FurstPerson: Are Home Agent Job Candidates Better?

CHICAGO, Nov. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- For companies to continue to hire the best talent for their home agent centers, FurstPerson, a Chicago-based company that provides pre-employment hiring solutions to the contact center industry, theorizes that they need to be selective on who to hire, hire quickly, and conduct this process objectively. FurstPerson recently published a white paper "Are Home Agent Job Candidates Better?," that explores this topic and offers solutions.

Over the last several years, the home agent model has been adopted by many contact center organizations. More and more organizations are implementing a home agent model to either replace or complement the traditional brick and mortar organization. Many contact center leaders agree that the home agent model offers operational advantages compared to traditional brick and mortar models and even some off-shore arrangements. In fact, these organizations have documented the performance improvements that the home agent model delivers over the traditional brick and mortar model. Some contact center leaders link these operational gains to more talented candidates available in the home agent market compared to the traditional brick and mortar market. By mastering the decision-making process around which of these candidates to hire, the company can experience increased customer satisfaction while keeping agent churn to a minimum.

"In this competitive climate, companies are turning to the home agent model more and more to ensure high levels of customer service with greater operational efficiency and lower cost structure," said president and chief executive officer (CEO) Jeff Furst. "The large supply of home-based agents, however, can present hiring challenges when it comes to selection. At FurstPerson, we specialize in providing an automated, predictive hiring solution that quickly maps to an organization's validated hiring process. Managers are then armed with more objective, complete information upon which to make those important hiring decisions."

In this white paper, FurstPerson:

• Discusses how organizations are now using the home agent model in contact centers;
• Reviews the two primary home agent models (hub and spoke vs. virtual agent models);
• Highlights financial benefits gained from using the home agent model;
• Compares the home agent labor pools and candidate quality; and,
• Outlines keys to home agent hiring success for optimal performance.
  

To download this free white paper, click here, and to find more than a dozen other white papers on improving new hire retention, visit FurstPerson's resource library.

About FurstPerson, Inc.

FurstPerson operates a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) contact center hiring system called 1stHire that is used in over 600 locations across North America, Europe, and Asia. FurstPerson's contact center solution includes contact center simulations, problem solving tests, personality tests, and analytics that are all integrated into a hiring solution that enables contact center hiring managers to reduce contact center turnover and hire individuals that perform better on the job. For more information, visit http://www.furstperson.com.