Examining the Future of the Call Center Industry Employment: Comparing the Nature of Work between Inbound and Outbound Call Center through Employee Perception

 

 

Examining the Future of the Call Center Industry Employment: Comparing the Nature of Work between Inbound and Outbound Call Center through Employee Perception

 

 

Table of Contents

Title                                                                                                                        Page

 

Executive Summary                                                                                              4

Chapter 1: Introduction                                                                                        6

·         Background of the Study                                                               6

·         Statement of the Problem                                                              7

·         Significance of the Research                                                        9

·         Objectives of the Study                                                                   10

·         Method of Approach                                                                        12

·         Outline of the Report                                                                       14

Chapter 2: Literature Review                                                                              16

·         Introduction                                                                                       16

·         Background of the Call Center Industry                                      17

·         Call Center Industry Technology                                                  19

·         Nature of Work of Outbound Call Center Agents                      21

·         Nature of Work of Inbound Call Center Agents                         21

·         Working Conditions that contribute stress to both Inbound and Outbound Call Center Agents                                                           22

·         Customer Relationship Management                                         27

·         Total Quality Management                                                             32

·         Turnover Rates                                                                                38

·         Human Resource Management                                                   40

·         Preliminary Conclusion                                                                 44

Chapter 3: Methodology                                                                                      45

·         Research Design                                                                             45

·         Participants                                                                                       48

·         Sampling Design                                                                             52

·         Research Instruments                                                                    55

·         Data Collection                                                                                58

Chapter 4: Analysis                                                                                               63

·         Overview                                                                                           63

·         Demographic Profile                                                                       63

·         Discussion                                                                                        65

Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation                          83

·         Summary                                                                                          83

·         Conclusion                                                                                       84

·         Recommendations                                                                          89

                                                                                                                       

 

 

Executive Summary

            This research is focused on the investigation of the different stress factors and working condition affecting both inbound and outbound agents in UK. In order to meet this objective, the investigation was centered on the identification of the call center agents’ perception towards their job. Eight call center companies operating within UK were then selected randomly; a total of 500 inbound and 500 outbound agents were asked to participate in the research process. For the data gathering procedure, two research instruments were used. One of which is the survey questionnaire structured in Likert format. The profile of the participants and the survey questions make up the main parts of the questionnaire. To analyze the survey results, the responses were totaled and the weighted mean was computed. The developed Likert scale was used to interpret the results. In addition to the survey method, unstructured interview was also used for data collection. Selected respondents were asked a few questions after the survey procedure. This was done in order to obtain information that could support the results of the survey. The answers of the respondents in the interview were integrated with the findings from the questionnaire.

            The outcome of the study was able to stress two main aspects which include the perception of the respondents towards the nature of their jobs and the stress factors they are experiencing in their work. While both respondents are working in similar environments, their opinions and ideas were different. Specifically, findings showed that inbound agents were more satisfied with their work as compared to the outbound agents. This is largely attributed to the findings that the stress factors experienced by outbound agents are greater. The process of calling clients, making sales and meeting daily quotas were some of the stress factors that the respondents pointed out that make outbound call center jobs stressful and difficult. The dissatisfaction of most outbound agents with their jobs on the other hand, affects their plan to stay in the company where they are employed.

            Although outbound agents appear to be more stressed from their current working conditions as indicated by the results, inbound agents also have their own issues. Some of these include the lack of challenge in their jobs as well as the inadequacy of promotional opportunities or professional growth. The job of both inbound and outbound agents basically revolves on making calls and answering queries, which offer limited room for skill development and personal progress. These working conditions further stress the monotonous nature of call center jobs. Furthermore, as these conditions reduces the interest of the employees towards their jobs, problems like poor performance and high turnover become even more likely.

            From these results, it is clear that certain changes must be done by call center companies in general to improve the agents’ working environment. In particular, this can be done by developing a clear career path for the agents, implementing an effective reward system, providing sufficient and continuous employee training, allowing agents to do both inbound and outbound duties and balancing work standards.

 

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

The contact center industry, or simply known as the ‘call center industry’ is one of the many new sectors that have flourished greatly in this age of information technology. The growth of this industry is evident. For instance, the advertisements of job openings in the newspaper and internet job markets often show available positions in the call center industry.

Available jobs are often call center agents, managers, or team leaders – all for both inbound and outbound work. This evident fact that call center companies are always in need of additional muscle in their operations show that their industry is growing in a considerable pace.

However, it is also possible that this mean the exact opposite. The exact opposite is that perhaps there is a high turnover rate in call center companies - which is the main reason why they are always on the lookout for applicants. Call center work is notoriously known as being stressful and demanding. Those two factors can be enough reason on the claim of high turnover rate in call center companies. Furthermore, the stressful work and high turnover rates are supported in many studies.

However, what is still unexplored or perhaps not further explored, is the difference of work nature between outbound and inbound call centers. The researcher feels that this can be best elaborated by call center employees in both inbound and outbound operations. Examining the concerns of call center workforce and their differences in experience can provide a peek on the future of the call center industry in employment. Obviously, the aim of this study is to provide a descriptive research regarding the perception of call center employees about the nature of work in outbound and inbound operations.

 

1.2  Statement of the Problem

Many issues involve employee perception in call center’s nature of work. One issue is career development. Career development in call centers is difficult to achieve due to the fact that they have high-pressure work environments. Themes such as stress, disengagement, resistance, emotional labor and reduced space for “escape” are present or commonly experienced by call centre agents (1998; 998).

Thus, it can be said that such negative conditions can inhibit call centre agents’ possibility for improvement. A crucial factor in the career development of call centre agents is the development of their mental and emotional health. Skills enhancement may be the key to operations improvement, but as mentioned, it could produce staff-turnovers and low ROI. (2003) concluded that the work of call centre agents is more stressful, less satisfying and less psychological and physiological healthy occupation than other works performed by the general population.

(2003) suggested that the careers of call centre agents would be shaped by providing decision-making autonomy to assist self-determination, offering training and development to boost feelings of competence and creating a supportive organizational culture and climate. However, performing such tasks on the agents should first consider many factors e.g. the perception of the employees on the nature of their work. Furthermore, inbound and outbound work has different operations and perhaps has different effects on employee perception and performance because of their difference in purpose. Inbound operations handle customer complaints and inquiry, while outbound operations handle marketing.

 Knowing the nature of work of the two operations based on employee perception can be useful in acknowledging their differences and helpful in developing effective career development programs. The findings will provide insights on the future of call center in terms of labor forces and employee satisfaction. The problem, however, is that employees have diverse perceptions regarding the nature of their work. That is why this study aims to gather, analyze and categorize them, and then later to use them as evidences to predict a portion of the call center industry’s future – its future on employment.

