CALL CENTRE

Introduction

Call centre or call center is a centralized office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone.

A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing, clientele, and debt collection are also made. In addition to a call centre, collective handling of letters, faxes, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact centre.

A call centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace, with work stations that include a computer, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration (CTI).

Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centres. Examples of this include help desks and sales support.

Mathematical theory

A call centre can be viewed, from an operational point of view, as a queueing network. The simplest call centre, consisting of a single type of customers and statistically-identical servers, can be viewed as a single-queue. Queueing theory is a branch of mathematics in which models of such queueing systems have been developed. These models, in turn, are used to support work force planning and management, for example by helping answer the following common staffing-question: given a service-level, as determined by management, what is the least number of telephone agents that is required to achieve it. (Prevalent examples of service levels are: at least 80% of the callers are answered within 20 seconds; or, no more that 3% of the customers hang-up, due to their impatience, before being served.)

Queueing models also provide qualitative insight, for example identifying the circumstances under which economies of scale prevail, namely that a single large call centre is more effective at answering calls than several (distributed) smaller ones; or that cross-selling is beneficial; or that a call centre should be quality-driven or efficiency-driven or, most likely, both Quality and Efficiency Driven (abbreviated to QED). Recently, queueing models have also been used for planning and operating skills-based-routing of calls within a call centre, which entails the analysis of systems with multi-type customers and multi-skilled agents.
Call centre operations have been supported by mathematical models beyond queueing. For example, for forecasting of calls, for determining shift-structures, and even for analyzing customers' impatience while waiting to be served by an agent.

Accommodation

The centralization of call management aims to improve a company's operations and reduce costs, while providing a standardized, streamlined, uniform service for consumers, making this approach ideal for large companies with extensive customer support needs. To accommodate for such a large customer base, large warehouses are often converted to office space to host all call centre operations under one roof.

Centralised offices mean that large numbers of workers can be managed and controlled by a relatively small number of managers and support staff. They are often supported by computer technology that manages, measures and monitors the performance and activities of the workers. Call centre staff are closely monitored for quality control, level of proficiency, and customer service. Typical contact centre operations focus on the discipline areas of workforce management, queue management, quality monitoring, and reporting. Reporting in a call centre can be further broken down into real time reporting and historical reporting. The types of information collected for a group of call centre agents typically include: agents logged in, agents ready to take calls, agents available to take calls, agents in wrap up mode, average call duration, average call duration including wrap-up time, longest duration agent available, longest duration call in queue, number of calls in queue, number of calls offered, number of calls abandoned, average speed to answer, average speed to abandoned and service level, calculated by the percentage of calls answered in under a certain time period.

Many call centres use workforce management software, which is software that uses historical information coupled with projected need to generate automated schedules. This aims to provide adequate staffing skilled enough to assist callers.
The relatively high cost of personnel and worker inefficiency accounts for the majority of call centre operating expenses, influencing outsourcing in the call centre industry.
Inadequate computer systems can mean staff take one or two seconds longer than necessary to process a transaction. This can often be quantified in staff cost terms. This is often used as a driving factor in any business case to justify a complete system upgrade or replacement. For several factors, including the efficiency of the call centre, the level of computer and telecom support that may be adequate for staff in a typical branch office may prove totally inadequate in a call centre.

Technology

Call Centres use a wide variety of different technologies to allow them to manage the large volumes of work that need to be managed by the call centre. These technologies ensure that agents are kept as productive as possible, and that calls are queued and processed as quickly as possible, resulting in good levels of service.

These include ;

ACD (automatic call distribution: In telephony, an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) is a device that distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals that agents use. It is often part of a computer telephony integration system.)

Agent performance analytics

BTTC (best time to call)/ Outbound call optimization

IVR (interactive voice response: It is a computerized system that allows a person, typically a telephone caller, to select an option from a voice menu and otherwise interface with a computer system. Generally the system plays pre-recorded voice prompts to which the person presses a number on a telephone keypad to select the option chosen, or speaks simple answers such as "yes", "no", or numbers in answer to the voice prompts.)

Guided Speech IVR: The Guided Speech IVR approach for call centers is a hybrid model that integrates live call center agents with all the advancements of speech in a new real-time approach for callers. This new approach creates a "safety-net", as the new role for the agent as a guide who assists the automation invisibly helps the caller using human intelligence and transcription to ensure the correct computerized service is provided.

