Global Uptake In CATI Interviewers Working from Home
For market research organisations doing telephone interviewing, the ability to relocate CATI interviewers to work from home is a very welcome benefit that has allowed some of those companies to continue their research work uninhibited by the global lockdown.
Seems like a win-win!
Making the switch with Sytel
Working remotely in a CATI contact center has been a straightforward transition for Sytel’s market research customers. With the technical challenges solved by Sytel, MR organisations have been able to focus on the human factor – remote training, supervising and managing remote users.
What our partners and customers are saying
We were expecting some challenges as part of the transition but by the end of the second week everything was running pretty much as normal with 100% of our interviewers working from home. We will never need as much physical space as we have in the past – likely a higher percentage of homeworkers is the way of the future.
Lisa Mancini – US – Director of Call Center Operations – Global Data Collection Company (GDCC)
Sytel built a working solution ahead of schedule and it worked great. Our interviewers love working from home and we feel more secure in our ability to quickly pivot between in-office interviewing and at-home interviewing as circumstances change in the future, as we now have the infrastructure to do both.
John Lafrance – US – VP Research Methods and Sampling – Escalent
Roy Morgan was able to implement “work from home” CATI operations quickly and efficiently to maintain its data collection efforts at a business critical time. Productivity levels have been maintained with CATI operators and supervisors welcoming the convenience of working shifts from home, and conversely of not having to commute to and from the city, often late in the evening. This win:win and more flexible arrangement will no doubt present a strong case for continuation into the future once COVID-19 operating constraints are removed, so we are pleased to have taken a step in this direction and to have that option.
Stephen Harvy – Australia – Head of Operations – Roy Morgan Research
Everything in a browser – anywhere, any time
Sytel CATI interviewers have the benefit of Sytel’s WebRTC browser-phone which:
- loads from within a browser
- requires no software installation or VPN
- connects the interviewer to the dialer from wherever they are located using an encrypted connection
- requires that the interviewer has just a computer, headset and internet connection.
And supervisor tools for managing interviewers are available as before: call recordings are available for supervisors to review interviewer performance and live monitoring of interviewer calls is also available.
Future impact
Wider recruitment possibilities
Traditionally ‘contact center’ has meant an office building with banks of desks and computers. Recruitment for that site has been limited to a relatively small radius around the office and some CATI operations have struggled to recruit under those circumstances.
Now with home working a real option for CATI operations that radius has been removed and interviewers can be located anywhere, opening the door for a much wider pool of resources.
Deeper talent pool
Being able to choose interviewers located anywhere also means that CATI organisations can benefit from a deeper talent pool. If specific skills such as languages are required for interviewers, CATI organisations no longer need to look for those within a radius of a few miles.
Scaling-up
MR organisations that find they are facing greater workloads are no longer bound by the number of physical seats in their CATI offices. Sytel’s cloud-ready dialer can easily be adjusted to accommodate more CATI users, even at very large numbers (and of course an interviewer who is home-based doesn’t occupy a seat!)
Conclusion
COVID-19 has caused no end of complications in many industries, but for market research organisations with the ability to work from home life can continue as normal. It has highlighted the need for flexibility and preparedness and given MR and other organisations that make use of Sytel’s work-from-home solution a unique advantage over their competitors.
