Earth calling anyone?
04 October 2006 | Talked About Features | The Stage | Angelo Coppola
We have had several complaints from readers about the lack of understanding or plain rudeness and lack of helpfulness displayed by some call centre operators.
Or more accurately who are those aliens operating and answering the telephones on behalf of some of the country's biggest corporates?
I guess we can blame the people themselves to some extent, but I would venture to say that a lot of the problem could be placed firmly at the doors of the people making the hiring and firing decisions.
I'll explain. I walked through a call centre operation a few months ago, and I thought that I was entering a university classroom. It's all a question of margin really. Pay the students the minimum wage, give them a script to learn, and let them loose on an unsuspecting public or broker group. The result - well, having spent a day at college or university, now you have to put up with all those really strange questions that the people phone in with. I mean, really, the broker should have all the answers - shouldn't they?
Well - it appears not. So how do call centre operators deal with those difficult questions? Simply by being surly, rude and misleading. How can anyone expect a student to understand the intricacies of a policy document, surrender, or any other technical document that brokers have spent years mastering? So what about the supervisors in the call centre. Well in most cases they would be company people, but how far can they be stretched, having to deal with all those intricate questions and technical requests? Again it's a question of margin.
The life office doesn't want to employ the staff so they contract a call centre company that will put the 'seats' in place. There is no risk, no staff issues to deal with, no pension and simply a fixed cost without the hassle of the personnel to deal with. A great win-win as the shareholders see the benefit and the policyholder and their representatives again get the short end of the stick - lekker ne?
If you have had an interesting experience with a call centre recently please send me a short email with the pertinent facts.