            To address the problem of the study, the following general research questions will be explored:

1.         What is the perception of outbound call center agents regarding the nature of their work?

2.         What is the perception of inbound call center agents regarding the nature of their work?

3.         What is the difference between the nature of work in outbound call center operations and the nature of work in inbound call center operations?

4.         What is the future of call center employment based on the perception of inbound and outbound call center agents?

 

            On the other hand, the specific questions that will be explored in the study are:

1.         What are the factors that make inbound and outbound employees satisfied in their work?

2.         What are the factors that make inbound and outbound employees unsatisfied in their work?

3.         Are inbound employees more satisfied than inbound employees, or vive-versa?

4.         Are inbound employees more stressed than outbound employees, or vice-versa?

5.         Do inbound call centers have more employee turnover possibilities than outbound call centers, or vice-versa?

 

1.3 Significance of the Research

This study may be useful in gaining insights on the future of the call center industry. The term ‘future’ is very general and many factors should be involved to determine the general future of the sector. However, focusing on human resources is one step ahead of determining its future – because employees play an important role in the operations of inbound and outbound call centers. Without employees, call centers will be nothing. Limited number of employees means that companies can only accommodate limited number of customers. Low satisfaction and high stress can also affect performance of employees, which is highly linked with the progress of the company. In other words, employees – particularly call center agents - play an important role in the future of call centers because they are the majority who operates the operations of the company. Thus, gaining their opinion can lead to the discovery of concerns in call center management, specifically factors that should be resolved, improved or reviewed.

            Exploring the views of call center agents can help increase knowledge on call center operations, particularly common tasks and experiences of employees within inbound and outbound operations. Access to this information can increase the improvement and development of the nature of work in call center because this can pinpoint new and emerging issues regarding employee concerns – such as stress, satisfaction, difficulty of tasks, etc. It can be helpful in structuring a career development in call center companies. This specific approach can also be the start of investigating other concerns within the industry to gain insights on its future.

 

1.4 Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to investigate the nature of work in inbound and outbound operations in call centre companies by exploring employee perceptions regarding the matter. By nature of work, it means it will involve investigation of work concerns of employees such as satisfaction, stress and motivation. To know this, employees will be asked regarding different tasks in their job and how they relate with them or perceive them. Nature and work in inbound and outbound operations will be compared and will be analyzed to determine the future of the call centre industry in human resources.

            The objective of the study is to survey call center employees, asking them about different trends in their work, as well as a description of their daily tasks. Basically, this is to provide statistical evidences about the future of the call center industry in terms of workforce and to be able to analyze the situation to understand the possible cause of phenomenon and to be able to provide recommendations regarding the issue. Simply, the objective of the study is to know more about the call center industry by gaining insights from employees. This may also involve interview on human resource managers to confirm the perceptions of the employees that will be surveyed. Through these objectives and aims, it is hoped that the nature of work in inbound and outbound operations of call centers will be compared.

            In general, this study aims to achieve the following objectives:

1.    Assess the difference in work descriptions between outbound and inbound call center agents.

2.    Analyze the relationship between stress factors affecting outbound and inbound call center agents.

3.    Analyze the conditions under which outbound and inbound call center agents operate.

4.    Examine the connection between the working conditions and the turnover rate of call centers.

5.    Investigate if stressful environments as well as other working conditions present in call centers directly result to high turnover rates.

6.    Evaluate the suitability of the results of the research in predicting the path that employment in call centers will take in the future.

 

1.5 Method of Approach

The research design that will be used in the study is descriptive research. Descriptive research intends to present facts concerning the nature and status of a situation, as it exists at the time of the study (1994). It is also concerned with relationships and practices that exist, beliefs and processes that are ongoing, effects that are being felt, or trends that are developing. ( 1970) In addition, such approach tries to describe present conditions, events or systems based on the impressions or reactions of the respondents of the research (1994).

Respondents in the study will be call center agents who will be chosen randomly from different inbound and outbound call center service companies across the country. They will be chosen through stratified random sampling and will be surveyed with a self-report survey instrument. A five-point Likert Scale will be used to measure the level of satisfaction of the employees on each statement in the questionnaire. The occupational stress indicator (OSI) ( 2003) will also be used as an additional questionnaire to determine stress level of the respondents. The OSI will also utilize a 5-point Likert Scale. In the Likert technique, the degree of agreement or disagreement is given a numerical value ranging from one to five, thus a total numerical value can be calculated from all the responses (2004). The equivalent weights for the answers will be:

 

Range                                                            Interpretation

            4.50 – 5.00                                                    Strongly Agree

            3.50 – 4.00                                                    Agree

            2.50 – 3.49                                                    Uncertain

            1.50 – 2.49                                                    Disagree         

            0.00 – 1.49                                                    Strongly Disagree

 

            Finally, personal interviews will be conducted on both employees and supervisors to determine the technical nature of work of inbound and outbound call center agents. This will be done with a guide of an open interview questionnaire regarding the matter. Data will be analyzed with the use of the latest SPSS software and will be compared with the use of chi-square.

            The utilization of the Likert scale as well as the OSI will provide the qualitative data of the research while the quantitative data will be gathered through the review of statistics within the call center industry.  For example, recent data showing the turnover rate of the industry in general can be used to determine if the industry is indeed suffering from high turnover rates.  As such, turnover rates of the call centers must also be present in order to make the connection between stress factors and turnover rates. Therefore, this research  will be making use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. 

 

1.6 Outline of the Report

`The data gathered through the review of related literature, the utilization of the methodology mentioned earlier and data analysis will be presented in both textual and tabular form.  The study will be  divided into chapters. The summaries of each chapter are as follows:

Chapter 1 is the Introduction stating the rationale behind the study.  Sections such as background of the study, significance, objectives and the methodology used to gather data.

Chapter 2 will be presenting data gathered through the review of related literature. Various theoretical structures involved in the formation of the concept of the work within the industry will be presented. This chapter will provide the needed supporting evidences in advancing the claims of the research.

Chapter 3 will focus on the discussion of the methodology used in gathering the data used in the research. The different qualitative and quantitative data gathered will be highlighted in this chapter.

Chapter 4 is the data analysis part of the research.  The results of the interviews conducted will be juxtaposed with the frameworks presented in Chapter 2.  This will allow the research to qualify the results of the interview as well as the analysis of the data as presented in the previous chapters.

Chapter 5 is the summary of the research. The conclusion formulated based on the numerical and textual results of the research will be discussed in this chapter.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Literature Review

 

 

2.1 Introduction

 

            Businesses need to communicate constantly with their customers. This correspondence is important since they both serve the interest of the parties involved. Before the proliferation of call centers, businesses would send letters to their customers informing developments.  Some businesses also employed field agents to go door to door and contact the customer in a more personal manner. As years went by and technology progressed, they recognized that the telecommunications technology can actually provide a means of directly contacting the customers without the hassles of driving to their houses or offices. Thus, the call center industry was born.

