A very large collections call centre in Lakeland, FL.

A call centre or call center (see spelling differences) is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2288x1712, 1253 KB) Summary Photograph of a very large Call Center in Lakeland, Florida. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2288x1712, 1253 KB) Summary Photograph of a very large Call Center in Lakeland, Florida. ... Spelling differences redirects here. ... For other uses, see Telephone (disambiguation). ...

A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing, clientele, and debt collection are also made. In addition to a call centre, collective handling of letters, faxes, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact centre. Look up company in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Telemarketing office Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson uses the telephone to solicit prospective customers to buy products or services. ... This article is about letter, a written message from one party to another. ... Insert non-formatted text here For the machine that sends, receives, and produces facsimiles, see fax. ... It has been suggested that Eddress be merged into this article or section. ...

A call centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace for call centre agents, with work stations that include a computer for each agent, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration (CTI). A customer representative is an individual who represents a community that intends to purchase a product. ... For other uses, see Telephone (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Headphones (disambiguation). ... central office = Exchange building in the U.S. telephone exchange = Exchange building in the UK, and is also the UK name for a telephone switch, and also has a technical meaning in U.S. telecoms telephone switch is the U.S. term, but is in increasing use in technical UK... Computer networks may be classified according to the network layer at which they operate according to some basic reference models that are considered to be standards in the industry such as the seven layer OSI reference model and the four layer Internet Protocol Suite model. ... For other uses, see Mainframe. ... The Commodore 64 was one of the most popular microcomputers of its era, and is the best selling model of home computer of all time. ... “LAN” redirects here. ... Computer telephony integration (CTI) is technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be integrated or co-ordinated. ...

Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centres. Examples of this include help desks and sales support. However, some companies employ staff to work in their call centres almost by "bulk", applicants requiring little or no educational qualifications or experience. In contrast, some firms demand lengthy customer service experience, various formal certificates and impose a complicated and staged recruitment interview procedure; an example of this is American Express. American Express (NYSE: AXP), sometimes known as AmEx or Amex, is a diversified global financial services company, headquartered in New York City. ...

Accommodation

The centralisation of call management aims to improve a company's operations and reduce costs, while providing a standardised, streamlined, uniform service for consumers, making this approach ideal for large companies with extensive customer support needs. To accommodate for such a large customer base, large warehouses are often converted to office space to host all call centre operations under one roof.

Centralised offices mean that large numbers of workers can be managed and controlled by a relatively small number of managers and support staff. They are often supported by computer technology that manages, measures and monitors the performance and activities of the workers. Call centre staff are closely monitored for quality control, level of proficiency, and customer service. Typical contact centre operations focus on the discipline areas of workforce management, queue management, quality monitoring, and reporting. Reporting in a call centre can be further broken down into real time reporting and historical reporting. The types of information collected for a group of call centre agents typically include: agents logged in, agents ready to take calls, agents available to take calls, agents in wrap up mode, average call duration, average call duration including wrap-up time, longest duration agent available, longest duration call in queue, number of calls in queue, number of calls offered, number of calls abandoned, average speed to answer, average speed to abandoned and service level, calculated by the percentage of calls answered in under a certain time period. For the Jurassic 5 album, see Quality Control (album) In engineering and manufacturing, quality control and quality engineering are involved in developing systems to ensure products or services are designed and produced to meet or exceed customer requirements. ... Human resources has at least two meanings depending on context. ...

Many Call Centres use workforce management software, which is software that uses historical information coupled with projected need to generate automated schedules. This aims to provide adequate staffing skilled enough to assist callers. Human resources has at least two meanings depending on context. ...

The relatively high cost of personnel and office space as well as need for large manpower and challenges around attrition, hiring and managing a large workforce influences outsourcing in the call centre industry. Outsourcing became part of the business lexicon during the 1980s and refers to the delegation of non-core operations from internal production to an external entity specializing in the management of that operation. ...

Inadequate computer systems can mean staff take one or two seconds longer than necessary to process a transaction. This can often be quantified in staff cost terms. This is often used as a driving factor in any business case to justify a complete system upgrade or replacement. For several factors, including the efficiency of the call centres, the level of computer and telecom support that may be adequate for staff in a typical branch office may prove totally inadequate.

Technology

Call Centres use a wide variety of different technologies to allow them to manage the large volumes of work that need to be managed by the call centre. These technologies ensure that agents are kept as productive as possible, and that calls are queued and processed as quickly as possible, resulting in good levels of service.

