moved companies when forced to return to office. The importance of finding the right staff is vital for maintaining customer service levels and overall brand reputation – however employers have traditionally been limited to looking for these high quality employees in their local regions, normally within large metropolitan areas where the office premises is located.

WaH & BYOD allows contact centers to access to a much larger hiring pool to find the most qualified people to represent your organization; allowing you to choose agents based solely on skill rather than proximity to on-prem location. Employers can focus on the employee’s credentials, aptitude, and approachability to a much greater degree.

2.) Resilience in future events

According to this report from Gartner, customers will be looking closely at the disaster recovery plans of contact centers and factoring this into their decision making. This is to ensure that they can maintain resilience in a resurgence of COVID-19 or any other major disaster that may disrupt regular business activity.

One aspect of the pandemic that threw the professional world for a loop was the high demand and subsequent shortage of supply during the shift to work at home. Customers who utilize contact centers certainly took note and will be looking to ensure the company they are working with will not be affected by the same issues again. Having an existing BYOD scheme allows contact centers to instantly shift to remote working should the need arise again in the future, eliminating the delays and low staff availability that leads to customer dissatisfaction. Having continuity planning in place, such as a BYOD scheme, helps to foster customer confidence in your company’s business resilience.

3.) Reduced customer cost

We would be remiss not to mention the cost differential when talking about BYOD for contact centers. The same Gartner report states that customers will begin planning for long-term cost optimization and will seek to cut wiggle room into their budget to allow for unforeseen future expenses.

The need to transport devices adds to employee downtime and cost of delivery. Which is one of the reasons BYOD solutions have flourished recently – as employees can use their own device rather than wait for the employer pay to send one.

With BYOD, you eliminate both the capital cost of devices and the operational cost of transporting these devices to agents. We break this down further in a separate blog on cost savings with BYOD here. This cost reduction allows contact centers to carry value over to their customers, to provide a more cost-effective service, without sacrificing any service quality.

Secure BYOD with Secure Remote Worker

After reading about how great BYOD is, what are its drawbacks? The primary concern for customers is that their corporate data is secure, to the point where most customers will not even consider a contact center if their employee’s workstations do not meet the stringent requirements set by compliance QSAs.

Secure Remote Worker provides this security, and total compliance in PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR for the endpoint. Creating a temporary secure workspace on personally-owned agent devices, Secure Remote Worker allows agents to have secure access to corporate VDI, RDS, remote and local applications. All the while providing the employer complete visibility and control over agent activity during work.

Secure Remote Worker provides all of the flexibility and benefits of BYOD while delivering the same level of security as an on-premises corporate machine.

Conclusion

Contact Centers looking to provide better value to customers should be considering BYOD for their agent devices. Using Secure Remote Worker, alongside a BYOD scheme, will allow employers to find highly skilled employees, increase business resilience, and cut down on costs for customers, all while maintaining high security and compliance standards.