Setting with Remote Administrators

Nowadays not only agents get the opportunity to work remotely but also administrators, as companies downsizing their operations to reduce costs. These must be implemented and regularly surveyed. However, the key step is ensuring that the worker understands and is suitable for remote working. Remote working is not something that you do within the morning sherry party! More self discipline is probably required than in the office.

These days, it’s not only the virtual contact center agents that are getting the opportunity to work remotely. As companies try to reduce costs by downsizing their brick and mortar operations, even company administrators are being set up to work from home offices. How does a company go about setting up remote administrators?

First look at the hardware needs at the employee level and make this a requirement of employment. This would need to be coordinated with the company’s security, IT, and telecom personnel. Then give thought to compensation models. Will the employees be paid based on number of calls, total talk time, log in times or some other methodology? Distribution of payroll would also be a concern – checks would either need to be direct deposited or mailed. The final step would be to set up the manner in which the agents are to be supervised. Depending on the spread of the workforce this could be done entirely by remote contact or using a hybrid of remote and direct contact. Some would pay remote workers on a per unit basis as opposed to hourly. That way they commit to work on a weekly basis and can do it around their own schedule – without us having to babysit. Online training and regular (for daily) coaching is important. With leverage actors to ‘mystery shop’ and coach following the call.

A few models to help:
1. Move existing office workers home – this requires careful selection process as home workers do not have the same social support networks
2. Recruit specifically for home workers
The technology piece is critical – issue such as bandwidth and security are important factors to consider.
There are also Health and Safety requirements (from seating to desktop setup) for virtual contact center workers as well as office workers. These must be implemented and regularly surveyed. However, the key step is ensuring that the worker understands and is suitable for remote working. Remote working is not something that you do within the morning sherry party! More self discipline is probably required than in the office.
Web-based management portals and careful understanding of the skills of the admin who would be remote is much important. Web training sharing best practices of known successful routines

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Apple Will Be Thrashed By Microsoft In Four Years

All Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has to do is hang on for a few years and it will have a huge share of the smartphone market due to its partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). IDC says that Windows will have 20% of the OS smartphone market in 2015. That will allow it to surge ahead of the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iOS which will only have a share of 16.9%, a drop from its current level of 18.2%.

According to the (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, "vendors will ship a total of 472 million smartphones in 2011 compared to roughly 305 million units shipped in 2010. That figure will nearly double to 982 million by the end of 2015." The smartphone growth figure seems plausible. The Nokia/Microsoft Windows number does not. IDC expects the change will occur because of the "breadth within markets where Nokia has historically had a strong presence."

But, Nokia's "breadth" has begun to disappear quickly and it is naive to think that the world's largest handset company can get it back. Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android OS is expected to be No.1 in market share in 2015 at 43.8%. That figure could be much higher if its rate of adoption grows nearly as fast as it has since Android was released. One of the most impressive parts of Android's success is its presence on smartphones made by a wide number of companies from Taiwan's HTC to Motorola to Samsung. Samsung is the second largest handset maker in the world, and it has made strong inroads throughout the sector with its new Android-powered Captivate and Galaxy products. The advance of Android should be much greater than IDC expects.

IDC's estimates of Apple's iOS may also be too low. Granted, the operating system is only available on Apple products, but a large number of analysts believe that Apple smartphone sales will continue to grow rapidly as the company releases new versions of the product, lowers prices on some versions, and launches a 4G version.

The IDC forecast is harder to defend that it is to reject.

Worldwide Smartphone Operating System 2011 and 2015 Market Share and 2011-2015 Compound Annual Growth Rate

Douglas A. McIntyre

This blog is reprinted by permission from 24/7 Wall St, © 2007 24/7 Wall St., LLC All rights reserved.

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New financial regulations may end era of free checking

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The sweeping financial regulation signed into law Wednesday by President Barack Obama may have a direct and visible effect on millions of bank account holders in the U.S.

The new rules may end the era of free checking accounts that was pioneered in the previous decade by banks like Washington Mutual  WAMUQ +16.98% , some analysts say.

 

PF Minute: Banks impose new fees

Lawmakers have been busy ramping up consumer protections on a variety of financial products, but are we saving any money yet? Already banks are fighting back with new fees and other changes to your accounts. MarketWatch's Andrea Coombes looks at some of the changes banks are making to account terms and fees.

Wells Fargo & Co. WFC +1.98% , which reported more than $3 billion in quarterly profit Wednesday, scrapped free checking for new customers, imposing a $5 monthly fee for new basic accounts starting this month.

Bank of America Corp.  BAC +0.75% is launching a new account in August that will be free if customers bank online and use ATMs, but will cost $8.95 a month if they want a paper statement and use a teller for routine transactions, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

More big banks will likely follow the lead of Wells and Bank of America because the financial reforms limit the amount of fees they can charge and the way they levy them.

"That's going to be pretty common across the board. Lots of big banks are starting to do that," said Jeff LaFrance, an analyst at Gradient Analytics, in an interview Wednesday. "New financial regulations are taking away their ability to make profits elsewhere on deposit accounts, so they're charging fees."

One big change is the regulation of so-called interchange fees on debit cards, which Bank of America recently warned could knock $1.8 billion to $2.3 billion off annual revenue generated by its Global Card Services business, starting in the third quarter of 2011. Read about Bank of America's estimate.

Banks have been experimenting with new pricing techniques as the financial-reform bill worked its way through Congress, Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities, wrote in a recent note to investors.

"The simplest is to place a monthly maintenance charge on each account," he said. "The amount might vary from $8 per month to $12 per month."

Bove says this extra cost could force some poorer depositors to shut their bank accounts, leading to the loss of roughly 14 million accounts. These people may struggle to find other more affordable bank accounts, he added.

"This is a very rough estimate but it is likely to be low not high," Bove wrote. "This bill is going to harm the very people it supposedly helps."

Wells Fargo Chief Executive John Stumpf also criticized the new financial-reform bill on Wednesday, although he didn't specifically address checking accounts and fees.

"We remain concerned that some aspects of regulatory reform may have unintended negative impacts for America's financial system, consumers and businesses," Stumpf said in a statement.

Alistair Barr is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.

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