CTI (computer telephony integration: Computer telephony integration (CTI) is technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be integrated or co-ordinated. As contact channels have expanded from voice to include email, web, and fax, the definition of CTI has expanded to include the integration of all customer contact channels (voice, email, web, fax, etc.) with computer systems.)

Enterprise Campaign Management: All Predictive dialer solutions require customer data (usually referred to as 'call records') in order for them to work. At the most basic sense, these call records are simply a list of phone numbers to dial, however in practice companies will also provide with those phone numbers information such as the Customer Name, Address, Account Number and other information about why you might be calling that person. This data has two basic uses, 1. The dialler uses the phone number(s) provided to make the actual calls, and 2. to populate the 'screen pop' that is displayed to the agent when the call is connected (so that the agent knows who they are talking to and what about).

Outbound predictive dialer: The autodialer preceeded the predictive dialer. While the basic autodialer merely automatically dials telephone numbers for call center agents who are idle or waiting for a call, the predictive dialer uses a variety of algorithms to predict both the availability of agents and called party answers, adjusting the calling process to the number of agents it anticipates (or predicts) will be available when the calls it places are expected to be answered.

CRM (customer relationship management: Customer relationship management (CRM) covers methods and technologies used by companies to manage their relationships with clients. Information stored on existing customers (and potential customers) is analyzed and used to this end. Automated CRM processes are often used to generate automatic personalized marketing based on the customer information stored in the system.)

CIM (customer interaction management) solutions (Also known as 'Unified' solutions)

Email Management

Chat and Web Collaboration

Desktop Scripting Solutions

Outsourcing

Third Party Verification (Third party verification)

TTS (text to speech)

WFM (workforce management)

Virtual queuing
Voice analysis
Voice recognition
Voicemail
Voice recording
VoIP
Speech Analytics

Call centre dynamics

Types of calls are often divided into outbound and inbound. Inbound calls are calls that are made by the consumer to obtain information, report a malfunction, or ask for help. These calls are substantially different from outbound calls, where agents place calls to potential customers mostly with intentions of selling or service to the individual.

Call centre staff are often organized into a multi-tier support system for a more efficient handling of calls. The first tier in such a model consists of operators, who direct inquiries to the appropriate department and provide general directory information. If a caller requires more assistance, the call is forwarded to the second tier, where most issues can be resolved. In some cases, there may be three or more tiers of support staff. If a caller requires more assistance, the caller is forwarded to the third tier of support; typically the third tier of support is formed by product engineers/developers or highly-skilled technical support staff of the product.

Call centres have their critics. Some critics argue that the work atmosphere in such an environment is de-humanising. Others point to the low rates of pay and restrictive working practices of some employers. There has been much controversy over such things as restricting the amount of time that an employee can spend in the toilet. Furthermore, call centres have been the subject of complaints by callers who find the staff often do not have enough skill or authority to resolve problems, while the dehumanized workers very often exhibit an attitude of apathy to even the most abusive customer.

Owing to the highly technological nature of the operations in such offices, the close monitoring of staff activities is easy and widespread. This can be argued to be beneficial, to enable the company to better plan the workload and time of its employees. Some people have argued that such close monitoring breaches human rights to privacy. Yet another argument is that close monitoring and measurement by quantitative metrics can be counterproductive in that it can lead to poor customer service and a poor image of the company, and an ability to keep within the "stats" while still doing horrible things. [citation needed]

Many call centres in the UK have been built in areas that are depressed economically. This means that the companies get cheap land and labour, and can often benefit from grants to encourage them to improve employment in a given area. There has also been a trend to move call centres to India, where there is a large pool of English-speaking people. However, there has been widespread dissatisfaction from consumers, who are unable to understand Indian call centre staff and vice versa, owing to differences between British and Indian English, and some companies, such as the bank Abbey, are closing their Indian call centre operations. [citation needed]

This trend is on a decline as India rapidly absorbs most of the highly educated people who are qualified in the science and mathematics streams, and, like in other countries, call centre jobs are increasingly viewed as stopgap jobs rather than as careers.

Another popular call centre site is the Philippines, owing to its abundant English speakers that are college graduates and Americanized when it comes to English accent and cultural affinities. The Philippines was an American colony for almost 50 years. The Philippines is said to be the best outsourcing site outside North America since the accent of Filipinos is nearer to that of American consumers as compared to other ethnicities. [citation needed]

For the Asia Pacific region, from India to Australia and New Zealand, Malaysia is emerging as one of the top locations for setting up call centres. The country has a history of ties with the English-speaking world and English-language education, as a former British colony.
Canada is also a popular call centre site, with the relatively low Canadian dollar and low telecommunication rates.