            Initially, sales are the departments that utilized telephones to do businesses. They would contact their customers to check-up on their decisions, whether they are ready to buy or not. They would also present their new product to customers over the phone.  However, customers themselves are also looking for ways to contact the businesses. Customers wanted to get a hold of people within the company to discuss matters about their involvement to the company.  With this, many businesses saw the need for establishing call centers that have the capacity to either contact the customers or answer the calls of the customers. This in turn resulted to the formation of inbound and outbound call centers and even blended call centers.  Blended call centers are those that provide both inbound and outbound contacting solutions.

            Given the two types of service provided by call centers, it is only natural that they will also need two different types of agents handling the call.  Inbound and outbound call center agents differ in many ways and it is not limited to contacts who.  These differences are often rooted to the traits that each posses which will be discussed in the following sections of this chapter. These traits are important because they are needed in overcoming the difficulties presented by the two different call center posts. 

 

2.2 Background of the Call Center Industry

            Before the main task of analyzing the nature of work within the call center industry, it is important that the beginnings of the industry be discussed first.  This part of the literature review will provide some basic knowledge about the overall nature of the call center industry. Tracing the history of the call center industry is essential in determining the cultural framework in which the entire industry operates. Doing so will allow the researcher to analyze the context of the various aspects of the business.

            According to  (2005), the history of the call center industry has not yet been written. However, its beginnings can be traced to the invention of the telephone in the 19th century.  Upon the invention and utilization of the telephone, people would have to dial the number of the switchboard operator so that they could be connect to the party they are trying to call. Subsequently, switchboards operators functioned as the first breed of call center agents (2005). The premise behind this statement is the fact that switchboard operators interact with the customer before they can even connect then with the other party. Once a switchboard operator receives a call, they would greet the calling party. This act signifies the beginning of customer interaction. Then the process continues when the switchboard operator asks the calling party to whom they wish to be connected to. This proves that they also practices probing, which is one of the essential tools modern day call center agents use in handling calls.

As enterprises ventured forth and technology advanced, the utilization of the telephone as an essential tool in conducting business activities also proliferated. Businesses started to communicate with their customers through the telephone while other more established businesses used the telephone to attend to the needs of their existing customers. Companies acquire call centers for a variety of benefits. This includes twenty-four hour, everyday access and interaction with its customers anywhere in the world and minimizing the time spent on activities that have to get done but have little to do with the principal line of business. Enhancing productivity by help in growing revenue faster than expenditures by reducing resources and time devoted to back office processes (2001) is also another benefit. In time, in-house call centers are providing additional revenue for the companies. However, also the case is costly.

            This is one of the reasons why outsourcing of call centers became a widely accepted practice within the industry.  Although in-house call centers are still in operation, the number of staff members is lower compared to outsourced centers. As a result, more and more companies are turning to outsourcing to solve high operating cost. Outsourcing provides lesser cost of production since companies choose to outsource in country where the cost of labor is not as high as in their base country. For example, India and Philippines are proving to be beneficial call center outsourcing destinations for many American and European companies since they would only have to pay a fraction of the cost in hiring Indian and Filipino call center agents.

 

2.3 Call Center Industry Technology

 

A call centre uses telephone and computer technology to deliver services to customers that perform inbound and outbound services. In other words, it is a collection of resources providing an interface between the service provider and its remote customers ( 2002). A person who works for a call center company is known as a call center agent or a customer service representative. In a call center, agents are supported by quite elaborate information-and-communication-technology (ICT) equipment, such as a private branch exchange (PBX), an automatic call distributor (ACD), a personal computer (PC) and assorted databases (2002).

The two types of call center are inbound and outbound call centers. Inbound traffic call centers acquire customer generated calls, while outbound traffic call centers produce representative generated calls such as telemarketing (2002). Inbound and outbound call center agents experience work differently, particularly the nature of their work.  (2002) explained that inbound call centers are usually supported by interactive voice response (IVR) units, which serve as elaborate answering machines. Through a selection of menus, IVR’s attempt to respond to the customer’s needs and, if necessary, help route the call to an appropriate call center agent ( 2002).

On the other hand,  (2002) stated: “Outbound call centers may have predictive dialers, which dial before a rep is available, attempting to anticipate when one will be available, thus reducing rep idle time, but unfortunately leading to some calls without a calling party, thus annoying the called parties” ().

In the midst of all the technologically advance equipments that call centers use,  (2000) stated that despite the way call centers use their equipments, they are still not able to maximize the potentials of the tools. For example, tools that are being used to store and manipulate data are simply being used to complete reports, generate screen interface and develop fulfillments. However, tools that can store and manipulate data are tools that call center can use to analyze and segment data on hand (2000).  Analysis and segmentation of data will allow the call center to better prepare their agents in handling the requests and queries of their customers. When customer data are analyzed and segmented, they can call center agents about the customers’ needs, wants and expectations.  If agents are aware of the customers’ preferences then they will also be able to recommend or match the product or services to particular customers. This means that analysis and segmentation of data can increase possible sales of the company as well as customer satisfaction. However, it is not only internal players that will benefit form this.  The entire industry can be affected by this because of the possible improvements in call handling the level of professionalism can also increase. This can be reflected on the industry.

 

2.4 Nature of Work of Outbound Call Center Agents

            Outbound agents are more associated with sales.  They are primarily assigned to contact potential or existing customers and encourage them to take advantage of what the company is currently offering.  These contacts can either be initial or repeat contacts. The degree of difficulty of an outbound agents’ work depends upon the kind of leads that they have. Leads are the customers themselves. The list of leads includes the name of the customer along with their contact information and other data that can be helpful in positioning the products or services being offered.

            At the point of contact, agents know very little about their customers. However, the little information they have is enough to get them through the first 60 seconds of the conversations. In order for them to prolong the call and achieve the aim of the conversation, agents must be able to discover new information about the customer. According to  (1992), agents will know more about their customers than they do at the time they started.

 

2.5 Nature of Work of Inbound Call Center Agents

Inbound call center agents are the ones responsible for answering the calls made by the customers to the company. Thus, the term was used to indicate that the calls are inbound. Inbound agents usually handle customer care issues such as technical support for IT related companies or billing inquiries for financial related businesses. They are responsible for providing the answers that the customers need in order to resolve their problems involving the company’s products or services for example for example.  

This means that inbound call center agents often act as shock absorbers. They are the ones who need to confront irate customers.  Furthermore, this kind of work environment actually results to some problems according to agents themselves. According to a survey conducted by the (2003), 49 percent of the agents surveyed agreed that there is lots of pressure involved in the job and 33 percents feels that the work is too repetitive. 

Given this, it is often said that inbound agents must have the special customer service genes ( 2005).  This is true to some extent since inbound agents must be patient in dealing with every client most especially with irate ones. They must be able to see beyond the frustrations of the people on the other end of the line if they were to change their view regarding the company.

