THE DEVELOPMENT OF CALL/CONTACT CENTRES

Although there have been switchboards and telephone operators since the early days of telephone systems the contact centre industry in its present form is relatively new. It plays an increasingly important strategic role within the organization and its rapid expansion has occurred for three main reasons.

Firstly, the starting point for the growth of call centres was the development of information and communication technologies combined with reduced telecommunication costs. The second factor driving the development of the industry was that organizations could achieve large-scale economies through the increased systematization and consolidation of office functions. 

Traditional back-office functions have increasingly become front-of-house operations as organizations have a empted to build closer communications with the customer. Knowledge management and customer management systems have created an environment in which the call centre is moving from being a peripheral, and o en geographically distant operation, to one that is now pivotal and central to the organization.

The third major factor is that expectations of service among customers have risen and contact centres have enabled swi er and cheaper contact with organizations. The greater efficiency of organizations has meant reduced prices for customers, but this has o en been achieved through transferring labour costs onto the customer through self-service. Furthermore, mechanized delivery systems have tended to restrict customer options.

Scientific management and contact centres

The scientific management approach of F W Taylor has been highly influential in the development of contact centres. Indeed, it has been suggested that call centres represent a return to Taylorism with ‘an assembly line in the head’. In a similar vein, ‘Tayloristic work organization minimizes skill requirements, discretion and job cycle time. Learning is limited to repetition of simple rationalized tasks (“practice makes perfect”).’

There is little doubt that mechanistic principles have influenced the design and operations of contact centres from the choice of technology and building design through to the greetings delivered by the CSRs (customer service representatives). If savings can be made without unduly influencing performance they will most likely be introduced, eg a one-second reduction in call time for directory enquiries in the UK could translate into a saving of £2 million. Similarly, replacing ‘Good morning’ and ‘Goodbye’ with ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ in a US centre was believed to save the equivalent of $22 million.

Market segmentation and differentiation

Yet, this Taylorist approach to contact centres does not present the whole picture. A consideration of expenditure is important and according to Dimension Data (2005) the main purpose of the call centre is cost reduction. But competing on cost alone implies a commodity market where all the offerings are indistinguishable. In reality, there are significant differences between providing a telephone number and giving detailed advice and guidance to someone contemplating buying a pension plan. Essentially, it is the combination of cost and quality that are the main mechanisms by which service provision can be differentiated.

Research into the interplay between cost and quality of service provision has indicated that there are, in general, three main types of business model which organizations tend to use in their interactions with customers; see Figure 1.

Figure 1: Types of service and efficiency

 

1. Mass production model – transactions

Some organizational strategies are based on minimizing costs and providing a very limited no-frills service. These transactional operations maximize call volumes and limit costs, creating a mass production model. Where there are low-value customers and a simple service, the process is highly scripted and there is little discretion for employees, eg telephone directory enquiries.

2. Professional service model – solutions

At the opposite end of the scale is the professional service or relational model which is frequently directed at high-value customers and where detailed interactions occur. In these circumstances there is o en more discretion and empowerment for the agent to find specific solutions for the customer, eg customized personal insurance.

3. Mass customization model – sales

Between the two extremes of the mass production and professional service models lies a hybrid version that a empts to balance the competing demands of cost and quality. This is the mass customization or pseudo-relational model which offers a medium-service, medium-efficiency interaction with the customer, eg simple holiday bookings.

This differentiation within the market has implications for the role of training and development. Tayloristic job designs enable the employment of less skilled and cheaper labour, which requires less investment in recruitment, training and development. Alternatively, with organizations competing on quality, contact centre employees require skills which will enable them to provide a customized service and this requires detailed and specific training.

There is an increased emphasis for organizations to encourage customers to go down the self-service route on the internet because it is so much cheaper. The use of automation, interactive voice recognition, internet and other channels represents a movement to reduce costs and increase accessibility. Thus, customers seeking to make simple and low value transactions will be encouraged to use the internet, eg most budget airline bookings are undertaken on the internet.

Figure 2: The provision of service in contact centres 

 

Yet there are limitations to the types of interactions that can be conducted electronically, ‘For complex interactions where a high speed of response is required, a real-time human touch is required’. However, employing people to operate like machines is self-defeating: ‘No sane business today would want a workforce of automatons: after all, anything an automaton can do, we can automate’.

Interacting with a customer builds the relationship, which benefits the customer and the organization. So, for this reason it ‘ensures that the human operator will never be entirely superseded by a machine’.