Call Center Life
Most large call centers use some type of workforce management software. This specialty software was created to better plan for the various activities telephone agents are involved in during the day. Meals, breaks, training, etc. are all taking into account and the overall number of agents can be closely estimated for any time period monitored.
Although a good idea in theory, many call centers have used workforce management programs as a tool for control of their employees bathroom and other personal breaks. There is no question that this software genre is great for estimating agent availability and monitoring of hold and unavailability times. Taken to the extreme however and telephone techs have scheduled bathroom breaks! This is where the company can cross over the line of good to excessive management
IEX, Blue Pumpkin and Pipkins are just some of the most popular call center workforce management software products currently available.
Working in a call center
Depending on your perspective, call center work can be considered the easiest or most difficult of working environments. Consider call center employment from the outside looking in. . .
To an outside job worker like telephone or cable television repair people…
1. Call centers are clean
2. The workers come to work in an enclosed environment.
3. A call center is typically air conditioned in the summer and warm in the winter
4. You sit all day in relative comfort
5. It’s not physically difficult
From insid the call center however. . .
1. Call center workers don’t get to feel the sun or breeze
2. We are emotionally drained after work due to the type of business
3. We sit all day and get cramps in our legs and backs.
4. Call center people are pushed ever harder to deliver without control over the things that allow them to provide that extra productivity
5. Call Center employees are forever worried about their jobs being outsourced overseas.
So the reality is that depending on your perspective, a call center job is either a cushy comfortable position or an emotional technology related job with little security.
Call Centers and Customer Service
Customer service was once considered the defining difference among companies. Slogans like the customer’s always right and other such ideals drove the business focus in previous years. Today however, little can be defined as customer service anymore. Fact is, many of the customer service issues of yesteryear are now handled through impersonal call centers. These call centers have people answering the phones all day attempting to satisfy callers, placate complainers or answer questions.
The problem however is that no matter how much the fine people who work in the call center want to help, they’re tethered to the limitations of the computer screen in front of them. These people typically cannot deviate from what is allowed on the screen. Ask for something out of the ordinary and many of these customer service workers are lost. They are not paid to think for themselves and cannot help you with problems that aren’t in the computer. Of course, they can forward your call to another person who may have different authority but for the most part, these people are not trusted by the company to do the right thing, regardless of the claims from the company.
Bottom line is that we shouldn’t get upset or angry with the person on the other end of the telephone when calling into a call center. They’re just regular folks like you and me who are trying to do the best job possible given the limitations of the company.
Remember that the reason why you called was for additional information or help with a problem.