podone - a decentralized network of inhouse and remote contact center agents

Idle Time Resource Pool

At a contact center, oftentimes a representative is idle while he or she is waiting to handle customer interactions, typically due to lower-than-expected call volumes rather than a fault of their own. The employer pays for this lapse in productivity, especially if the representative is paid by the hour. With PodOne, an employer can auction its employees’ idle time to other businesses and individuals on the network in need of additional human resources to complete tasks. An employer leasing out its own surplus human resources to other businesses is paid for doing so, thus keeping its workforce productive while generating additional value even during moments of idleness, solving the first problem discussed earlier. This system creates a pool of available representatives and a marketplace for their idle time for use by businesses in need of additional staffing.

Elastic Staffing

During a business’s peak seasons, contact centers are faced with the task and challenges of building an efficiently-sized staff necessary to handle the increase in interaction volume. A contact center typically begins a lengthy process to acquire the necessary staff. First, the contact center must analyze past years and predict the number of representatives needed during the peak season. For sophisticated contact center operations, this process is typically performed using advanced workforce management software while less sophisticated centers rely on manual entries from old Excel spreadsheets. Then, the contact center recruits staff utilizing either its own human resources department, or a recruiting/staffing agency. Should the contact center decide to hire a recruiting agency to meet its staffing needs, it would need to provide supporting information including the total number of representatives required, language proficiency requirements, skillsets, experience requirements, background check requirements, a budget per representative, and a desired schedule. After a cumbersome negotiation period, the staffing agency then sends potential recruits to the contact center, which then vets and trains the potential recruits according to its own practices. It is the PodOne network’s pool of human resources which solves the problem of short-staffing during peak seasons. Contact centers are able to access the network of representatives whose idle times have been marked as available, and make a request for personnel which includes all the requirements for the position. Payment, vetting, and training are all performed automatically by different aspects of the system, requiring the contact center manager only to listen to the provided voice samples of potential recruits and to select which recruits shall be hired. This cuts out the recruiting agency middle-man completely, saving the contact center time and money. The PodOne network creates a decentralized market of talent and a shared pool of human resources allowing for greater productivity and an increase in value produced by businesses.