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1 – 10 of over 5000Alan Betts, Maureen Meadows and Paul Walley
Call centres often experience large fluctuations in demand over relatively short periods of time. However, most centres also need to maintain short response times to the demand…
Abstract
Call centres often experience large fluctuations in demand over relatively short periods of time. However, most centres also need to maintain short response times to the demand. This places great emphasis upon capacity management practices within call centre operations. A total of 12 UK‐based call centres from one retail bank were studied to investigate how they managed forecasting, capacity management and scheduling tasks. Provides evidence of the difficulties associated with capacity management in call centres. Regression modelling is used to link forecasting and capacity planning practices to performance. Shows that random variation is a very important factor when assessing call centre performance. The results suggest that call centre managers can have only a small influence upon short‐term performance. Existing mathematical models, such as the Erlang queuing system methodologies, have only limited value as the assumptions concerning demand patterns made in their derivation contradict observations made within the 12 sites. Spiked demand patterns present special capacity management problems, including a direct trade‐off between high service levels and operator boredom. Conventional methods of flexing capacity cannot respond sufficiently well to some of the short‐term fluctuations in demand.
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The application of technology has shaped the call centre organisation, enabled its remote location, and allowed its swift relocation. The purpose of this practice briefing is to…
Abstract
Purpose
The application of technology has shaped the call centre organisation, enabled its remote location, and allowed its swift relocation. The purpose of this practice briefing is to expose the reader to the reality that call centres are temporary employers of both human resource and property, while at the same time they are collectively one of the biggest occupiers of office space in the UK. The briefing aims to illustrate the uncertainties relating to the mobility of call centre business units and the threat to future employment posed by emerging technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
This practice briefing draws upon a combination of third party research findings, other literature, and the author's experiences to illustrate the relationship between call centre employment and property requirements; the mobility of both jobs and property footprint due to the globalizing effects of high‐bandwidth communications and the development of enterprise software applications; and the potential for jobs erosion due to the “destructive” impact of new automated and self‐service customer interaction technologies.
Findings
The practice briefing acknowledges that DTI sponsored research delivers a very optimistic view of the future prospects for UK call centre employment. However, current experiences regarding offshoring and the adoption of non‐live agent means of customer interaction provide uncertainty regarding the timing and magnitude of call centre employment growth. Property investors seeking exposure to markets reliant on call centre occupiers should consider the prospect that call centre demand could disappear as quickly as it was created.
Originality/value
The footloose nature of today's call centres creates uncertainty for property investors that have, or are seeking, exposure to the UK call centre sector. This practice briefing delivers an accessible account of the operational risks that influence the stability of the UK call centre sector.
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Richard A. Feinberg, Leigh Hokama, Rajesh Kadam and IkSuk Kim
Banks and financial institutions depend upon telephone call centers to meet the needs of a changing and ever more demanding consumer for 24×7 access. Call centers serve as a…
Abstract
Banks and financial institutions depend upon telephone call centers to meet the needs of a changing and ever more demanding consumer for 24×7 access. Call centers serve as a source of service recovery, added value, market intelligence, and strategic advantage. Despite their ubiquity, there are no studies outlining the determinants of caller satisfaction in the banking call center. This study uses data available from the Purdue University Call Center Benchmark database to determine the critical relationships between call center metrics and caller satisfaction. None of the key factors found to be determinant of customer satisfaction in call centers in other industry groups was found to be significant in bank call centers. This raises questions about how call centers are managed and serves to highlight the very low customer satisfaction that customers have with their banking call center experience.
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Inge Sieben and Andries de Grip
Analyses whether the participation of workers in general, sector‐specific, and firm‐specific training affects their expectations on job mobility within or outside the call centres…
Abstract
Analyses whether the participation of workers in general, sector‐specific, and firm‐specific training affects their expectations on job mobility within or outside the call centres sector. Distinguishes between the perceived difficulty to find an equally attractive job and the inclination to quit for another job. Employing data on 525 call centre agents working in eight call centres in The Netherlands, finds that training does not significantly affect the perceived labour market perspectives of call centre agents, nor influence expected job mobility inside or outside the sector. The inclination to quit the present job within two years is the same for agents with and without training. There is one exception, however. Agents who followed firm‐specific training significantly less often considered quitting for a job in another call centre. All this is good news for firms offering training. Another finding, however, might be more problematic. The work experience of agents positively affects their labour market perspectives inside the sector. In addition, agents with more experience are more inclined to quit for a job in another call centre. This means that firms need to keep their employees satisfied.
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Mirele Cardoso do Bonfim and Sonia Maria Guedes Gondim
This study inquires into emotion work performed by call center operators. Twelve call center operators were interviewed. Qualitative methodological strategies were utilized, where…
Abstract
This study inquires into emotion work performed by call center operators. Twelve call center operators were interviewed. Qualitative methodological strategies were utilized, where the focus of the thematic content analysis was on comprehension of the call center operator's work characteristics, the organization's display rules, and the emotional self-management strategies utilized. Two types of emotional self-management strategies were found: cognitive and behavioral. The organization acknowledged that people are not always able to handle the affective cost in relation to emotion work, offering emotional support and models concerning affective self-management strategies to be used. This organizational assistance strongly influenced the choice of strategies, for the call center operators most frequently used strategies taught by the organization. Emotion work was influenced by variables concerning the work context, factors that either favored or made the work, perceptions, evaluations, and the workers and the customers' affective states problematic. Emotion work was crucial in the call center operators' working routine, whenever the customers became aggressive, and social support made the task of displaying predominantly positive feelings less arduous.
