Desination CRM – January 1, 2007

“The industry is taking note: IDC forecasts that the number of U.S. at-home agents--a slim but rising subsegment of the millions of CSRs in the United States--will burgeon from an estimated 112,000 in 2005 to more than 300,000 by 2010. ‘The companies themselves are looking for an alternative to the way they provide customer service, which drives more profitable revenue, but drives it at a much lower cost,’ says Angie Selden, CEO at WillowCSN.

“… The home-based agent model will continue to gain traction. ‘With any new business model there will always be pioneers, the early adopters--companies that are willing to pilot and try new concepts,’ WillowCSN's Selden says. ‘People see that those innovators are actually getting good results from the trials and tests, then there are a lot of fast followers; we're at the fast-follower stage now. This model is not unproven. It's a legitimate alternative in the portfolio strategy a client might be considering for how he provides customer contact solutions.’”