Ovum has predicted a 100-percent increase in the number of outsourced home agents by 2015. According to Ovum, inventions around security, vertical market development and advances beyond the conventional U.S. market are key contributors to the increase.
Despite moving ahead of facilities-based outsourcing in terms of overall pace, this model will hold its position only until the very old enterprise apprehensions around data security, agent administration, and nurturing a team atmosphere across a virtual model are conquered.
Ovum recently carried out a study to recognize the market prospects for home agents. In the next four years, nearly 130,000 agents will be working for at least 20 hours each week, resulting in an 88-percent increase compared to current figures.
Other countries, where English is spoken, will witness increases in penetration of the agents. Australia, which has an economic and work culture similar to the U.S., is being termed as one of the preferred countries among home agent vendors as they expand across regions.
“Since its inception, outsourced home agents have garnered a strong reputation for providing end users with robust customer experience, one that ideally drives repeat business and referrals,” said Peter Ryan, practice leader of the IT Services Team at Ovum. “With customer satisfaction and increased revenues identified as key business goals for enterprises, vendors of home agent services are well placed to take on work from enterprises that are more discerning than ever about execution quality and lowering costs.”
By 2015, the majority of the horizontal applications will consist of customer care, with nearly 50 percent of them being used by agents. Home-based agents are also expected to take up nearly one-fourth of the total technical support and one-third of communications and media by 2015.
“Any firm looking to enter or expand its footprint in the outsourced home agent market should target sectors in which interest in this business model is significant, as well as those that require higher-margin processes, including healthcare and insurance-related work,” said Ryan. “Non-voice multichannel CRM work should also be considered, in order to take advantage of the superior agent quality and sophistication that the virtual model offers.”
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.
Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.