Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

CGS Report: The Battle for Agent Supremacy -In-house Vs Out-house

April 10, 2014

The debate is not new, as to whether in-house agents are better than their out-house compatriots with the at-home evangelists advocating the in-house model. While it cannot be denied that at-home agents are  faster and cheaper and in many cases better , the question begs as to whether the out-house model is really the best one for the client, agent or customer at the other end of the line.


In a new whitepaper, “Assessing In-house Versus Out-house Call Center Agents: The Good, Bad, and the Downright Dirty.”CGS, a global provider of technology solutions, gives the lowdown on out –house agents, helping companies see them in their true light.

Tom Christenson, president of contact center services at CGS and author of the paper, (clearly an advocate of the in-house agent,) cautions against the out-house model, despite counter-arguments by the at-home evangelists, who preach the benefits of that approach.

Christenson does admit that the out-house model has its good points: for basic customer service requirements the at-home model can sometimes be appropriate and very successful, but he is equally quick to highlight the business risks it poses; the holes in security that could expose companies to data breaches, brand image damage.

In addition, there are privacy and compliance concerns when agents handle sensitive information or when technical issues arise. Moreover, work ethics and environmental factors inherent to the out-house model could also cause customer satisfaction scores to drop. No customer would like to hear the barking of dogs or bawling kids in the background – neither sends across a professional image.

Also, contact centers are all about team building, group learning, sharing of knowledge, training for continuous improvement, connecting with the corporate brand and sharing companies’ successes. A lone home agent is just a single entity and may not have the same extent of commitment, engagement and enthusiasm for the job --all of which could be detrimental as far as the customer is concerned.

“Based on our own testing, CGS has sent top performing technical support agents to work from home and within 6-8 months those agents’ customer satisfaction scores dropped from top quartile to second quartile or worse,” said Christenson.

The difference between in-house and out-house agent is very much akin to going to a college campus to earn a degree and taking courses online for a degree. It’s a no-brainer as to which of them is better.




Edited by Maurice Nagle



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