Call Center Definition
Call centers are a standard part of today's business world. Consumers and customer service advocates may gripe about them, but call centers are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
A call center is the customer service interface between a company and its customers. While that definition makes it sound technological, there really is (or should be) a very human component to a call center. In this day and age as we face the death of customer service in all aspects of business, call centers are used wisely by smart companies to provide their companies with the same level of service as if the customer had entered a physical retail location. Although it might be efficient from a purely time managemtn point of view to use VRU's (Voice Response Units) to answer the phone and route calls, customers generally hate them. Some companies even advertise that a person will answer when you call them in order to distinguish them from the competition.
The call center may a physical location at which all the operators work or it may be what is known as a virtual call center which means that the agents actually work from their own homes via the Internet. Technological aspects of a call center include the ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) system which evenly sends calls to all agents logged into the system. Employees at traditional call centers work in large rooms partitioned by cubicles with soundproof material. This is very important because noise levels in crowded call centers can interfere with the phone calls. Companies with a large base of elderly clients need to be especially aware of this so the background noise doesn't prevent the caller from hearing the agent.
Each workstation is set up with a computer, desktop phone, and headset. Agenst often joke that they feel like they are tied to their computers by a leash since even the longest cords only stretch one cubicle in either direction. (Employees with friends in the purchasing or supply areas have been known to get creative and string several cords together to give themselves a little more running room.) Wireless headsets are now available for call center use too. It seems like they would be favored much more by operators than supervisors. How well they will catch on remains to be seen.
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