 

2.6 Working Conditions that contribute stress to both Inbound and Outbound Call Center Agents

            Call center agents work under normal office settings. However, the term normal is relative. This is the case since call centers can be either in-house or offshore. This means that the employees either are working based on the normal working hours of their country (Medcroft, 2001) or under the working hours of the country were the call center services are being employed.  The growing number of offshore call centers means that more and more call center agents are actually working under not so normal conditions in terms of the time.

            Let us take the case of India.  India is among the countries able to provide the work force needed to fill in call centers posts. Both American and British call centers are encouraged to set-up their own centers in India because of the low wage rate (2000).  The figure below shows that there are two main considerations why companies opt to bring their businesses offshore. The first is cost as stated earlier and the second is the availability and quality of the workforce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 1: Top Ten Cities for Offshore Call Centers in terms of Cost and Quality of the workforce (2005).

Given this, call center agents in India will have to come to work according based on American time. Usually American call centers follow the Eastern standard time, meaning call centers in India have to report at 5pm to 1am their time so that they will be in synch with the EST working hours. The nine-hour difference between the two countries means that the call center agents in India are not working under normal conditions. 

            At first, it may seem that this is such a small sacrifice to make. However, the difference in time also means that the agents do not get to sleep regular hours. The time that they are operating in is very different from the time that the whole country is operating in. This may also mean that they do not get to spend much time with their families since they leave their homes when their kids are about to arrive and go to bed when everybody else is about to get up. Women Indian call agents are facing this conflict because their government disallowed women from working the night shift (2005a)

            This situation can add up to the stress that they get from the office.  Usually call center agents are stressed out when they are being pressured to meet the metrics set by the clients. Sales must go up while customer satisfaction issues must go down.  They must be able to handle a specific number of calls per day.  They must be able to do this and that in such a short time otherwise the client will pull out the account. 

            Unpleasant customer interaction can also be stressful.  It is the case that some customers are so rude that they go to the extent of insulting the call center agents.  This is one of the hurdles that offshore agents need to overcome.  It is inevitable that some customers feel more confident when talking with Americans. Some customers feel that they grievances will not taken to the proper authorities when they speak with agents alone and more especially when they speak with foreigners. However, some of the customers go overboard and tend to insult the person on the other line.  These instances can affect the agents in many ways and with varying results. According to an article in the  (2005b), the criticisms from customers add pressure to the work of call center agents. Some cannot take the added pressure or the criticism themselves.  This is the reason why some leave the industry only after a few days on the floor.

            These reasons were considered by call center managements when they designed their office spaces.  It is natural to see recreation areas within the facilities.  They reasoned that they wanted to provide everything that their employees need in order to do their tasks efficiently.  Sleeping rooms are also available as well as pantries with stocks of coffee packs. Managements believe that the presence of recreation facilities will help their employees to relieve stress.

            Given the complexity of the work within a call center industry, it is natural that some people may find it hard to hold on to their posts as call center agents. Some might say that they are not natural born salespeople, while others would complain about the workings. On the other hand, many may not be able to tolerate the insults they receive night after night. These reasons are only some of the factors affecting the turnover rate of call centers worldwide. In turn, turnover rates can be viewed as a factor that results to serious business implications.

Literatures show that human capital is one of the main problems of call centers. (2003) conducted explored the relationship between stress, satisfaction and the four dimensions of psychological empowerment (meaning, impact, self-determination and competence) within a call centre and found that call center agents were “more stressed, less satisfied and reported poorer mental and physical health than the general working population” (). Furthermore, agents also perceived themselves less empowered than other workers in an office environment.  (2003) subtly suggested that the reason for those results is that employee empowerment in call centers is overtly general and lacks specific focus.

            Slightly similar,  (2002) explored team working in a call centre and how this is shaped for the employees by an increase in technical control, the dynamics of emotional labor and gender politics. Based on case studies and drawing on its theoretical insights, the study found that team working results in a fundamental contradiction involving a ``soft’’ discourse versus a regime of increasing managerial control ( 2002). Furthermore, the results also showed that employees have little discretion over the way work is organized ( 2002).

             (2002) investigated the role that human capital plays in explaining the job satisfaction and performance of contingent and regular customer service representative. Their findings show that contingent agents had less human capital but higher job satisfaction than regular workers did. In addition, they also found that human capital mediated the relationship between work status and job satisfaction, but no performance differences were found between contingent and regular call center agents.

 

2.7 Customer Relationship Management

            Customer Relationship Management (CRM) pertains to any activity that involves interaction between the business and the customer. It is based on the concept of creating learning relationships (2000). This relationship can be considered as a give and take relationship.  Both customers and businesses can benefit from the formation of learning relationships. Businesses can actually determine the value of each customer in the business by forming these learning relationships as well as those who are and will need additional attention.  On the other hand, business have the improved capacity to serve better their customers since they now the products and services that will benefit them most.

Developing and nurturing a lasting relation with the customers is viewed as one of the keys towards delivering customer satisfaction that affects sales.  According to  (1985), there are two extreme types of customer relationship.  The first one is called “always-a-share relationship”; this type of relationship is characterized by accommodating and detached transactions.  This relationship also views the customers as replaceable.  The second extreme relationship is called “lost-for-good relationships”.  This type of relationship relies on the benefits of the products, carried by the store, to the customers; this is the only reason why the customer patronizes the store. Given this, if the customer sees that the products are no longer beneficial to them there will be no reason to continue on patronizing the store.  It is also important that store managers learn to recognize customers whom relationships must be built and maintain and customers whom relationships should be discontinued.  This step will allow stores to maintain its status quo.

Based from the statements given above, it can be concluded that CRM focuses on building relationship to be able to create customer profiles and predict buying trends.  Doing so will allow the business to make necessary adjustments in their services of products so that it will become more suitable and referred by customers. In addition, knowing the customer’ preferences will give a company an edge over the competition since they will be able to develop products and service that can offer more benefits to the customers based on what they need.

CRM Programs help define the general attitude of the members of the company when interacting with customers. It is based on what the customer directly tell the business, information collected through other business transactions and other demographic acquired (Day, 2000, p. 66). Through these sources of information, businesses will be given the opportunity to get to know their customers on a different level. Aside from being able to identify the needs of their customers, they will also be able to differentiate customer requirements. With this, businesses can improve the way they interact with their customers by enhancing contacting methods, sales approaches and/or automated technology that they are offering (2000).

According to (2005a), something is missing the implementation of CRM in today’s businesses. In addition, he stated that in order for customer relationship management programs to truly work, business must focus on the person. In other words, Gerson believes that tracking purchasing trends or giving incentives so that people will stay with the company are not the steps that needs to be taken to make CRM work.  In line with this, he suggests that business must analyze everything that customers bring into the situation such as emotions, motivations, intentions, interests, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and desires (2005).

