Executive Summary

When a fast-growing government contractor transitioned to a fully remote, global workforce, they faced a critical challenge: how to maintain productivity and accountability across distributed teams handling time-sensitive customer service operations. 

After implementing Teramind, they achieved remarkable results—100% call coverage, significantly reduced escalations, and successfully addressed time theft issues without a single repeat offender.

The Challenge: Managing a Distributed Government Contract Workforce

As a government reseller specializing in customer service operations, this company handles a constant stream of time-sensitive tasks: answering phones, processing orders, and responding to urgent emails. To meet demand, they outsourced operations across multiple time zones with a fully remote, global workforce.

The challenge? Maintaining oversight and accountability when no one was sitting in the same office.

Key Pain Points:

• Zero visibility into remote worker activity — Difficult to monitor productivity and ensure work was being completed
• High call abandonment rates — Many customer calls went unanswered or to voicemail
• Suspected time theft — Employees appearing online but not responding to urgent messages
• Hiring in the dark — Unable to determine if they needed more staff or if existing employees were underutilized
• Customer escalations — Increasing complaints due to delayed responses and missed communications

   

“Before Teramind, we were just hiring people in the dark based on employee input. It was really hard to keep track of them and see if they were actually taking care of business.”
— IT Manager

The Solution: Comprehensive Remote Workforce Monitoring

The company implemented Teramind to gain visibility into their distributed workforce without micromanaging. Their deployment strategy focused on transparency and practical monitoring.

Implementation Highlights:

Transparent Deployment

• Employees were informed about monitoring software
• Positioned as a tool for learning opportunities and accountability, not surveillance
• Created trust while maintaining necessary oversight

Key Features Utilized:

• Active Time Monitoring — Daily reports showing keyboard and mouse activity percentages
• Screen Recording — Available for review when issues arise
• Productivity Reports — Automated daily summaries identifying top performers and potential issues
• Time-Based Restrictions — Prevented login outside designated work hours
• Automated Installation — Streamlined deployment through Windows integration
• Real-Time Snapshots — Quick visibility into any employee’s current activity

Strategic Rules & Alerts:

• Social media monitoring
• Large data download detection
• Activity tracking across different time zones

The Results: Transforming Productivity and Customer Service

The impact was immediate and measurable. Within their first year of active Teramind use, the company experienced a complete transformation in operational efficiency.

100% Call Coverage

“Every single call is now answered in the call queue correctly. Before, we had so many calls not answered or going to voicemail. Now we’re seeing every single call answered because employees have no excuse.”

Significant Reduction in Customer Escalations

“We’ve really, really noticed a downtick in escalations over the last year or so. People are being productive and taking care of time-sensitive things—making those a high priority has definitely helped.”

Optimized Workforce Planning

“We’ve had discussions and looked at reports and noticed problems—people stealing time. We’ve been able to clean that up and definitely use it to determine whether we need to bring more people on or reduce people.”

Eliminated Time Theft with Zero Repeat Offenders

The company discovered multiple instances of mouse jiggling and keyboard toggling to falsify activity. Their response?

“We developed a process where we talk to the employee, give them a written warning, and let them know if it happens again, it’s the end of employment. We haven’t had any second cases with anybody. Usually when we confront somebody, they start remembering real quick that we have monitoring software.”

Beyond the Numbers:

The IT Manager noted that Teramind gave them something they never had before: proof.

“If we see in our call queue system that calls weren’t answered, we can now look into Teramind and check—’we had this many people here, what happened? Where was the problem?’ The data gives us concrete evidence to address issues constructively.”

The Experience: Partnership That Drives Success

“Working with our Teramind rep has been really, really amazing. Each week or every two weeks, we’re meeting and developing different things. I make a list of questions I always have for him. He’s very in-depth, very good at answering all my questions or researching and following up if he doesn’t know. He does whatever it takes to help us out.”

Regular meetings led to:

• Custom report configurations
• Streamlined installation processes
• Advanced rule creation
• Proactive problem-solving

Advice for Companies Considering Teramind

When asked what advice he’d give other companies, the IT Manager emphasized:

“Lean on Your Rep—They’re the Experts”

“Don’t be afraid to reach out. I deal with vendor reps all the time, and I get really poor responses that turn me off. But with Teramind, it’s different. Tell your rep exactly what you’re looking for—they’ve probably heard it before and will know a way to make it work.”

“Invest Time in Learning the Platform”

“Check out the how-tos, tours, and videos. Really helps with knowing how to navigate the reports, get into your employees’ computers, and manage policies. Just learn where the stuff is.”

“Write Down Your Problems and Questions”

“That’s basically all I do with Tom—write down problems and questions, bring them to him, and we work through and resolve them. It’s a constantly flowing and moving thing with people and technologies and ways they get around it. It’s very helpful to have somebody helping like that.”

The Bottom Line

For this government contractor, Teramind transformed from a confusing tool into an indispensable platform that:

• Delivered 100% call coverage and eliminated missed customer communications
• Reduced escalations and improved customer satisfaction
• Caught and eliminated time theft without repeat offenses
• Enabled data-driven workforce planning and optimization
• Created accountability while maintaining employee trust through transparency
• Provided concrete evidence for constructive performance conversations

   

“It’s definitely helped improve productivity 100%. We can see the workload is done, emails are taken care of, every single phone call is answered—and when there’s an issue, we can look into it and understand what happened. That visibility has been game-changing for us.”
— IT Manager