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Thus, technology, policy, and processes transited from telecom to the general business world as a unit. The acceptance of customer calls was so efficient in the call center (coupled with the generation of outbound call campaigns which this article does not cover) that call centers became every industry’s primary contact approach with their customers. The separation of “external world” from “internal world” transited too. Many criticisms have been laid on the call center because of this model:
“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. … 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.”
But there is no inherent business reason for this structure of call centers. Customer service representatives were originally highly trained, and highly valued. They were a far cry from the notion of low priced, low skilled workers described in Wikipedia.
Bad, Bad, Bad
We all have real life examples of where the separation of responsibilities and use of low wage agents has adversely affected customer service. We (the authors) will draw an example from our personal life. This incident started when two identical, unlocked, GSM wireless phones were purchased and used in Europe and then transported to the USA. Each was taken into the U.S. carrier’s phone store for its new SIM card – no problem. In fact great service was provided by the phone store agents in transferring address books and such. Then it was time to use the phones…
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"...coupled with well-trained first responders, the ticket became a record of interaction and not just a transfer of information from one group to another" |
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- That prompted a few rounds of discussion with the Technical Support team about the meaning of "Global" and "Tri-band". And each time, the phone manufacturer ignored the fundamental question.
- Finally losing patience the author asked them just to answer the question, "We bought two identical handsets, at the same time, from the same shop. When standing in the same locations and using the same carrier, one of them works fine and one of them does not. Why is that?"
- Finally, more than four weeks after the initial inquiry, came the (unfortunately correct) answer of "We don't know.
Many failures are represented in this example. The web portal is not properly integrated into the human call center; there is insufficient enforcement of the 48-hour SLA response time; and there appears to be no customer satisfaction follow-up contact or survey. Very fine tools exist from reputable vendors to address these failures, but they need to be used with proper processes and management oversight. The third issue was insufficient agent training in the technology, and in listening skills. This links directly back to the now cultural issue of attempting to use the lowest priced help in the essential roles. If companies choose the single point of contact call center approach, they must once again make the investment in hiring and developing agents who can successfully be the company’s face to the market. Or embrace a new trend of direct collaboration with the customer.
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One worked just fine. The other however rarely had enough “bars” to initiate a call. Incoming calls were dropped frequently. Recognizing the symptoms of a handset failure, the customer contacted the handset manufacturer:
- The website offered a “talk with an agent” option that didn’t connect with anyone.
- A contact email generated the expected auto response thanking us for the contact and promising a response within 48 hours, which was not received.
- A second email, and then a third, finally prompted an email response, “explaining” that the handset would never work on the U.S. network since it lacked the proprietary software of the U.S. carrier.
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The Help Desk: Direct Connect
A separate evolutionary path occurred with the development of help desks. Originally developed for IT groups to serve corporate IT users, help desks used a variety of media to connect with their users. Sometimes this was a call, but just as likely it could be an email or a request generated via entering information in an online form. Help desks did use trouble tickets, but coupled with well-trained first responders, the ticket became a record of interaction and not just a transfer of information from one group to another. Officially, the first level responder’s role was much like the single point of contact in the traditional call center – simply limited to the universe of IT problems.
They were to classify the problem, determine its cause and select the solution profile.
First level
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