There is another observation that Gerson was able to make. He believes that businesses are focusing of technology in the belief that it will be able to help them improve CRM. This is in coherence with Day when he mentioned that call centers have technologically advanced equipments; however, they are not able to maximize its utilization. It is a fact that most call centers are after equipment acquisition since they believe that doing so will allow them to serve better their customers.

It is true that technologically advance equipments used in call centers are helping agents deliver quick and efficient service to their customers. However, the relationships being form during these brief interactions are not strong enough to influence the purchasing behavior of their customers.  If call centers continue depending on technology to improve their customer relationship management, then there is a great chance that improvement will not come.  This is the case since technology is only one aspect of customer relationship management. Businesses must be able to make the same realization.

Continued dependence on technology can also result to the regression of the customer relationship building skills that employees have. Since the whole organization has been operating under the notion that customer relationships are being built by utilizing CRM software and equipments, then they are also operating under the notion that all they have to do is pick up the phone and the rest is up to technology.

With this, it can be stated that aside from technology centric culture, call centers must also adapt a customer-centric culture. The combination of the two culture can prove to be beneficial for the businesses. While technology provides the tools that will make customer relationship building easier, focusing on people willow businesses to form personal relationships with their customers. This kind of relationship is the kind that will be able to somehow influence the purchasing behaviors of customers. In order for this relationship between companies and customers to grow, certain conditions must be present. 

According to Gerson, relationships grow as long as the following conditions are observable and are being practiced by the parties involved.

- Mutual Trust

- Open lines of Communication

- Give each other’s needs and do away with the things that are not wanted

- Mutual Support

- Listening to each other

- Reciprocated Empathy

- Growing with each other

 

            It is evident that the conditions presented above appeals more to the psyche and emotions of the customers. By practicing the aforementioned conditions, businesses will be able to ensure that the relationships they build with their customer will last. Furthermore, they will be able to establish the needed personal relationships. This is important because personal relationships will allow businesses to determine the personal preferences of each customer and compare them with the overall formulation of their products and services.

            In the case of call centers, it is important to note that, although, customers will appreciate if agents are knowledgeable about the products and services that they offer, customer will find it more easy to avail of the offers if agents will be able to show them how the product can benefit them. In order for agents to do this they must know what is important to the customer at the moment. Equipped with that knowledge agents will be able to determine how the product or service fits into the current situation of the customer. All of the information needed to position a product or service is obtainable through probing or asking the customer about it.  However, customers will only trust agents with such information if they have formed a sort of relationship. Again CRM programs come into play.

            Aside form the abovementioned benefit of CRM,  (2005b) also outlines other beneficial results that companies will be able to get out of CRM programs.

-       it can used as a marketing tool to provided competitive advantage

-       it can result to more satisfied customers thus longer lasting relationships can be formed

-       increased rate of customer referrals

-       increased in profit

-       increase of repeat customers

-       improvement of the quality of products and services being offered

-       improvement of employee performance due to boost of morale and employee satisfaction

-       switch to a customer centric corporate culture

-       increased internal productivity

 

This outline of beneficial results that customer relationship management programs provide proves that its implementation can help the call center industry to be more profitable and sustainable. Since CRM programs affects employee performance it means that they will be able improve the skills of call center agents.

 

2.8 Total Quality Management

 

            According to  (1999), Total Quality Management is the incorporation of all the functions and processes of the organization () to be able to develop the quality of the services and or/products that they offer. With this, it can be stated that customer relationship management programs are included in total quality management. The need to develop an effective total quality management is important due to various reasons. However, these reasons are still geared towards providing customers with the great business experience with the company.  It is also the case that total quality management views customer satisfaction in relation to customer retention and increase in the profits.

However, there are different takes on this topic.  Some researchers believe that customer satisfaction creates to customers who will keep on doing business with the same company.  This results from the customers’ experience when they were conducting business with that particular company.  These researchers believe that the presence of customers who are willing to spend a little more just to be able to do business with their preferred company confirms that customer experience; in this case, customer satisfaction can help businesses in increasing their profit.  In fact, a number of companies believe so much in the power of customer satisfaction together with other key factors like revenue and profit that they use it to measure their business’ over-all performance.

 This take on customer satisfaction brings about the concept that business must include customer satisfaction programs in their budget allocation. One such example of this practice can be observed in Sears Roebuck & Co.  Other retail stores even use customer satisfaction rating as a measure for employee compensation.  Employees and executives are being rewarded based on the feedback that the store gets from its customers.  Businesses do this in order to foster a culture of delivering top-quality customer service that will improve financial performance.  This statement simply means that businesses believe that the more satisfied the customers are the more profitable the store will be.  They give much importance to on the fact that it is costly to attract customers but even more expensive to lose them (2004).

 According to  (2005), the cost of gaining new customers is 6-7 times more expensive than retaining customer and a 5 percent increase in customer retention can also increase profit by 25-95 percent.  But the on the average American companies lose 50 percent of their customers every 5 years.  This, to a certain degree, proves that there is an indirect relation between customer satisfaction and increase in sales through increased customer retention.

On the other hand, there are those researchers who believe that customer satisfaction does not always translate to customer loyalty or retention. According to two Harvard researchers, Jones and Sasser, customer satisfaction result in varying levels of loyalty which affects the customers’ disposition towards patronage.  This means that customer satisfaction do not create loyal customers because even satisfied customers have the tendency to change stores. This change of store by the customers can be justified by the level of satisfaction that they will get from another store.  Therefore, the focus of customer satisfaction must be aimed at proving the highest value bundle to the customers in order to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction (2003).

Even though, the two examples provide different view regarding the relation of customer satisfaction and customer retention, it is evident that customer satisfaction affects customer retention. And customer retention results in increased profit since customer retention lessens the turnover rates ( (1990).  The only difference that was actually posted by the two articles involves how customer satisfaction affects customer retention.  The first example stated that customer satisfaction automatically results in customer retention while the second views that customer retention is dependent on the degree of satisfaction that the customers get.

Nevertheless, both articles showed that there is a correlation between customer satisfaction, customer retention and increase in profit. This being the case, it can be stipulated that if call centers recognize the correlation between the three then they will be able to sustain their business and ensure that its future it secured. Moreover, implementing customer relationship management programs will allow call centers to identify the sets of customers that are more susceptible to outbound contact methods and those that would rather stay with inbound call methods. In doing so, they will also be able to lessen the stress of their agents by providing them with hot leads.

Since Total Quality Management is founded on the philosophy of perpetual improvement ( 2005), it means that businesses must always be on their feet to keep up with the demands of the market.  Therefore, businesses must accept that change is an integral part of success. They must be willing to give up old inefficient business strategies and start formulating new ones.

