Call Centre Customer Service
Although they seem to be immensely unpopular call centers are critical customer service providers in many industries. Indeed they are many firms only or principal point of contact with the public.
What a Call Centre Is
A call centre is a facility that contains a phone bank, a phone bank is a series of phones where employees take telephone calls and respond to customer demands. Traditionally such facilities take orders and other requests from customers. Others may handle requests for customer service or complaints.
Most of the phones in a call centre are manned by people called customer service representatives. These people serve as an organization’s first point of contact with its customers. For example they will take requests for service or orders.
These customer service representatives do require a great deal of training. Many companies have attempted to give them training in order to approve effectiveness. Despite this call centers have proven unpopular with customers particularly in the United States and Canada.
Staffing Call Centers
It has proven very hard to fill positions in call centers and attract quality employees in North America and Europe. The work is low paid and can be very stressful. It also has a strong stigma attached to it because the public often associates call centers with boiler rooms – phone banks run by con artists and high pressure salespeople.
In particular it is often very hard to get people work at night and in the evening when call center services often in high demand. Some companies attempted to rectify this by using locating call centers in countries like India and the Philippines. This offended customers because some of the employees at such facilities couldn’t speak English well. Other people were bothered by the loss of jobs to Americans and Canadians.
Call Center Training
The more reputable call centre operators such as TeleTech Holdings (the industry leader) employee elaborate training methods. TeleTech uses regular computerized training, classroom teaching and simulated calls to train employees.
Other companies do regular evaluations of employees that involve the taping of calls. In some cases elaborate methods are made to reward employees that do a very good job. TeleTech holds parties for employees and hands out gift cards for example.
The Future of Call Centre Customer Service
Interestingly enough the future of call centers may be no call centers at all. Several companies in the United States including TeleTech and Republic Airlines are experimenting with home based telephone customer service.
In this solution a person works at home and conducts customer service over an internet phone connection. The main advantage to this solution is that it often attracts a much better quality of employee. Persons who would feel ashamed going to a call center are willing to work at home.
Another big advantage is that it greatly lowers real estate costs which can be high. It enables companies to expand quicker and is often more flexible.
A disadvantage to home based phone service is that it can be difficult to train such individuals. The supervision of home workers can also be very difficult. There are also security concerns because such workers are not under close supervision.
The advantages to home based phone service are so great that it is probably the industry’s future. Indeed call centers could soon be a thing of the past.
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