call center

The Concept of ‘Call Center’ emerged in the recent years, with increasing volumes of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operations from developed countries to low-cost developing countries like India and China. The services provided by the call centers include handling high volumes of inbound and outbound customer care services, help desk and tele marketing services, and many back-end non-core business activities such as pay roll accounting, maintenance of employee records and e-mail management services.

The call center business has been flourishing in six major cities of India – the most important being Bangalore, Gurgaon, Chennai and Hyderabad. The Indian call center services market, expected to grow $735.7 million by 2008, operates through an estimated 5 lakh call center agents.

Though the lure of good pay conditions and the chances of going abroad has augured a healthy sign for a flourishing call center business, it has thrown open a big sociological and psychological challenge for the youth, the major ‘work horses’ in the call center business (The average age of a call center agent is about 23 years). Normally, a call center agent has to work on erratic work schedules and pressure cooker like stress situations. [Their performance is measured by the duration of ‘talk time’ (time an agent spends in engaging a customer) and ‘wrap time’ (the time an agent spends in finishing an operation efficiently.)]

Owing to intense work pressure, an agent gets literally separated from his/her family and friends. Many professionals in this industry have started complaining of major physical and mental problems, which include depression, anxiety disorders and relationship-related problems. Their emotional hygiene gets disturbed with the altered sleep cycles (resulting from regular night shifts). In some cases, it results in an imbalance in the functioning of the hypothalamus, which finally controls the thyroid and adrenaline levels. Physically, cases of hearing loss (due to constant listening to a device), hair loss and abnormal loss of weight have also been reported. Moreover, chronic alcoholism and smoking have been found resorted to as an escape value for the immense tension and mental disturbances associated with the profession.

Above all, the lack of social acceptance for this profession has further aggravated the condition of a call center professional.

1. Suppose you are the employer of the Call center firm. What precautions could you have taken to avert these “Occupational hazards”, and safeguard the moral of your employees?
2. If you are a call center agent, what precautions would you take to keep your moral high?

Maria Fernandez is a bright, popular, and well-informed BSc Graduate who graduated with an degree from State University in June 1995. During the spring preceding her graduation she went out on many job interviews, most of which she thought were courteous and reasonably useful in giving both her and the prospective employer a good impression of where each of them stood on matters of importance to both of them. It was, therefore, with great anticipation that she looked forward to an interview with the one firm in which she most wanted to work, Apex Environmental. She had always had a strong interest in cleaning up the environment and firmly believed that the best use of her training and skills lay in working for a firm like Apex, where she thought she could have a successful career while making the world a better place.

The interview, however, was a disaster. Maria walked into a room in which five men, including the president of the company, two vice presidents, the marketing director, and another engineer began throwing questions at her that she felt were aimed primarily at tripping her up rather than finding out what she could offer through her soft explored skills. The questions ranged from unnecessarily discourteous (“Why would you take a job as a waitress in college if you are such an intelligent person”) to irrelevant (“Are you planning on settling down and starting a family any time soon?”). Then after the interview, she met with two of the gentlemen individually (including the president) and the discussions focused almost exclusively on her technical expertise. She thought that these later discussions went fairly well. However, given the apparent aimlessness and even mean-spiritedness of the panel interview, she was astonished when several days later she got a job offer from the firm.

The offer forced her to consider several matters. From her point of view the job itself was perfect – she liked what she would be doing, the industry and the firm’s location. And, infact, the president had been quite courteous in subsequent discussions, as had been the other members of the management team. She was left wondering whether the panel interview had been intentionally tense to see how she’d stand up under pressure, and, if so, why they would do such a thing.

Questions:

1. How would you explain the nature of the panel interview Maria had to endure? Specifically, do you think it reflected a well-thought-out interviewing strategy on the part of the firm or carelessness on the part of the firm’s management? If it was carelessness, what would you do to improve the interview process at Apex Environmental?
2. Would you take the job offer you were Maria? If you are not sure is there any additional information that would help you makes your decision, and if so, what is it?
3. The job of applications engineer for which Maria was applying requires: 1) excellent technical skills with respect to mechanical engineering; 2) a commitment to working in the area of pollution control; 3) the ability to deal well and confidently with customers who have engineering problems; 4) a willingness to travel worldwide; and 5) a very intelligent and well-balanced personality. What questions would you ask when interviewing applicants for the job?