In addition,  (2005) stated that the key to improving the quality of products and services that a company offers is develop the processes of identification, production and support of the products and services. This means that everybody with the company must be work together in order to resolve the problematic processes. In the middle of this, managers must   be able to act as leaders and provide trainings to their subordinates. The skills that employees acquire through training will be their tools in initiating change. Managers must also keep track of the developments within the company. This means that they must constantly review and measure the performance of the team. This way they will be able to gauge if the process being used is helping in achieving the preferred result of the company. 

Hansen also suggested that a systematic method of improvement be used. This will allow companies to implement the improvement programs gradually and assess the immediately visible results. This is also a risk management mechanism to ensure that minimal losses will be accrued. Below is the total Quality Management process improvement according to Hansen. It also includes the problem solving sequence to better identify the areas within the company that needs to be improved.

 

 

TQM Process Improvement and Problem Solving Sequence

PLAN  (PLAN A CHANGE)

DO (IMPLEMENT THE CHANGE)

CHECK (OBSERVE THE EFFECTS)

ACTION
(EMBED THE FIX INTO
THE PROCESS FOR GOOD)

DEFINE
THE
PROBLEM

IDENTIFY
POSSIBLE
CAUSES

EVALUATE
POSSIBLE
CAUSES

MAKE
A
CHANGE

TEST
THE
CHANGE

TAKE
PERMANENT
ACTION

1. Recognize that what you are doing is a "PROCESS"

2. Identify the commodity
being processed.
- Process Inference

3. Define some measurable characteristics of value to the commodity.

4. Describe the "PROCESS"
o Process Flow Analysis's
o Flow charts
o List of steps

5. Identify the "Big"  problem
o Brainstorming
o Checklists
o Pareto analysis

6. "BRAINSTORM" what is causing the problem.

7. Determine what past data shows.
o Frequency distribution
o Pareto charts
o Control charts
- sampling

8. Determine the relationship
between cause and effect
o Scatter diagrams
o Regression analysis

9. Determine what the
process is doing now
o Control charts
- sampling

10. Determine what change would help

• Your knowledge
  of the process

• Scatter diagrams

• Control Charts
  - sampling

• Pareto analysis

****Then make
the change.

11. Determine what change worked (confirmation).

• Histograms

• Control charts
  - sampling

• Scatter diagrams

12. Ensure the fix is embedded in the process and that the resulting process is used.

Continue to monitor the process to ensure:

A. The problem is fixed for good.

and

B. The process is good enough

o Control charts
- sampling

****To ensure continuous
improvement, return
to step 5

 

Fig. 2: Total Quality Management process of Improvement ( 2000)

 

2.9 Turnover rates

            As stated in the pervious section of this chapter, most call center agents whether inbound or outbound, experience lots of stress in the workplace. Most of the agents could not cope with the factors that stress them out. As a result, they would rather leave the call center industry. Call centers worldwide reported that turnover of the industry in general is around thirty-three percent (2004).  According to the   (2004), this rate is ten time higher compared to any other job.

            Even though, many people are enticed by a career in the call center industry, call center businesses are still being threatened by the presence of high turnover rates. According to a survey conducted by  ( 2000), high turnover rates resulted to 38 percent decrease in earnings and stock prices in four industries including call centers. This means that many call centers are losing precious capital in attempting to replace seasoned agents. They would have to re-invest in training new hires so that they will be able to meet the metrics set by the clients. In offshore call centers, this means that new hires will have to undergo trainings ranging from speech, accent and product training. This can take up to a month, while if seasoned agents had not left their post the call center would have been profiting from their already.

The table below shows how expensive it is to replace lost employees. However, call centers can actually reduce their turnover rate by soliciting the views of their employees. Dialogues as well as coaching session can be helpful in determining the factors that causes stress. Agents know their jobs well. Therefore, they also know what are things needed to be able to perform better. The objective of this research is exactly to get call center agents to talk about issues concerning their work in the hopes of securing the future of the industry, thus, ensuring employment in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 3: Call Centers Employee Turnover Rates (Dybis, 2004)           

2.10 Human Resource Management

            High turnover rates are just one of the issues that human resource managements programs are attempting to resolve. In contrary with the past notion that human resource management is only concerned with employee hiring and payroll management, today’s view of human resource management is broader. It now includes activities such as personnel management, employee training as well as dealing with performance issues. It is often the case tha human resource managers turn to training as a means of resolving performance issues at the same time enhancing the skills of their current and future workforce.

According to  (2003), the quality of the employees are determined by their development through training and education. In turn, quality employees are factors in defining the long-term stability and profitability of the company. It is a fact that the rigorous hiring process of many companies a ways of ensuring that they will only be hiring the best of the best. However, this is not enough to say that the people they hire will be delivering effective performances.  It might be true that they can see potential in those people and that is why they hired them. Nevertheless, these potentials cannot be put into use unless they are accordant with the company’s visions. This is the reason why training must take place.

These reasons are closely linked to the company’s sustainability and profitability. According to  (2002), training is being used to facilitate education.  In addition, training is also seen as a tool to retain employees, improve corporate culture and design incentive programs for employees ( 2002). 

            Trainings are also being conducted so that the company will be able to create a pool of employees that can readily and adequately replace those who have left the company. Due to fats technological developments, employees must be continuously and/or regularly trained to be able to adapt to the developments that will affect the company. Training also motivates a team by allowing them to become more efficient.  If a company is able to train and develop highly-competent employees then they will be able to fill positions needed for expansion (2003 ).

Since training can develop efficient employees and create rooms for expansion, this means that training can also result to lower employee turnover rates. As stated earlier call centers are included in the three industries suffering from the ill effects of high-turnover rates. If trainings can reduce turnover rates, this means that trainings can also reduce the cost of production. The saving that companies will be able to get from lower turn over rates can later be passed on to their customers.

            In attempting to create an effective training program, factors must first be taken into consideration. These factors are more connected with the suitability of the employees to undergo training.  They are also factors that will be able to help companies in designing the appropriate training module.  This part of the proposal will be presenting these factors in order to help the research in answering some of the questions posted earlier in the statement of the problem.

            Since training is basically motivation and transfer of information, the characteristics of the trainees is very important in ensuring the success of the training programs. According to (2002), there are 8 factors that affects employee training.

Trainability

Cognitive ability

Basic Skills

Personality

Conscientiousness

Goal Orientation

Anxiety

Age

 

Employee training and development can start a chain reaction.  When the company is able to produce effective employees then their profitability will increase.  When this happens, they will also be able to compensate their employees based on their contribution to the company’s growth.  In turn, it will create a feeling of satisfaction that will motivate them to improve further their efficiency and then the cycle will once again begin ( 2005).

The need to conduct training for both new hires and current call center agents, for both inbound and outbound programs, is reinforced by the survey conducted by Leadership IQ (2005).  The survey states that within 18 months 46 percent of the new hire in the call center industry will fail. On the other hand only 19 percent will achieve undeniable success. The survey blames for interpersonal skills for the high failure rate within the call center industry. Even managers who were interviewed for the survey Admitted that the lack in interpersonal skills is often overlooked.