Around the world, there are a number of professional organisations forming to develop and promote call centre best practice management and operation, to overcome the negative aspects of a call centre. [citation needed]

Management of call centres

Management of call centres involves balancing the requirements of cost effectiveness and service. Callers do not wish to wait in exorbitantly long queues until they can be helped and so management must provide sufficient staff and inbound capacity to ensure that the quality of service is maintained. However, staff costs generally form more than half the cost of running a call centre and so management must minimise the number of staff present.
To perform this balancing act, call centre managers make use of demand estimation, Telecommunication forecasting and dimensioning techniques to determine the level of staff required at any time. Managers must take into account staff tea and lunch breaks and must determine the number of agents required on duty at any one time..

Forecasting demand

Forecasting results are vital in making management decisions in call centres. Forecasting methods rely on data acquired from various sources including historical data, trend data and so on. Forecasting methods must predict the traffic intensity within the call centre in quarter-hour increments and these results must be converted to staffing rosters. Special attention must be paid to the busy hour. Forecasting methods must be used to pre-empt a situation where equipment needs to be upgraded as traffic intensity has exceeded the maximum capacity of the call centre.

Call centre performance

There are many standard traffic measurements (performance metrics) that can be performed on a call centre to determine its performance levels. However, the most important performance measures are:

The average delay a caller may experience whilst waiting in a queue
The mean conversation time, otherwise referred to as Average Talk Time (ATT)
The mean dealing time, otherwise referred to as Average Handling Time (AHT - equal to ATT plus wrap-up and/or hold time)
The percentage of calls answered within a determined time frame (referred to as a Service Level or SL%)
The number of calls / inquiries per hour an agent handles (CPH or IPH).
The amount of time spent while an agent processes customer requests while not speaking to a customer (referred to as Not Ready time/NR, or After Call Work/ACW, or Wrap-Up.)
The percentage of calls which completely resolve the customer's issue (if the customer does not call back about the same problem for a certain period of time, it is considered a successful resolution or FCR - First Call Resolution).
The percentage of calls where a customer hangs up or "abandons" the call is often referred to as Total Calls Abandoned or Percentage of calls abandoned. Calls are often abandoned due to long hold times when a call centre experiences a high call volume.
Percentage of time agents spend not ready to take calls, often referred to as Idle Time.
Quality Assurance monitored by a quality assurance (QA) team. ]

Refinements of call centres

There are many refinements to the generic call centre model. Each refinement helps increase the efficiency of the call centre thereby allowing management to make better decisions involving economy and service.

The following list contains some examples of call centre refinements:

Predictive Dialling – Computer software attempts to predict the time taken for an agent to help a caller. The software begins dialling another caller before the agent has finished the previous call. This, because not every call will be connected (think of busy or not answered calls) and also because of the time it takes to set up the call (usually around 20 seconds before someone answers). Frequently, predictive dialers will dial more callers than there are agents, counting on the fact that not every line will be answered. When the line is answered and no agent is available, it is held in a retention queue for a short while. When still no agent has become available, the call is hung up and classified as a nuisance call. The next time the client is called an agent will be reserved for the caller.

Multi-Skilled Staff – In any call centre, there will be members of staff that will be more skilled in areas than others. An 'Interactive Voice Response' (IVR) Unit can be used to allow the caller to select the reason for his call. Management software, called an Automatic Call Distributor, must then be used to route calls to the appropriate agent. Alternatively, it has been found that a mix of general and specialist agent creates a good balance.

Prioritisation of Callers – Classification of callers according to priority is a very important refinement. Emergency calls or callers that are reattempting to contact a call centre are examples of callers that could be given a higher priority.

Automatic Number Identification – This allows agents to determine who is calling before they answer the call. Greeting a caller by name and obtaining his/her information in advance adds to the quality of service and helps decrease the conversation time.

Additional issues in call centres

There are many other issues that have to be planned for when managing a call centre. A few of these issues are listed below:
Call Center Noise Hazards
Planning for failure of equipment
Need for flexibility in meal-times
Need for job variety and training
Job exhaustion and stress
Staff turnover (high attrition rates are common in the call centre industry)
Call Center Noise Hazards Place Operators at Risk
Many employers are unaware of the hazard of acoustic shock, despite the fact that up to 300,000 victims have been paid over $15 million worldwide.
Acoustic shock is a sudden spike of noise; a hazard faced by 1 million call center operators. It can lead to physical problems such as tinnitus, and emotional problems, such as anxiety and depression.

