VoIP Call Center

NAB Considers Work-from-Home Contact Centers, Made Possible Through VoIP

By David Gitonga TMCnet Contributing Writer

There are many benefits seen from work-from-home call centers that utilize Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). So many advantages in fact that the National Australia Bank (NAB) is willing to implement work-from-home call centers by the end of the year. The roll out is already underway with 3,200 contact center agents already being allowed to work from where they feel most comfortable—their homes. The VoIP-based virtual contact centers are part of a three-year program that intends to move call center agents from legacy PABX systems at a cost of $30 million.

The virtualized, Web-based platform is already being leveraged in NAB’s data centers in Melbourne for 38 contact centers across the country with an estimated savings cost of $300,000 when compared to running the 14 separate platforms that included hardware and software applications. This move, from a traditional “brick and mortar” structure to a more flexible, customer-centric environment is the result of capacity constraints, high real estate costs and ageing technology.

Graham Cronin, the head of Network Services at NAB, echoed the comments from banking and insurance group Suncorp (News - Alert) who earlier this year hoped to retain more contact center workers by allowing staff to work from home while saving over $10,000 for each city-center desk. Cronin however pointed out that no staff has been put in a home site yet. He said in a statement, “It’ll be a trial that the business will now come and talk about,” pointing to the flexibility it offers to the staff as an incentive. The issue at hand now is how to best deliver that to them and what the agent set up at home will be like.

In addition to shaving 30 percent off its operational costs, NAB hopes to improve wait times, optimize rostering and offer more services in the mobile app space. Cronin said that the platform could seamlessly integrate with consumer video conferencing technology, like Apple’s FaceTime and Skype (News - Alert), which would be particularly useful to customers in remote locations.

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