Among the 46 percent of the new hires who failed within 18 months 26 percent of them were found to be unable to handle feedback, 23 percent had problems understanding and managing emotions. Furthermore, 17 percent lacked the motivation needed in to excel in the call center business while 15 percent were found to have failed because they have the wrong temperament for the job ( 2005).  These reasons prove that they could have been prevented if only the employees were trained on such aspects. 

Unfortunately, call centers focus more on training their employees on product knowledge and accent or culture training if the center is offshore. Call center management often forget that most of the new hires are first timers in the business and are not yet emotionally ready for the rollercoaster ride ahead. The cultural background of the employees dictates this readiness, which means that call center managements must be able to recognize that in order for training to fulfill the promise of lower turnover rates, they must design a training program that will help employees cope with the pressure and stress of the job.

As proof MetLife conducted a survey were they were able to discover that lower turnover rates are present when agents have lesser interactions with customers or when agents feel that they have full control over the interactions ( 2005). This suggests that a feeling of satisfaction can prevent turnovers. In turn, satisfaction can come from agents knowing that the way they interact with customers is the way it is expected to be done. All of these are possible if agents were trained.

All of the statements made in relation to HRM implies that it is also an activity that aims to improve the quality of service that a company provides. Therefore, HRM is also a part of Total Quality Management.  At this point, it is clear that total quality management serves as an umbrella business activity that includes every other activity that an organizations part takes in to improvement the quality of their products and/or services.

 

2.11 Preliminary Conclusion

            The statements and arguments presented above suggest that the nature of work of inbound and outbound call center agents are virtually the same.  The only difference lies in the technicality of who is calling who. It is not always the case that inbound agents do not deal with sales, which is considered to be more stressful.  Therefore, is can be concluded that the nature of work of inbound and outbound call center agents is dependent upon the kind of management they have received. In addition, the sustainability of the industry is also dependent on this management, specifically total quality management. 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

Methodology

3.1 Research Design

The research design used in the study is descriptive research. Descriptive research intends to present facts concerning the nature and status of a situation, as it exists at the time of the study ( 1994). It is also concerned with relationships and practices that exist, beliefs and processes that are ongoing, effects that are being felt, or trends that are developing. (1970) In addition, such approach tries to describe present conditions, events or systems based on the impressions or reactions of the respondents of the research (1994).

In addition, the descriptive method is widely used in studies concerning behavioral sciences. This means that this method will be able to capture the essence of the study, which is to investigate the future of the call centre industry through the exploration of the perception of employees. In the previous chapter, it has been identified that one of the reasons for the high turnover rates in the call centre industry is the level of stress that agents have to face.  In turn, this high turnover rate causes business to loose more in terms of operating cost. 

The use of the descriptive method also suggests that the research will be focusing on obtaining qualitative data. Qualitative research is an umbrella that refers to various research traditions and strategies. This type of research design was chosen since it gives emphasis to attitudes and beliefs of that explain the way they interpret and make sense of their world. In the case of the study at hand, the perception of the employee regarding the nature of their work affects the growth of the industry that they belong to.

To achieve the objectives of the research, there is a need to first identify the variables that will be used to investigate the trend of call centre employee. In any research, two variables are always present – independent and dependent. The independent variables pertain to the variables that are perceived as the ones doing the causing, while the dependent variables are the variables being studied to conclude the effects of the independent variables.

In this case, an independent variable has been identified. It is the stress factors. It is recognized that there are different kinds of stress factors present in the call centre as a workplace. However, to simplify the task of analyzing the data gathered, the collected term stress factors were used to signify the presence of these factors. Since the study is correlation in nature, the independent variable will be observed and not manipulated. This also goes hand in hand with the over-all descriptive nature of the research.

On the other hand, the identified dependent variable is the employment trend within the call centre industry.  Based on the literature review presented in Chapter 2 of this research, human capital is one of the main problems that call centers face. The fact that high levels of stress can be obtained form a call centre workplace indicates that the charm of call centre career can be quickly turned reversed once stress sets in. Various studies previously presented also determined that stress drives agents to resign from their posts leaving countless seat needed to be filled. At first, this may seem as an indication that stress will result to the abundance of employment opportunities within the industry.

However, following sections of the previous chapter also stated that call centers loose more whenever they have to replace seasoned agents with new hire. This is brought about by the fact that new hires are usually inexperienced individuals who will be handling calls for the first. The performance of stressed agents will most likely be more able compared to the performance of an inexperienced new hire. The business world is being run by profit; this means that if companies are no longer profit from their businesses a shut down might follow. If this happens, the employment opportunities within the call centre industry will decline.

This means that the stress levels that call centre agents experience indirectly affects the call centre industry in terms of productivity and ensuring the profitability of the company. Agents who are stressed out tend to perform poorly. Below average performance is unacceptable to most call centres who aim to provide their clients and their client’s customers with the bets possible contact and customer experience possible.  This suggests that if customers do poorly in ensuring the satisfaction of their callers (for inbound agents) or increase of sales (for outbound agents), their respective clients might pull out their account and bring it elsewhere. The worse case scenario will be the clients never wanting to entrust their business to outsourcers.

Upon first reading, it may seem as a far-fetched idea. However, the chain of events that is threatening to changes, if not already slowly changing, the employment trend in the call centre industry is being seen as a factor that needs to be constantly observed. This what the research aims to achieve. By gathering and analyzing data from call centre employees, the research will be able determine if the employees themselves see stress as a factor of turnover rates. The relationship bet the turnover rate and the changes in the employment opportunities in the call centre industry has already been established in the literature review. 

Given this, the researcher focused on gathering data that will strengthen the hypothesis that there is a correlation between stress and the high turn over rate in the call centre industry. The following sections of this chapter will be furthering the discussion on the details of the methodology used to complete the data gathering part of the research. Succeeding pages will be focusing on the steps taken by the research in ensuring the credibility of the findings of the research.

 

3.2 Participants

Respondents in the study are call centre agents who were chosen randomly from different inbound and outbound call centre service companies across the country. It was important for the participants to come form various call centers as this ensure a good representation of the population. In doing so, the research will have lesser margin to generalize the results. In addition, the fact the participant came from various call centre companies suggests that they have different experiences regarding stress in the workplace. This is because every call centre tends to have different corporate cultures being practices. In one way or another, this difference in corporate culture affects how people within the organization are being stressed out. This means that the participants will provide various setting under which the hypothesis can be tested.

This means that the participants of the research have different demographic characteristics as well.   In the beginning, the expanse of the demographic differences among the participants of the research proved to be problem that needs to be addressed immediately. It was recognized by the researcher that the demographic differences of participant will result to irrelevant variables that can affect the analysis of the data. However, this was immediately addressed and will be discussed in detail in the following section of this chapter.

