Call centres and how to survive them.

I’ve worked in call-centres for a couple of well established companies over a number of years and I’ve dealt with a significant number of callers and been trained in various means of ‘call handling‘. If anything what surprises me about the quality of the information that is generally offered in the media about call centres is how one-sided it is in relation to the nature of what is desirable to get from a call: without considering how call centres are organised these press-articles are not necessarily going to be of any benefit to the reader. To understand how to deal with call centres you need to understand how the call centre is run and the objectives that the management have - unless you understand this then you are likely to be kept hanging on…..

There are some key issues that need to be addressed in order to deal with the ‘call centre hell’ without being too frustrated by the experience. Largely many of the problems that customers experience are due to the fact that costs can be cut when offering a service that will help one company become more competitive than others in the same market and one means of doing this is by paying staff a low rate of pay. Consequently there can be little incentive to stay within a company’s call centre and the staff turnover tends to be high. High staff turnover tends to be a major issue in call centres and it is largely because of the highly target oriented environment that can lead to very low levels of job satisfaction due to the pressured environment. As a result of high staff turn over, staff then will tend only to be trained on specific issue-areas and can only deal with a narrow range of issues - increased competitiveness – or savings for the company leads to staffing that is less able to deal with the overall business of a company. For a national newspaper to aim to offer systems of ‘getting through to a person as soon as possible’ is a little misleading as the person that you get through to may not be able to assist with your enquiry, for instance, it may get you through to a team leader or floor manager who can not deal with your enquiry who then only has to transfer you to another queue.

One of the most ridiculous areas for the mass media to criticise call centre staff on is the way that call centre staff ‘interrupt’. Most call centres that are ‘outsourced’ that are staffed by personnel that are not employed directly by the company whose enquiries they are dealing with are subject to contract review and they may lose a contract if they are not dealing with calls in a manner that the client company desires. Consequently, there can be a strong regime of call management that demands calls are generally dealt with in a structured manner making a key issue for anyone in the call centre who wishes to keep their jobs - they deal with calls in a structured and systematic manner to the satisfaction of the client. If this also involves keeping calls short then it is inevitable that calls will involve interruptions. To consider staff as being rude who are aiming largely at keeping their jobs when they are instructed to deal with a call structure and time limits that demand that interruptions are used is senseless. Call-centre staff could well be Britain’s factory workforce with low-autonomy jobs - they have little interest in interrupting or being party to a rudeness in a call and may prefer the open discussion.

I’ll offer some advice on how to deal with call centres as I see as appropriate – I hope it is of some use to the reader. I should also state what I mean by call centre. I am referring to an office or section that deals almost entirely with telephone calls incoming and outgoing ensuring other staff are free of interruptions. This can include 'outsourced' call centres which are located outside of the mother organisation and based often in another country.

Menu systems - if you feel that the menu systems are totally unsuitable for the enquiry and don’t get you through to anyone quick enough then you need to state this briefly. If the call-centre is low budget they will have staff trained on a narrow range of issues consequently consider using a different company if the one that you go are using don’t administer things in a way that suits you - if enough people complain then menu systems may be changed. Quite often, especially for small organisations, it is possible to get straight through to the reception by pressing zero: '0'. This may also throw you out of the system as well.

Allow enough time - call centres tend to be managed on the basis that there will be peak times and low demand times that will leave the call centre with nothing to do. They aim to have enough staff available for different scenarios and they are not perfect in their predictions.

Ask when the low demand periods are - ask what the call forecasts are like for early in the morning and late in the day before the call centre closes. If there are periods when there are lower levels of calls to deal with then it may be better to call at these times.

Have an interruptable task to do while you are waiting in the call queue - drink tea, do the crossword, write a shopping list or list of things you’ll need to do, or anything that may be stopped while you are waiting. I generally won’t call an 0870 number without something to do whilst I am on hold waiting for someone to answer. Even if you are calling at a low demand period there could be a sudden unpredicted influx of calls owing to an unforeseen event and this could be a reason that you hang on without knowing why. Be relaxed and be ready not to get through immediately, this rarely happens. Don’t get left feeling that you’re hanging on….

Have all supporting information relating to the call with you - most people would prefer to call a call centre again having made a booking or made an order than to read the paperwork that they have been sent. Consequently, more calls are made to the call centre than is necessary and the impact that this makes is to increase call volume and then reduce the chances of someone else getting through. The time taken to get through to some call centres at peak periods tends to be less than the time it would take to read the information that has been sent that could answer your enquiry - it makes sense to look through what you’ve been sent, especially if you are holding on waiting to speak to a member of staff. If you think the information is unclear inform the company that you think it’s badly written and why. Consider if it could be in clearer English and if so ask them if they have would consider a link with ‘the Plain English Society’.

Take the name, extension number or team details of the call centre agent - without this most information from the call can not be checked at a later date. Frequently, this is the most significant information to have on a call and is often more important than any other information. If you hear information stating all calls are recorded then it is likely that this is going to be to your advantage - only if you have made a note of who you spoke to. Someone may refuse to give their name, frequently staff will be informed that they are not expected to give their surname when asked. In this case ask for an extension number - for an agent not to give their name and extension number or name and team so they can be easily identified should be classed as highly unprofessional. If a person slurs their name or refuses to give it call back immediately to make a complaint as the information that you’ve been given doesn’t really have much validity unless you can link it to a member of staff. Most call centre staff should state their name at the start of the call - if they don’t it’s generally unprofessional not to do this.

Take the time of the call - any tracing of calls that are made where there is a dispute over the information that has been stated will usually require at least a rough time of the time a call was made within five or ten minutes. Calls are logged in a computer system usually under the extension number of the agent who made the call and the time it was recorded. If an average call centre agent deals with eighty calls per day and there are thirty staff then that is two thousand four hundred calls per day. Obviously, if staff are willing to take your side over being misinformed, and it will happen if there are that many calls being dealt with, then they will want to trace a call as soon as possible - it is imperative to have a record of the time of a call if you want to use the digital record of it to your advantage.

Deal with interruptions - if you feel that you are being led along certain routes that you don’t want to go down then state clearly and categorically the reason that you called and emphasise that you don’t wish for any other services to be offered. State that you wish to control the call and that you only want to ask a few things. The staff should be able to co-operate with you.