These include ;

• ACW (After call work)
• ACD (automatic call distribution)
• Agent performance analytics
• AHT (Average Handle Time)
• Automated surveys
• BTTC (best time to call)/ Outbound call optimisation
• IVR (interactive voice response)
• CTI (computer telephony integration)
• Enterprise Campaign Management
• Outbound predictive dialler
• CRM (customer relationship management)
• CIM (customer interaction management) solutions (Also known as 'Unified' solutions)
• Email Management
• Chat and Web Collaboration
• Desktop Scripting Solutions
• Issue tracking system
• Outsourcing
• Third party verification
• TTS (text to speech)
• WFM (workforce management)
• Virtual queuing
• Voice analysis
• Voice recognition
• Voicemail
• VoIP
• Speech Analytics
• Knowledge Management System
• Electronic performance support systems

ACD, see ACD (disambiguation) In telephony, an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) is a device that distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals that agents use. ... Automated surveys are used to gain customer feedback through the internet and via the telephone. ... In telephony, interactive voice response, or IVR, is a phone technology that allows a computer to detect voice and touch tones using a normal phone call. ... Computer telephony integration (CTI) is technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be integrated or co-ordinated. ... // Introduction An Enterprise Campaign Manager solution is used to provide advanced management capabilities for the data used to conduct Outbound dialling campaigns. ... A predictive dialer is generally a computerized system that automatically dials batches of telephone numbers, and developed from the autodialer. ... Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer, vendor, partner, and internal process information. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Bugtracker. ... Outsourcing became part of the business lexicon during the 1980s and refers to the delegation of non-core operations from internal production to an external entity specializing in the management of that operation. ... TPV (Third party verification) is a process of getting an independent third party company to confirm that the customer is actually requesting a change or ordering a new service or product. ... Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. ... Human resources has at least two meanings depending on context. ... Virtual queuing is a concept that is used in inbound call centers. ... Voice analysis is the study of speech sounds for purposes other than linguistic content, such as in speech recognition. ... Speech recognition technologies allow computers equipped with a source of sound input, such as a microphone, to interpret human speech, e. ... Voicemail (or voice mail, vmail or VMS, sometimes called messagebank) is a centralized system of managing telephone messages for a large group of people. ... An overview of how VoIP works A typical analog telephone adapter for connecting an ordinary phone to a VoIP network Ciscos implementation of VoIP - IP Phone Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP (pronounced voyp), IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the... Speech Analytics is a process of analyzing recorded human speech in order to collect information about what was said. ... Knowledge Management System (KM System) refers to a (generally IT based) system for managing knowledge in organizations, supporting creation, capture, storage and dissemination of expertise in the form of information. ... In Electronic Performance Support Systems, published in 1991, Gloria Gery defined EPSS as: an integrated electronic environment that is available to and easily accessible by each employee and is structured to provide immediate, individualized on-line access to the full range of information, software, guidance, advice and assistance, data, images...

Patents

There are a large number of patents covering various aspects of call centre technology. One of the early inventors in this field, Ronald A. Katz, personally holds over 50 seminal patents covering inventions related to toll free numbers, automated attendant, automated call distribution, voice response unit, computer telephone integration and speech recognition.^[1]. Mr. Katz has licensed his patents to over 100 companies including AT&T, IBM and Citibank, and has been characterised as a patent troll for his aggressive legal tactics. For other uses, see Patent (disambiguation). ... Ronald A. Katz (born in 1935 or 1936 [1]) is an inventor and president of Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing LP. His inventions are primarily in the field of automated call center technology. ... This article is about the current AT&T. For the 1885-2005 company, see American Telephone & Telegraph. ... For other uses, see IBM (disambiguation) and Big Blue. ... Citibank is a major international bank, founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York. ... Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its patents against one or more alleged infringers in a matter considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic (see List of patent trolls for examples). ...

Call centre dynamics

Typical report on the performance of an outbound call centre agent.

Types of calls are often divided into outbound and inbound. Inbound calls are calls that are made by the consumer to obtain information, report a malfunction, or ask for help. These calls are substantially different from outbound calls, where agents place calls to potential customers mostly with intentions of selling or service to the individual. (See telemarketing) Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (2562x2221, 561 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Call centre ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (2562x2221, 561 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Call centre ... Telemarketing office Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson uses the telephone to solicit prospective customers to buy products or services. ...

Call centre staff are often organised into a multi-tier support system for a more efficient handling of calls. The first tier in such a model consists of operators, who direct inquiries to the appropriate department and provide general directory information. If a caller requires more assistance, the call is forwarded to the second tier, where most issues can be resolved. In some cases, there may be three or more tiers of support staff. If a caller requires more assistance, the caller is forwarded to the third tier of support; typically the third tier of support is formed by product engineers/developers or highly skilled technical support staff of the product.

