Biz Travel: Tech Needs of a Connected Workforce
by Fred Gebhart /This is the third and final part in a series on corporate agents moving to home offices.
The migration of corporate travel agents out of employers’ offices and call centers into home offices is being driven by two related factors – technology and cost-savings. Real estate and labor are two of the largest expenses in most agency budgets.
Atlas Travel was one of the first corporate agencies to reinvent itself using a virtual workforce, starting back in the late 1990s. The move let the agency shift its budget priorities from real estate to technology and customer service.
“It was a challenging shift,” said Lea Cahill, CTC, chief operating officer for Atlas Travel and Technology Group. “People were just starting to use the Internet seriously at home.”
Remember dial-up?
Among the challenges back then were connectivity limitations.
Most of those early at-home agents used dial-up connections and modems that sometimes slowed to 300 bits per second. By contrast, the typical home Internet connection today is 10,000 times faster, at three megabits per second (Mbps).
Back then, agents working at home needed at least two extra phone lines, one for the modem and one for phone calls, and maybe a third line for a fax machine.
On the agency end, incoming client calls had to be forwarded to agents working at home. Technicians nursed banks of modems wired into dedicated, and expensive, phone lines.
Catching up
“By the early 2000s, technology was starting to catch up to our needs,” said Atlas chief technology officer Dan Reagan.
“DSL and broadband connections started becoming the norm for residential service. (See sidebar.) By the middle of the decade, we were treating phones like one more network device.
“Today, all an agent needs is one of our phones, one of our laptops, and an Ethernet connection to plug into. The office is wherever you are,” Reagan said.
Equipment needs
Atlas chooses to equip its agents with standardized phones and laptops they can use at home, in the office or on the road.
Other agencies have opted to set minimum tech standards and allow agents to provide their own devices.
While providing agents with equipment boosts technology spending, the higher initial outlay on standardized equipment, programs and interfaces is worth the investment for Atlas Travel. According to Reagan, the expense is more than offset by simplified operations and security.
When bad weather strikes
The 20% of Atlas agents who work in the office have the same plug-and-play equipment as home-based agents.
When bad weather is in the forecast, office-based agents can take their phones and laptops with them when they leave the office and be ready to plug whether they are at home or stuck in a hotel somewhere.
At the same time having a geographically diverse at-home workforce insulates the agency against outages in any one city or region, Cahill said.
Having agents working from home also insulates the agency from broader connectivity problems associated with a particular telephone company or Internet service provider. Atlas’ data center has redundant service from two ISPs for backup.
“Nearly all residential ISPs are poor on service,” Reagan said. “They just are not as responsive for residential circuits as they are on business circuits.”
Related stories
Corporate Agencies Turn to Home-Based Agents
Biz Travel: The Pros & Cons of a Home-Based Workforce