What are Call Centers?

A call center is an phone center that handles incoming telephone calls from consumers to obtain information, report a malfunction, or ask for help. They also handle outgoing telephone calls, as in outbound marketing or telemarketing. They are used by a company to provide incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers, with the use of some automation. It can be operated independently or networked with other centers, many times linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Most businesses use call centers to interact with their customers. Some businesses may even service internal functions through call centers, examples being, help desks and sales support.

The centralization of call management attempts to improve the operations of a company and reduce costs. To accomplish this, large warehouses are converted into office space to contain all the call center operations in one place. These offices allow large numbers of workers to be controlled by a comparatively small number of support staff and, often times, managed by computers that monitor their performance. Call center staff are closely supervised for quality control, level of proficiency, and customer service. Many call centers use workforce management software, which uses historical information joined with projected requirements in order to generate automated schedules. This provides adequate staff that is skilled enough to assist callers.

Call center staff are organized into a multi-tier support system for more efficient handling of calls. The first tier 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. This is 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. The third tier of support is formed by product engineers/developers or highly skilled technical support staff of the product and will solve any problems a customer may have.

Some of the complaints associated with call centers staff are that they are untrained and work off of scripts, thereby not allowing for effective solutions to questions. Other problems include language barriers between consumers and staff and long waits on the phone for inquiries. Also, some departments do not communicate with one another, making customers reiterate themselves before finally achieving the answers they wanted to begin with.