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subject: A General Overview Of Call Centers [print this page]


Calling a company for inquiries and customer support is traditionally a lengthy process thatll try anyones patience. It involved dialing a central operator and having your call transferred to the appropriate department depending on your query. If your question is particularly difficult, its not unusual to spend hours on hold or being shunted from one representative to another like a hot potato.

The problem with this approach soon became apparent. Aside from interrupting workers from their job-specific duties which led to lower employee productivity, it also led to permanently damage the brand in the consumers eyes when the customers experience was less than satisfactory.

In the 1970s, the idea of a centralized department that answered all calls regardless of what the nature of their call started to take off. These call centers were both a cost-cutting measure as well as a strategy to improve worker productivity. These were both goals that were generally met, though not without some unforeseen consequences.

It was thought that consolidating every call to a dedicated department would be beneficial to the company in several ways. A call center would increase worker productivity by leaving them to do their specialized work without being bothered by customer calls and complaints. All customer contact could then be managed from a central location that would be more easily monitored and addressed.

A trained call center agent could also help the company bottom line by favorably maximizing the agent to calls-received ratio. The shorter the amount of time an individual customer was on the phone, the more customers the agents could handle as a whole. This was the goal that the management sought. Continued practice at answering calls over and over again was also thought to increase agent competence in meeting customer requests.

A modern evolution of the call center industry is the prevalence of multi-national corporations outsourcing their companys call center needs to developing countries. This saves them money in several ways. It allows them to increase operations at a miniscule fraction of what they would otherwise spend because of the comparatively lower cost of living in these nations. It also lets them remain flexible in committing their assets since outsourcing agencies usually charge on a fee-per-service basis only.

by: Sonia Roody




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