Light Years Ahead: Remote Agent Solution Gives Accounts Receivable Options (ARO) Competitive Advantage
Some Friday afternoons the only employee working in the Kansas City contact center of Accounts Receivable Options (ARO) is the floor supervisor. In fact, on most days 75 percent of ARO's nearly 125 customer service representatives (CSRs) don't come to the office. And Lester Ham, president of the 15-year-old service bureau, wouldn't have it any other way.
"An empty contact center is proof that our business model is working," smiles Ham, whose organization has accomplished what other call-center providers dream of: a stable remote workforce that consistently exceeds market standards for productivity.
"In just over three years we transformed ourselves from traditional in-house staffing to virtually all remote CSRs," says Ham. "As a result, we're attracting and retaining more skilled employees, we've controlled the costs of our tremendous growth, and major corporate customers are choosing us because we're truly an innovator in our field."