The operation of a successful call centre depends on an intricate interaction between people and technological systems which has, over nearly two decades, evolved considerably.
Since 1983, Dawn Wood, partner manager at Siemens Call Centre Solutions, has witnessed the rise of the call centre as a pivotal unit in the customer-facing mechanisms of most large companies, throughout which the need for quality personnel has remained consistent.
"Call centres are first and foremost a people business," says Wood. "At the core of the effective call centre is a well-informed, well-trained agent who is able to respond effectively to the queries, complaints or other needs of the inbound caller, most likely a customer of the company represented by that agent."
When the call centre industry first arrived in South Africa, she says it was a very different market from what it is today.
"There weren`t many formal call centre environments, and those that did exist consisted simply of people answering phones for various needs with little management or quality control. Then businesses began to realise that the call centre was customer-facing, and that the telephone is a ubiquitous tool for communication," she says.
"This understanding drove the beginnings of a formalisation of the industry, which in turn led to targeted training of agents for appropriate responses to callers; standardisation and consistency of responses; as well as the ability to monitor and manage call quality to ensure customers were handled in a fitting manner."
Wood says these needs for increased management are today met with a wide range of technology tools.
"Technology aids productivity considerably, and this understanding is particularly applicable in call centre environments," she says. "Cost is a big deal for call centres, and these environments intrinsically rely on human resources that cannot work around the clock. Technology in the call centre is therefore applied to achieve gains in performance, and for the purpose of quality management. The goal is to make each agent more productive while also capable of delivering a high level of service quality."
Particularly in the past 10 years, the call centre industry has flourished in South Africa, serving not just the domestic market, but also international ones. Outsourcing of this business function has changed the face of call centres, and very large facilities have been put in place in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
"All the while, the demand for technologies that aid productivity has similarly escalated to drive the ability of agents in these centres to effectively deliver the required service," she continues, adding that since 1996, she has been involved in more than 100 call centre deployments in Southern Africa.
"Globally, there are several areas that consistently come up where technology is called upon. Automation and interactive voice response ensure calls are routed to the right resource; in the case of repetitive, mundane or standard calls, customer self-service solutions can be applied to offload these calls entirely from agents," says Wood.
The integration of telephony with other applications (computer telephony integration) is also increasingly emerging as a strategy to increase agent productivity. For instance, integration with CRM applications allows agents to be better prepared to handle customer queries as they can be equipped with details and historical contact, enabling faster resolution.
On the performance management side, call logging and voice recording allows managers to analyse agent performance, identify areas of weakness and intervene as necessary.
However, while technology is abundantly available to drive call centre (and agent) performance, Wood stresses that the key to a successful environment will always depend on the quality of the human resources manning the lines.
"A call centre consists of people, processes and strategy, as well as technology and information. If the right profile of agent is not in the call centre all the tools and processes just won`t be good enough," she concludes.
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