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. There has been much controversy over such things as restricting the amount of time that an employee can spend in the toilet. 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 dehumanised workers very often exhibit an attitude of apathy to even the most abusive customer.

Owing to the highly technological nature of the operations in such offices, the close monitoring of staff activities is easy and widespread. This can be argued to be beneficial, to enable the company to better plan the workload and time of its employees. Some people have argued that such close monitoring breaches human rights to privacy. Yet another argument is that close monitoring and measurement by quantitative metrics can be counter-productive in that it can lead to poor customer service and a poor image of the company.

Management of call centres

Management of call centres involves balancing the requirements of cost effectiveness and service. Callers do not wish to wait in exorbitantly long queues until they can be helped and so management must provide sufficient staff and inbound capacity to ensure that the quality of service is maintained. However, staff costs generally form about 70% percent of the cost of running a call centre and so management must minimise the number of staff present. This article is one of a group being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...

To perform this balancing act, call centre managers make use of demand estimation, Telecommunication forecasting and dimensioning techniques to determine the level of staff required at any time. Managers must take into account staff tea and lunch breaks and must determine the number of agents required on duty at any one time.

Forecasting demand

Forecasting results are vital in making management decisions in call centres. Forecasting methods rely on data acquired from various sources including historical data, trend data and so on. Forecasting methods must predict the traffic intensity within the call centre in quarter-hour increments and these results must be converted to staffing rosters. Special attention must be paid to the busy hour. Forecasting methods must be used to pre-empt a situation where equipment needs to be upgraded as traffic intensity has exceeded the maximum capacity of the call centre. Busy hour: In a communications system, the sliding 60-minute period during which occurs the maximum total traffic load in a given 24-hour period. ...

Call centre performance

There are many standard traffic measurements (performance metrics) that can be performed on a call centre to determine its performance levels. However, the most important performance measures are: Measurement of traffic within a network allows network managers and analysts to both make day-to-day decisions about operations and to plan for long-term developments [1, 2]. Traffic Measurements are used in many fundamental activities such as [2]: Identification of traffic patterns and trends Calculating the traffic intensity... This article is one of a group being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...

• The average delay a caller may experience whilst waiting in a queue
• The mean conversation time, otherwise referred to as Average Talk Time (ATT)
• The mean dealing time, otherwise referred to as Average Handling Time (AHT - equal to ATT plus wrap-up and/or hold time)
• The percentage of calls answered within a determined time frame (referred to as a Service Level or SL%)
• The number of calls / inquiries per hour an agent handles (CPH or IPH).
• The amount of time spent while an agent processes customer requests while not speaking to a customer (referred to as Not Ready time/NR, or After Call Work/ACW, or Wrap-Up.)
• The percentage of calls which completely resolve the customer's issue (if the customer does not call back about the same problem for a certain period of time, it is considered a successful resolution or FCR - First Call Resolution).
• The percentage of calls where a customer hangs up or "abandons" the call is often referred to as Total Calls Abandoned or Percentage of calls abandoned. Calls are often abandoned due to long hold times when a call centre experiences a high call volume.
• Percentage of time agents spend not ready to take calls, often referred to as Idle Time.

These metrics give hard numbers on which to hang performance assessment. Quality Assurance can also be monitored by a quality assurance (QA) team, using call recording where the team manager listens to recorded calls and assesses performance of the agent, with coaching and training to help drive up performance.

Another way of measuring call centre performance is to use post-call IVR surveys to gain customer feedback. Customers are invited to take part in a short survey at the end of the call, where they can respond to pre-recorded questions by pressing the numbers on their telephone keypad or by speaking their comments.

Refinements of call centres

There are many refinements to the generic call centre model. Each refinement helps increase the efficiency of the call centre thereby allowing management to make better decisions involving economy and service.

List of Outsourcing Service Provider From India.