Workplace temporalities are being reshaped under globalization. Some scholars argue that work time is becoming more flexible, de-territorializing, and even disappearing. I provide…
Abstract
Workplace temporalities are being reshaped under globalization. Some scholars argue that work time is becoming more flexible, de-territorializing, and even disappearing. I provide an alternative picture of what is happening to work time by focusing on the customer service call center industry in India. Through case studies of three firms, and interviews with 80 employees, managers, and officials, I show how this industry involves a “reversal” of work time in which organizations and their employees shift their schedules entirely to the night. Rather than liberation from time, workers experience a hyper-management, rigidification, and re-territorialization of temporalities. This temporal order pervades both the physical and virtual tasks of the job, and has consequences for workers’ health, families, future careers, and the wider community of New Delhi. I argue that this trend is prompted by capital mobility within the information economy, expansion of the service sector, and global inequalities of time, and is reflective of an emerging stratification of employment temporalities across lines of the Global North and South.
Hidenori Sato and Kiyohiro Oki
This study aims to investigate the consequences of middle managers’ sensegiving for organisational change in neglected workplaces, where middle managers are given insufficient…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the consequences of middle managers’ sensegiving for organisational change in neglected workplaces, where middle managers are given insufficient resources because of receiving low attention from top management.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a case study of three call centres in the Japanese non-life insurance industry. To collect data, the authors conducted interviews with ten stakeholders and made multiple field observations.
Findings
The authors identified the following mechanism: in neglected workplaces, middle managers initially focus on sensegiving to employees because they recognise the difficulty of eliciting support from top management. However, as a result, they see sensegiving to employees as top priority and do not try to elicit the support of top management, which is necessary for further organisational change. As a result, organisational change stops at a certain level.
Research limitations/implications
The authors identified the following mechanism: in neglected workplaces, middle managers initially focus on sensegiving to employees because they recognise the difficulty of eliciting support from top management. However, as a result, they see sensegiving to employees as their top priority and do not try to elicit the support of top management, which is necessary for further organisational change. As a result, organisational change stops at a certain level.
Originality/value
First, this study contributes to the body of research on the effects of sensegiving on organisational change. It shows the new problems hidden behind organisational change, which existing research merely regards as independent successes. Second, this study identifies middle managers’ behaviour during organisational change in neglected workplaces. Instead of focusing on the factors necessary for successful organisational change, as in existing studies, this study extends the knowledge of the role of middle managers in organisational change by focusing on their behaviours when success factors are not aligned.
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Colin Armistead, Julia Kiely, Linda Hole and Jean Prescott
This paper explores managerial issues in call centres through two intensive case studies in UK organisations, supplemented by interviews with five operations managers in other…
Abstract
This paper explores managerial issues in call centres through two intensive case studies in UK organisations, supplemented by interviews with five operations managers in other call centres. The research explores key issues from the perspective of managers, team leaders, and customer‐service agents. Our findings show a growing professionalism among those working in call centres ‐ in keeping with the prominent role played by call centres in the market value chains of many organisations. Managers are under pressure to meet the potentially conflicting goals of customer service and efficiency in variable circumstances which cause the work load on call centres to alter significantly. In this environment, decisions on the use of technology, and on the roles, skills, and competencies of customer agents, are critical. So too are the ways in which human resource practices are employed in this relatively new and fast‐growing form of organisation.
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Anita Whiting and Naveen Donthu
The purpose of this paper is to investigate what factors influence the gap between caller's perception of how long they think they waited and how long they actually waited on hold…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate what factors influence the gap between caller's perception of how long they think they waited and how long they actually waited on hold and to determine what call managers can do to reduce this gap called estimation error.
Design/methodology/approach
A field experiment was conducted with a corporation's call center.
Findings
The findings were: the higher the estimation error of callers, the less satisfied they are; music increases estimation error, unless callers can choose the music; waiting information reduces estimation error; callers with urgent issues have more estimation error and they overestimate more; and females have higher estimation error and they overestimate more than males.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations are one call center in one context. Implications are identification of antecedents of overestimation.
Practical implications
The paper provides guidelines for call center managers for reducing estimation error and increasing caller satisfaction. It discusses the need for understanding callers and measuring items that are important to them.
Originality/value
The study investigates an under researched variable called estimation error. Study also provides information about some of the causes for why consumers overestimate or underestimate their waiting time. Study provides guidelines from an actual call center and discusses variables that managers can easily use to decrease estimation error and overestimation.
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Raffaella Valsecchi, Sarah Wise, Frank Mueller and Chris Smith
This paper aims to explore the introduction of teamwork in two health call centres, NHS Direct and NHS24, and intervenes in the emergent debate over teamwork in call centres…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the introduction of teamwork in two health call centres, NHS Direct and NHS24, and intervenes in the emergent debate over teamwork in call centres. Although within the call centre work environment there is no obvious functional rationale for teamwork, teams can be “accounted for” with reference to other purposes, including performance management, normative control, governmentality and institutional isomorphism/management fads. This research provides additional explanations for the use of teamwork in such an adverse work environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on qualitative data (interviews and non‐participant observations) from NHS Direct and NHS24, the English and Scottish tele‐nursing organisations in the UK.
Findings
In the two tele‐nursing case studies analysed, teamwork was introduced as an expression of managers' aspirations to emulate private sector practices and to reinforce new public management ideals. However, informal teamwork, which cut across organisationally prescribed forms, provided both emotional support and spontaneous knowledge sharing among nurses.
Originality/value
This is an innovative study because teamwork has not been thoroughly explored in a health call centre environment.
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