Call Center

The call center is also an office that uses telephones mainly to assist their clients that are companies providing diversified services like health care, education, other business needs and so on. The person working in a call center is called the call center agent or simply agent. Each agent is provided with a cubicle including a computer and a headset. The agent answers to the calls from customers and provide solutions to their problems.

The outsourcing call center business has an advantage that the service providers can use call centers and provide assistance to their direct clients based on their specific needs. When the customer is satisfied it is good for the business. Also when a company has varied customers, employing people in their location to handle them may be costlier. The outsourcing technology helps the companies to lower their cost and effort. Also the call centers may be located in various places and can be networked together. Call centers are very popular in developing countries like India where the labor is cheap.

Call centers need to attend inbound or outbound calls. Inbound calls refer to the calls made by the customer to buy things or need some service or launch some complaint. Outbound calls are made by call center agents to the customers for marketing the services of the clients.

The call center agents are organized in multi-tiers. When a customer calls, the call is first forwarded to the first tier employee who inquires and understands what service the customer wants. Certain issues can be resolved by the first tier employees itself. Otherwise the call is forwarded to the second tier based on the departments and these employees solve the customer's problems. In certain cases, when the customer requires a complex service, he is then forwarded to the next tier which comprises development staff and engineers. Apart from call center agents, the other designations available with call centers include supervisor, trainee etc.

Management of call centers uses queuing models. When the number of calling customers is greater than the handling agents, then they have to wait in the line. The queuing model provides facilities to estimate various parameters such as waiting time, hold time, and so on. When the customer spends very less time in the line then he is satisfied. Some customers require after call work called the wrap up work for their queries.

The efficiency of call centers are determined by various metrics. Some of the important metrics are mean dialing time, average talk time, average handling time, service level percentages and number of calls that are handled by an agent. Different companies use different parameters to measure their performance. Numerous metrics have been developed for call centers and it is the duty of the call centers to determine which metrics can be used to measure their performance.

The call center agents need patience as they have to handle customers of varying moods. A customer who waits for a long time in the line will get irritated and if the call center has many dissatisfied customers, then it will lose its business. For this reason, the agents are monitored closely by the management which is annoying for certain type of people. The agents need to be available in their cubicle all the time to attend to customer calls. Also the accent of the agents might be difficult for the customers to understand which affects their mood.

As with any business call centers also have advantages and disadvantages. The cost of customer handling for big business companies have come down with the call centers. The agents are paid well for their job and the call center companies pay attention to keep the employees happy thereby servicing the customers swiftly resulting in more satisfied customers. But the call center service has opened up employment opportunities for many people with English speaking skills.