[Ring India]Call Center Outsourcing Indian Call Center Service

The following list contains some examples of call centre refinements:

• Predictive Dialling – Computer software attempts to predict the time taken for an agent to help a caller. The software begins dialling another caller before the agent has finished the previous call. This is because not every call will be connected (think of busy or not answered calls) and also because of the time it takes to set up the call (usually around 20 seconds before someone answers). Frequently, predictive diallers will dial more callers than there are agents, counting on the fact that not every line will be answered. When the line is answered and no agent is available, it is held in a retention queue for a short while. When still no agent has become available, the call is hung up and classified as a nuisance call. The next time the client is called an agent will be reserved for the caller.
• Multi-Skilled Staff – In any call centre, there will be members of staff that will be more skilled in areas than others. An 'Interactive Voice Response' (IVR) Unit can be used to allow the caller to select the reason for his call. Management software, called an Automatic Call Distributor, must then be used to route calls to the appropriate agent. Alternatively, it has been found that a mix of general and specialist agent creates a good balance.
• Prioritisation of Callers – Classification of callers according to priority is a very important refinement. Emergency calls or callers that are reattempting to contact a call centre are examples of callers that could be given a higher priority.
• Automatic Number Identification – This allows agents to determine who is calling before they answer the call. Greeting a caller by name and obtaining his/her information in advance adds to the quality of service and helps decrease the conversation time.

Additional issues in call centres

There are many other issues that have to be planned for when managing a call centre. A few of these issues are listed below:

• Call Centre Noise Hazards[1]
• Planning for failure of equipment
• Need for flexibility in meal-times and lavatory needs
• Need for job variety and training
• Job exhaustion and stress[2]
• Staff turnover (high attrition rates are common in the call centre industry)[3]

Variations on the generic call centre model

The various components in a call centre discussed in the previous sections are the generic form of a call centre. There are many variations on the model developed above. A few of the variations are listed below:

• Remote Agents – An alternative to housing all agents in a central facility is to use remote agents. These agents work from home and use a Basic Rate ISDN access line to communicate with a central computing platform. Remote agents are more cost effective as they don't have to travel to work, however the call centre must still cover the cost of the ISDN line. VOIP technology can also be used to remove the need for the ISDN, although the desktop application being used needs to be web enabled or VPN is used.
• Temporary Agents – Temporary agents are useful as they can be called upon if demand increases more rapidly than planned. They are offered a certain number of quarter hours a month. They are paid for the amount they actually work, and the difference between the amount offered and the amount guaranteed is also paid. Managers must use forecasting methods to determine the number of hours offered so that the difference is minimised.
• Virtual Call Centres – Virtual Call Centres are created using many smaller centres in different locations and connecting them to one another. The advantage of virtual call centres is that they improve service levels, provide emergency backup and enable extended operating hours over isolated call centres. There are two methods used to route traffic around call centres: pre-delivery and post-delivery. Pre-delivery involves using an external switch to route the calls to the appropriate centre and post-delivery enables call centres to route a call they've received to another call centre.
• Interaction Centres – As call centres evolve and deal with more media than telephony alone, some have taken to the term, "interaction centre". Email, Web Callback, Chat and more are gradually being added to the role.

In the context of the public switched telephone network, routing is the process by which telephone calls are routed around the telephone network. ... In telecommunication, Telephony encompasses the general use of equipment to provide voice communication over distances. ... E-mail, or email, is short for electronic mail and is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ... Web Callback is a technology where you can enter your telephone number in a form on a web site. ... Look up chat in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Criticism of call centres

Criticisms of call centres generally follow a number of common themes:

From Callers:

• operators working from a script.
• non-expert operators (call screening).
• incompetent or untrained operators incapable of processing customers' requests effectively.
• overseas location, with language and accent problems.
• automated queuing systems. This sometimes results in excessively long hold times
• complaints that departments of companies do not engage in communication with one another.
• deceit over location of call centre (such as allocating overseas workers false English names)

From Staff:

• close scrutiny by management (e.g. frequent random call monitoring).
• low compensation (pay and bonuses).
• restrictive working practices (some operators are required to follow a pre-written script).
• high stress: a common problem associated with front-end jobs where employees deal directly with customers.
• repetitive job task.
• poor working conditions (e.g. poor facilities, poor maintenance and cleaning, cramped working conditions, management interference, lack of privacy and noisy).

Unionisation of call centres in North America

Unions in North America, including the United Steelworkers, have made some effort to gain members from this sector.^[2] North America North America is a continent[1] in the Earths northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. ... The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (United Steelworkers or USW) claims over 1. ...

References

1. ^ Bednarek et al., "Katz Patent Reexamination: A Change in Momentum Favoring RAKTL Targets", ShawPittman, June 9, 2004
2. ^ (2006) Paths to Union Renewal. Broadview Press. ISBN 1-55193-058-7. 

1. Kennedy I., Call Centres, School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, 2003.
2. Masi D.M.B., Fischer M.J., Harris C.M., Numerical Analysis of Routing Rules for Call Centers, Telecommunications Review, 1998..
3. HSE Web site at www.hse.gov.uk/lau/lacs/94-1.htm for guidelines about call centre working practices.
4. Fluss, Donna, "The Real-Time Contact Center", 2005 AMACOM