There are many issues related to the operational efficiency of contact centre staff and their production rates. I have spent much time working in call centres and researching the functional aspects surrounding them and I have found that there are underlying issues within each and every contact centre that are generic. The research I am embarking on will produce a doctorate in organisational psychology, specifically looking at these areas.
In essence, the marketplace is changing rapidly. We use the technology that has been developed to control the business and to try and keep ahead of the competition, but in this everchanging sector comprising of technological advancements and the movement of the industry overseas, it is easy to lose perspective on the one single element without which we could not function -- staff.
In its beginning, the telemarketing industry was deemed to be the new wave of quality employment. This double-sided coin had on one side large employment opportunities, the possibility of an ever-increasing salary, not to mention the appeal of being part of a new, dynamic working challenge. On the other side, the reality of what evolved was quite different. The contact centre industry soon developed working practices similar to those of the old workhouses and the measures used to regulate and monitor this workforce do exactly that -- regulate and monitor.
In 1909, FW Taylor published the book 'Principles of Scientific Management', which encapsulated his past work on efficiency of the workforce and papers on incentive schemes to motivate staff, which was based on manual workers.
We all know that the wider spectrum of the working environment can be conducive to the quality and quantity of the work produced by the staff, but why is it that contact centres still operate in the fashion of Taylor's scientific management and yet motivation, staff productivity and efficiency is still an issue?
Technological advancements in this industry reinforce the use of a more mechanical approach to the operational functions of contact centres. The marketplace is saturated by predictive diallers, software to measure performance and software to analyse just about everything, but what is overlooked is the potential from the analysis of people -- the crux of revenue is derived from the staff employed, not the machines that monitor them.
In today's contact centre, technology is effectively used to establish, among other variables, accurate measures of an individual and/or group's performance. The key to rectifying a drop in productivity or to increasing performance is a stage further. How do we do this?
The identification of low achievers through the software now available followed by a myriad of differing reprimands, is archaic to say the least. The marriage of high-tech software systems with controlled monitoring and pulling short-term incentive schemes out of the hat, do not leave lasting strategic models to a continuous attainment of a higher level of performance. The software can help pinpoint where organisations' staff are falling short but this must be backed up by a counteractive model specifically aimed at the motivation of staff, resulting in improved performance.
When working in outbound sales, appointment setting or on an inbound enquiries line converting queries into sales, people are the core of the business's success. Measuring performance is essential but what if a way of ascertaining a definitive guide to obtaining maximum productivity, once a need has been highlighted from the software used, was available.
Over the years, many now well-recognised studies have been conducted with results that suggest that money is not the sole motivator and that it is possible that a more humanistic approach to people management has a higher success rate in increasing efficiency and productivity. The Hawthorne Studies demonstrated that staff working in a similar (similar in a manual, repetitive and mechanical way) to those of the Bethlehem Steel Works (FW Taylor), performed at an increasingly higher level of output when they felt more important and valued.
Much work has been done globally in organisations wishing to move today's workforce into a more humanistic working environment. The senior managers have been creating flatter organisational structures, integrating departments, organising team-building sessions, involving staff from different levels in the decision-making process and all with an aim to improve efficiency and, by default, profit.
The issues in sales-centric contact centres are that: a) assuming that staff can more or less reach target time and time again, how can it be ensured that an "off day" from an individual doesn't affect their performance and inevitably the performance of those around them. And: b) more importantly, is it not possible that targets could be raised, yet still attained by using the same techniques imposed on the former.
To provide a model example, what would the effect on output be if teams were comprised of either men or only women? (Would this drive competition as competing against the sexes?)
Would there be an increase in output if individual autonomy was increased? (Self justification of target attainment -- cut out the line manager)
What kind of effect on productivity would there be from the individual if they were next to either a high achiever or a low one?
With unemployment at its lowest, recruiting the right staff who are self-motivated and have the desired skill sets, is increasingly more difficult. With contact centres moving their business over to India and South Africa and a fifth of contact centres losing more than 40% of their staff a year, it is imperative when operating in such a highly competitive market that we employ the right staff and expose them to an environment that is designed to produce the greatest outcome, be that productivity and minimising costly staff turnover.
Should not the angle that the operations division takes on performance of staff be to push forward the capabilities of contact centre staff, rather than to just measure the rate at which they currently perform? While it is necessary to measure the staff's present productivity, this information could be used to pinpoint staff's shortcomings and then be used to optimise what contact centres can achieve through coupling the analysis carried out by technology with humanistic models to motivate and optimise staff output.
What I am proposing to research is the currently almost untouched area of the industry and to seek to discover what can be done at an operational level to work alongside current procedures to push contact centres forward further. If your company would like sole use of this material and the benefits from this, please contact me at gillianirvine75@hotmail.com.