True to its name, HomeServe USA has rapidly shifted its Chattanooga staff to serve its customers from the employees’ homes, rather than the company’s congregated call center on Lee Highway.
In just 10 days last month, HomeServe scattered its 500-employee call center in Chattanooga from the $5.5 million open office complex built less than two years ago to the individual homes of the telemarketing workers. While doing so, one of America’s biggest home repair services kept answering phones and dispatching repair crews across the country.
“It was a remarkable shift in such a short period,” said Myles Meehan, senior vice president of marketing for the Norfolk, Connecticut-based repair service which acquired Servline in Chattanooga at the end of 2019.
The shift to teleworking at home for most of the HomeServe staff comes as the company is also trying to aid other workers to limit in-person contacts with other people to control the spread of the coronavirus. With more people home-bound and reluctant to bring others into their homes, HomeServe announced Tuesday it is launching a new remote home repair assistance option known as Telefix.
The new service, which the company began testing last week, allows qualified technicians to remotely examine, diagnose, and even offer repair guidance to help homeowners solve common home repairs without stepping foot into the home. The free remote Do-It-Yourself guidance is designed to build good will during the current challenging economic environment and, where consumers choose, could lead to more referrals and decisions to employ HomeServe to dispatch repair crews to fix plumbing, electrical, or heating and air conditioning problems