Acquiring a VoIP service provider that works home-based will help professionals or any small businesses to forgo the expense of hiring and keeping an employee. Home-based professionals do not require the worry and expense of implementing employee policies and benefits. Now these advantages might sound good enough for you to get a home-based service, but wait till you read on and see the drawbacks of the service.
We do not aim to discourage you from acquiring this type of call center services, but we encourage you to study first your or your company’s needs before making the decision.
The following are factors to consider when acquiring virtual assistant services:
Less Structured
Initially, these people who offer the service are home-based; thus, they supervise their own working schedule and work ethics. You are not physically present to see if they’re waiting calls for you or they are doing something else. This disadvantage would lead you to the next factor.
Accountability
Failure to answer incoming calls and accomplish other administrative tasks will not only be accountable to your service provider, but you will also be partly accountable to the misconduct. You will still be the one to face your customers and explain any delay caused by the negligence of your provider.
Distractions
Home-based virtual assistant services providers are prone to distractions that might hinder them from focusing on their work. A family member or a pet might come or something more interesting caught their attention. They have all the freedom to leave their computer for a few minutes and go after what’s distracting them.
Decreased Productivity
Since they’re already distracted, this would usually lead to lesser productivity. They would have answered only a few calls within their 8-hour shift, and have accomplished only a few tasks. Although some of them would catch up with the deadline, but the fact that they were not focused on their work is already a blunder.
Social Isolation (on their part) and Lesser Interaction
Working at the safety of their own homes actually increase their anti-social demeanour. While this would not affect you and your business directly, but they themselves would find it hard to work with a team via online conferences. They would forget the importance of personal interaction, since you mostly interact with them via calls or chats. They are used to working alone, and working with another person might be a challenge for them.
Below-Average Technical Support
When these home-based professionals encounter computer glitches or any technical problems with their work, most probably they will not be able to accomplish any task for a couple of hours to a day, and worst, a week. They don’t have access to a full-on IT support, since they work outside the company.
Unprofessional Image
The idea of hiring a home-based receptionist or secretary to do all the administrative tasks or answer calls for customer support does not give a good picture to your customers. This can show that your company is still on a below-average scale since you can’t afford to hire your own people and, instead, get services from part-time professionals. Unless you can keep this arrangement a secret between you and your service provider, everything can still look very professional in your customer’s point to view.
You can now weigh the impact of the aforementioned factors on your business or find a way to avoid these from negatively affecting your business.
About the Author
Publish on 01/23/2013
- freelance copywriter specializing in topics about the general services and qualities of a call center Philippines houses. Her expertise in the topic stems from having had worked for a few call centers and a BPO company offering a variety of services.
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