311 ENTERPRISE IN DENVER, COLORADO

311 Enterprise in Denver, Colorado

Abstract

In recent years the call centre industry has grown rapidly in size and popularity. In so doing the industry has been perceived to suffer from some of the problems associated with industrial mass production. The nature of the requirement to answer a high number of calls in these centres had led to the use of a traditional “production-line” management approach. Recently, as a result of both customers' and employees' expectations rising in relation to service delivery, the trend is for call centre operations to become more focused on staff empowerment, moving away from the traditional production-line approach. For many companies this has become a difficult management problem. This paper reports on one such company. Following a number of years' reliance on carrying out surveys of customer perceptions, and a history of subsequent lack of service improvement, this research used an in-depth case study approach incorporating observation studies, interviews with different levels of managers, and focus-group discussions with front-line service delivery staff (agents). The findings identified the service quality issues to be addressed in order to reconcile customers' and agents' needs; and the implications for managers.

Table of Content

CHAPTER ONE3

INTRODUCTION3

Introduction3

Production-line and empowerment approach4

CHAPTER TWO7

LITERATURE REVIEW7

Multi-Dimensional Nature of Services7

CHAPTER THREE9

METHODOLOGY9

CHAPTER FOUR11

DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS11

Agents' perceptions of the call centre service13

Implications for call centre management15

A combined production-line and empowered approach17

CHAPTER FIVE20

CONCLUSION20

Quality Vs quantity22

Customer relations and quality23

Training25

REFERENCES29

Chapter One

Introduction

Introduction

The rapid growth of the call centre industry emphasises the importance of service delivery in this context as few consumers will be able to avoid dealing with call centres in today's environment. The efficiency of call centres will be critical to the image of the organisation (Black, 1998). This is important for both employees and customers. Studies have found that call centre agents are often required to answer a great number of calls regardless of the quality of the call as they are judged on how quickly they deal with the inquiry (Denny, 1998; MacDonald, 1998a, 1998b).

Whilst managers continue to assess performance by the quantity rather than the quality of the calls, employees will continue to become demoralized (MacDonald, 1998a, 1998b). Recent studies have indicated that 2.2 per cent of the UK population will be employed in 311 Enterprise call centre in Denver by 2001 (Clement and Woodford, 1998). Given the growth in this industry the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of different levels of staff within 311 Enterprise call centre in Denver in relation to service quality and management approaches.

Production-line and empowerment approach

The advantage of a production-line approach is that the organisation controls the system and leaves nothing to the discretion of the employee. An empowerment approach allows employees the discretion to make decisions to satisfy immediate customers' needs (Bowen and Lawler, 1995).

Production-line type managers in 311 Enterprise call centre in Denver environment will inevitably be able to report the number of calls, the duration, the number of rings before answering. However they will be unlikely to know how the customer felt or how the employee ...