Work At Home: Will this hot trend work for our operations?

1. Work At Home:Will this hot trend work for our operations? Bill Price President Driva Solutions Co-Founder LimeBridge Global Alliance, Chair Global Operations Council HDNW Seattle 17 January 2007

2. My work at home experience • MCI ’90s – studied attempts to move agents at home • Amazon ’99-01 – built Seattle telecommuters to 125; WTO • Driva Solutions ’01- – supported numerous clients moving agents to homes; authored articles (e.g. “A Double-Win”), addressed conferences like HDP 2006 San Antonio • Global Operations Council (GOC) ’02 - – chairing 29 leading US-based companies sharing “best practices and worst experiences”, many with agents at home • Driva Automation ’06- -- building industry’s 1st database of contact center tech vendors + 3rd-party outsourcing firms, 5 of which specialize with their agents at home • Today, I work from home, finally!

3. Agenda this afternoonWork At Home – Will this hot trend work for our operations? • Work at home costs and other advantages • Risks with mitigation • How to pitch work at home in your company

4. What are your desired takeaways? • __ Answers for my CEO who keeps talking about work at home • __ I do work from home now • __ I want to work from home • __ Had to get out of the office/home after all of this crazy weather OR . . .

5. What are your desired takeaways? • __ It’s getting too expensive to add more space • __ My techs don’t want to commute as much anymore • __ We need to cover more time zones

6. Work at home factoids • Jet Blue = “poster child” with all ~1200 reservation agents at home • Many others moving part of workforce at home including IT help desks, roadside assistance, nursing assistance • Yankee Group, 8/05: 350 U.S. and Canadian call centers found that 24% of agents (672,000 workers) now based in their homes • IDC: growth of home agents to increase 24% each year from 2006 through 2010 • Gartner: 70 to 80% of home-based agents have college degrees, compared with 30 to 40% of workers in call centers; mostly older than the average call center employee, often with management experience • Booz Allen Hamilton: 10% annual attrition vs. 50% call center agents • ITAC: $25K real estate savings for each work at home agent • Herman Trend Alert: Americans average 100 hours/year commuting, > vacations’ 80 hours/year

7. 1. Contact center cost indexNorth American brick & mortar operations 10% amortized ACD, IP servers, desktop PCs; licenses 10% buildings and buildout 10% telco access/egress, IP, routing/re-routing 70% agents, supervisors, management, support staff, executives, dedicated/virtual teams in IT/legal/other functions; base, benefits, bonuses; hiring, training, replacement hiring & training

8. 1. Contact center cost indexNorth American brick & mortar vs. work at home = 80 -90% 10%, flat – same systems 1% vs. 10% -- space only for core management 12% vs. 10% -- telecom will come down with VoIP 52% vs. 70% -- reduced attrition, higher ratios team leaders/techs, more quality efforts +20% -26%

9. 1. Other advantages for work at home • Greater focus, fewer distractions from cube-mates or classroom training sessions • Deliver solutions "through rain, snow, sleet, or hail, and the gloom of night“ • Higher levels of productivity (proven +10%) • Reduced absenteeism (but not zero!) • Greater coverage by team leaders (typically 24-30:1 vs. 15-18:1) • Greater satisfaction, translated (often) into higher quality • Access (re)new(ed) work force, e.g. Moms or Dads at home, handicapped, displaced call center agents • Reduced turnover or attrition (some cases -80%)

10. 2. Risks and mitigations

11. 3. How to pitch work at home in your company • Create 3-phase plan (see next pages) • Harness IT, Finance, HR • Emphasize “fit” with trends, employee preferences, flexibility and other benefits • Check the plan • Test with “best agents” (as reward, to seed early wins)

12. 3. Phase I: Assessment • Define objectives and conduct needs analysis • Prepare winning business case • Perform detailed process mapping, systems review and costing • Identify and implement improvement opportunities • Determine outsourcing feasibility and approach • Create requirements document in preparation for RFX, if appropriate

13. 3. Phase II: Implement work at home program • Assign full-time PM (project manager), and possible outside consulting assistance • Complete outsourcing RFP if appropriate OR • Profile 1st wave of agents for home (3rd-party tools/advice), new team leader and training roles, real time metrics/reporting • Prepare online training, remote monitoring, KB, streaming news, alerts, etc • Conduct home office inspections • Start the program

14. 3. Phase III: Adjust work at home program • Coordinate implementation of detailed transition plan across all departments (esp. HR, IT/telecom) • After 30 days and 90 days, conduct performance satisfaction review with agents + via c-sat surveys • Assess progress real-time, daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly with tight metrics • Effect needed changes including bring-backs, growing, changing scope/deal/roles • Celebrate early successes!

15. Agenda this morningWork At Home – Will this hot trend work for my operations? • Work at home costs (-20%, maybe better) and other advantages (increased quality, agent satisfaction) • Risks with mitigation (re distraction, knowledge access) • How to pitch work at home in your company (3-phase plan + close cooperation)

16. Thank you! Bill Price, Founder/President Driva Solutions Co-founder LimeBridge Global Alliance Chair Global Operations Council Bellevue, Washington USA 1-206-321-0841 bill@drivasolutions.com