Bringing Home The Calls

Every day, millions of people in the UK make phone calls to all kinds of businesses.

There are pizza calls, car hire calls, calls to buy computers, calls to ask about their gas bills. In fact, there is every kind of customer service call you can imagine.

Traditionally these calls have been answered by an internal customer service agent (CSA’s) staff working in large “bricks and mortar” corporate contact centres.

Today however, more call centres are beginning to contract independent CSA agents working from their homes to answer many of the calls. The industry name for this new kind of on-line worker is a Remote Contract Agent. (RCA)

The increasing demand for Remote Contract Agents presents a wonderful opportunity for anyone who wants their own business working flexible hours from their own home office.

Contract Work Is Flexible Work

As a Remote Contract Agent you can earn on average £10 to £16 an hour, which is certainly more than you would earn working inside a call centre.

What’s more, it’s work you have a great deal of control over because, as an independent contractor, you run your own business. It’s you who decides how many clients you wish to work for and (to a surprising extent) when and how long your work shifts are.

If you want to work part-time it’s a job that offers you almost perfect flexibility. Increasingly however, Remote Contract Agents are choosing to build their business into full-time endeavors.

Certainly there is enough work coming to ContractXchange to keep an agent busy all day (and night).

The 6 Steps To Your First Job Contract.

The path that leads to you working at home as a certified self-employed agent contractor is clearly laid out. Thousands of contract agents have already successfully completed the “Six Steps” process. And rest assured we will help you every step of the way.

Your Work You answer incoming client calls for the call centre clients who contract you. Some clients also contract for outgoing calls.

Your Workplace You work from your own home office using your own PC work station. You are connected to your contact centre clients through our remote Network.

Your Work Training You are fully trained, on-line, for each of your chosen clients call types. Training time varies by client, it can be few days or sometimes a week or two. You are required to pay a small fee for your training courses.

Your Work Contract You do not work for ContractXchange. You contract your services directly with the recruiting clients who advertise on this site. Clients are responsible to you for the work provided, your supervision, administration, scheduling and pay. Full contract details are viewable in ContractXchange Members Section.

Your Business Over time, you can build up your agent business by adding different customer service centre clients. With more clients you have a greater variety of work, more opportunities and, of course you will earn more money.

Your Work Hours You have the opportunity to work flexible hours, sometimes for very short periods. You can work as many or as few hours as you like, as long as you satisfy your clients schedules.

Your Work Schedule You post your available time for the coming week in the online ContractXchange scheduler. The scheduling system automatically integrates your available time with your clients needs. You can swap shifts with other Contract Agents on the scheduler swap board. You can also commit to a standby status for extra work.

Your Work Payment You are usually paid on a per call basis, the fee per call is set by your clients. You are paid directly by your contact centre clients. Payment is bi-monthly and deposited electronically to your bank account. Income expectations, with a mix of clients, should average about £12.00 per hour.

Your Work Overhead As an independent business you pay for the (largely tax deductible) costs of running your office including; equipment, connections and operating fees.

It is neither difficult nor expensive to certify for work as a Remote Contract Agent, however certification does have a checklist of fundamental requirements:

A Home Location Virtually Anywhere In The UK.

As long as you live in an area where high-speed internet service is available you can work as Remote Contract Agent. If you live outside the Network local calling area you will need a VOIP computer phone to avoid long distance charges.

A Quiet Home Office.

You will need a dedicated, equipped space free from the intrusion of any background noise (TV’s, radios, children, pets, lawnmowers etc). As a condition of employment all effort must be made to exlude extraneous noise

High Speed Internet Access.

You must have either Cable, DSL, or ISDN internet access. Dial-up, satellite and wireless connections do not provide the necessary speed rates.

Computer Experience.

You will need basic computer skills. You should be competent in word processing and email use, browser use, downloading and installing of software.

A Dedicated Phone Line.

You need a phone line that is independent of your home phone line for voice transmission.

A Personal Computer.

You need your own recent model computer that is compatible with our remote network. The network has equipment specifications that you must meet in order to operate at the technology level necessary to execute call and data transactions for Client call centres Click here for Technical Specs

3 Extra Equipment Items

In addition to your telephone and computer there are three small equipment items that are important to the daily execution of your remote work.
Click here for Remote Equipment List

If you know how to operate a PC, plus have basic typing skills and a good telephone manner, you have the essential skills to train for Contract Agent work. There are two levels of training necessary for you to Certify as a working Contact Agent, each incurs a one-time training fee. You will be relieved to learn these on-line training courses are usually brief and the fees are reasonable.

Note: You can only attend training at the invitation of the recruiting company.

1. My Business Training

In this 2 day, 12 hour on-line course, you learn the key skills required to operate independently from your own home office linked to a remote network system including how to operate all aspects of the AgentAccess OS™ software.

Once graduated from this course you will attend the corresponding client course. The fee for this Agent Access course is £15.00 + VAT.

2. Client Application Training

Once invited to training by a Client, you register on-line to a Client Application course. In this course you learn how to process the specific call transactions of the client you have applied for.

According to which client company you apply to, your course could vary from 2-8 days, and training fees can vary between £75+VAT-£150+VAT.

All training is done online in a virtual classroom setting. All training fees are payable at time of registration by Visa, MasterCard or Bank Transfer. All training costs are tax deductible.

For the present schedule of classes available please click here.

You can’t become a Remote Contract Agent on your own. To answer client calls your home office must be connected into a full service, data/voice network. LiveXchange is a private network that provides the high level security, scheduling and multimedia communication tools necessary for you to connect and work remotely with your UK contact centre clients. Everyone in the remote contract agent community works on the LiveXchange Network. It does everything for you, for only a small monthly license fee.

Your LiveXchange Network License.

The LiveXchange Agent Access OS™ is the Network’s exclusive operating system needed for your computer to interface with the LiveXchange Network’s infrastructure and business tools.

Once you begin working for a client The Agent Access OS™ software is licensed to you for a fee of £15 per month for one client (£5 per month fee for each additional client)

Your Billing Company. Paysource Direct.

The LiveXchange Network partners with PaySource Direct an automated, third party billing service that supplies the precise invoicing and accounts receivable for your business.

Each (2 week) pay period PaySource Direct electronically bills each of your clients, collects the amount due and then deposits payments directly into your account. The PaySource Direct fee is £5.81 (VAT included) per invoice period.

Membership Is Easy, Free And Private.

There are no fees involved in becoming a ContractXchange Member. It’s free.

The Membership application is a single, on-line form that only requires your basic contact information. This information will always be held in the privacy of the ContractXchange database and will not be divulged to recruiting clients until they officially contract you. See Privacy Policy and Terms.

Once a member you have the power to login to the Members Section of this site and immediately apply for a work contract. However, you are not obligated to ever apply for contract work, and you can certainly end your membership at any time.

Inside The Members Section.

Once you register and login as a ContractXchange member you enter The Members Section. This is where you prepare to apply for the contract work you are interested in.

The section includes a Resume/CV Builder where you create a personal, multi-media CV specifically designed for home-based Contract Agent work. Included in the Resume/CV is a Remote Certification check-list that let’s you quickly establish how ready you are for on-line work.

Once you have completed the first level of

Certification you can then apply for any of the contract work listed in the ContractXchange postings.

Your application is sent directly to the recruiting company who will then review your application and notify you if you are invited for training. The entire recruiting process is on-line and you can find out where you stand very quickly.