Research by the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) showed 30 percent of call center employees interviewed claimed symptoms of acoustic shock. Potentially this suggests that 300,000 UK operators may be acoustic shock victims.

"Call center operators are becoming the modern victims of noise at work. In a study we conducted, 39 percent of operators were concerned that their hearing was damaged as a result of noise exposure at work and 30 percent said that work tasks left them with tinnitus," said Keith Broughton, former principal specialist inspector for Noise and Vibration, HSE. He noted that the call center workers said they were given little information about noise at work, and were told nothing about acoustic shock.

In fall 2000, a 34-year-old woman, exposed to acoustic shock several months before, complained of tinnitus, sleep disturbance and an increase in a pre-existing migraine condition. In summer 2001, she was absent from work with persistent tinnitus and anxiety relating to working at a call center. By spring 2002, her anxiety had reduced with medication and she had returned to work, though not on the phones, but she continued to complain of persistent, intrusive tinnitus. In early summer 2004, she continued to have tinnitus, disrupted sleep and ongoing problems with migraines. Litigation against her employer is now in progress.

"The health of operators has been at risk for far too long and there is a great misunderstanding between what constitutes acoustic shock as opposed to trauma, and to what extent employers are required by law to mitigate against this risk," said Marcus Quilter, chairman of the UK's Call Centre Management Association (CCMA).

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Variations on the generic call centre model

The various components in a call centre discussed in the previous sections are the generic form of a call centre. There are many variations on the model developed above. A few of the variations are listed below:

Remote Agents – An alternative to housing all agents in a central facility is to use remote agents. These agents work from home and use a Basic Rate ISDN access line to communicate with a central computing platform. Remote agents are more cost effective as they don’t have to travel to work, however the call centre must still cover the cost of the ISDN line. VOIP technology can also be used to remove the need for the ISDN, although the desktop application being used needs to be web enabled or VPN is used.

Temporary Agents – Temporary agents are useful as they can be called upon if demand increases more rapidly than planned. They are offered a certain number of quarter hours a month. They are paid for the amount they actually work, and the difference between the amount offered and the amount guaranteed is also paid. Managers must use forecasting methods to determine the number of hours offered so that the difference is minimised.

Virtual Call Centres – Virtual Call Centres are created using many smaller centres in different locations and connecting them to one another. The advantage of virtual call centres is that they improve service levels, provide emergency backup and enable extended operating hours over isolated call centres. There are two methods used to route traffic around call centres: pre-delivery and post-delivery. Pre-delivery involves using an external switch to route the calls to the appropriate centre and post-delivery enables call centres to route a call they’ve received to another call centre.

Interaction Centres – As call centres evolve and deal with more media than telephony alone, some have taken to the term, "interaction centre". Email, Web Callback and more are gradually being added to the role.

Criticism of call centres

Criticisms of call centres generally follow a number of common themes:

From Callers:

operators working from a script.
non-expert operators (call screening).
incompetent or untrained operators incapable of processing customers' requests effectively.
overseas location, with language and accent problems.
automated queuing systems.

From Staff:

close scrutiny by management (e.g. frequent random eavesdropping on operator's calls).
low pay.
restrictive working practices (e.g. there isn't much space for personal creativity since many operators are required to follow a pre-written script).
high stress: a common problem associated with front-end jobs where employees deal directly with customers.
poor working conditions (e.g. poor facilities, poor maintenance and cleaning, cramped working conditions, management interference)

As detailed above, none of these are inherent in the call centre model, although many companies will experience some or all of the above while implementing a call centre approach. As the science suggests, done properly, a call centre can offer the quickest route to resolution of customer queries, capitalising on the ready availability of highly skilled and intelligent people in some areas.

Unionisation of call centres in North America

Unions in North America, including the United Steelworkers have made some effort to gain members from this sector.[1]

References

^ (2006) Paths to Union Renewal. Broadview Press. ISBN 1551930587.
Kennedy I., Call Centres, School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, 2003.
Masi D.M.B., Fischer M.J., Harris C.M., Numerical Analysis of Routing Rules for Call Centers, Telecommunications Review, 1998..
HSE Web site at www.hse.gov.uk/lau/lacs/94-1.htm for guidelines about call center working practices.