Overall, there were 1000 participants for the research.  There were eight call centers contacted regarding the intention of the researcher to survey their agents. The call centers contacted were not purely outbound or inbound centers. They all cater to both inbound and outbound calls. However, they have a definite number of people delegated to outbound and inbound works. This allowed the researcher to be divided the call centre agents into four groups, which will be discussed later on.

To ensure proper representation on each call centre, the 1216 participants were divided among the eight centers. This resulted to 152 agents per call centre. Since the call centers involved in the research cater to both inbound and outbound work, there was a need for the researcher group the agents per centre into four. The first group was composed of female inbound agents, the second male inbound agents, the third female outbound agents and the fourth male outbound agents. 

The division was implemented to ensure that both sexes were equally represented in the research. This grouping yielded an outcome of 38 members per group per call centre. This kind of division also worked for the call centre that agreed to participate in the research. The smaller the number of participants the better since work will not be disrupted as much as when the participants from each centre is big.

It is important to not, though, that the researcher did everything to prevent any work disruption from taking place. The surveys were done before and after work to prevent work disruption and to observed changes in the perception of the employees after a stressful day at work. When the researcher needed to observe the behaviour of the agents on the floor, it was done on a very discreet manner. Oftentimes, the researcher would use the technique being used by quality analyst to screen calls. Through this method, the researcher was able to observe how the agents converse and assist customers whenever they are under stress.

The observation/survey period for all the centers lasted for two months. The researcher coordinated with the operations manager of each centre in order to forecast the days when the site will receive the most number of calls and the days when they are expecting to receive the least number of calls.  These days are crucial in the study since it is believed that the more calls an agent gets the more stressed he/she becomes. This means that the changes in the performance of the agents can be best observed during these two days. It is also the case that heavy call flows usually result in pressuring the agents to make more sales of handle calls properly to be able to accommodate all calls.

For outbound agents, the observation dates were set during times when the site is on a deadline to meet the clients expected sales figures and relatively relaxed days. In the same way that heavy call volumes affect the performance of inbound call centre agents, pressure from the client to hit the target can push the agents to their limits and thus resulting to stress.

The move to ensure that both sexes were represented in the research was done to eliminate some margin for error brought about by the presence of a significant amount of irrelevant variables. The researcher recognizes the possibility that the results of the research might be questioned on the basis that the response and/or perception of the participants may have been influenced by factors other than the independent variable. As such, ambiguous findings will not prove to be credible and thus the findings of the research can be jeopardized.

Due to the importance of making sure that irrelevant variables will not affect the result of the research, the researcher observed other measures while gathering the need data for the research. The following section will discuss other measures implemented to avoid as much irrelevant variables that can result to error variability.

Error variability can be avoided, if not eliminated by using an effective sampling and research design. Randomization was one of the sampling methods in the research. This allowed the research to prevent systematic differences between groups as a result of the presence of irrelevant variables. However, it is the case that even if randomization was used random differences will still occur. In addition, it might be questioned that the research design presented above does not look like random since the researcher went to certain height to ensure that both sexes are represented.

It is true that the population of the participants have equal representation of both men and women. This is due to the fact that the research did not only use randomization but also used some of the irrelevant variable as independent variables. In doing so, the researcher had to group the participants by sexes and type of agent (inbound or outbound). Aside from this, the participants were picked based on their employee numbers to reinforce stratified sampling.

The next section of the paper will be providing a complete discussion of the sampling design used in the research. The sampling design will explain the process of stratified sampling as well as the further discussion on the need to use irrelevant variables as independent variables.

 

3.3 Sampling Design

It is important that the researcher be able to define the target population to be able to determine the sampling method that needs to be used. This is the case since sampling methods to be used will be the reflection of the characteristics of the target population defined. 

Sampling can be classified into probability or non-probability.  Probability methods describe the target population as a population where every member has non-zero probability of being chosen as subjects.  Non-probability methods describe the target population as a population where members can be selected to be subjects in some random manner. 

For this particular research, the sampling methods used are those from the probability methods since the target population was chosen regardless of gender, race, experience or status. It is stated the participant were chosen regardless of sex since members of both sexes were included in the population of the participants.

The utilization of the probability methods can also prove to be advantageous since sampling errors can be calculated.  This means that the researcher will be able to determine the degree that sample differed from the population. There are three kinds of sampling under the probability method that can be used – random, systematic and stratified.  The three samplings can be used independently or simultaneously (2005). 

The participants were chosen through stratified random sampling. The stratified sampling was chosen because it is more superior compared to random when it comes to lessening sampling errors.

Stratum refers to the subset of the population that shares, at the very least one, common characteristics. In this case, one of the stratums used was male and female and inbound or outbound call centre agents.

 It is very important that the sampling design is effective in lessening or eliminating margins for error. In analyzing the data gathered for the research, the scores that they yield will have two components. The first component is known as the treatment component. These components reflect the effects of the independent variable. This means that the treatment components are the most relevant scores in concluding the research.  Treatment components are the ones that will be able to answer the research questions.

On the other hand, there is the error component. In contrast with the treatment component, the error component reflects the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable. The presence of error variability accounts for the presence of error variability.

Error variability is variability in the scores that cannot be credited to the independent variable. If in the process of analyzing the data large amounts of error variability are observed, there is a tendency for the treatment components to be obscured and thus making the findings inconclusive.

It is also important that each stratum be represented sufficiently. The use of the term sufficient means that the sample size must be large enough to be confident to state that the stratum represents the population. The research can only meet the minimum given the constraint on the time and resources available for the research. 

However, it has been ensured that number of the participants for the survey as well as the interview is sufficient to represent the population. The number of participants used in the research was based on the minimum of most SPSS software, which is minimum of 1000 and maximum of 1500. 

The fact that the SPSS software was able to provide comprehendible figures based on the variables inputted in the interface is a good indicator that the number of respondents in the researcher is within the sufficient range. In addition, the number of participants in the survey/interview process of the research allowed the researcher to

 

3.4 Research Instruments

Various research instruments were used to gather the data needed for the research. Given that the research was primarily after qualitative data, the research instruments used were geared towards this purpose. These instruments included self-report in the form of a survey questionnaire, the occupational stress indicator and interviews. The mentioned instruments set out to measure both satisfaction and stress levels of the call centre agents who took part in the research.

A five-point Likert Scale will be used to measure the level of satisfaction of the employees on each statement in the questionnaire. The survey was divided into two parts. The first part measures the satisfaction of the employees in terms of the nature of their work. This part included questions that aimed to determine how the employees perceive their work. Some of the questions are listed below.

1.    How committed are you to maintaining your job long-term?

2.    How satisfied are you with the compensation and benefits provided by the company?

3.    Does the company recognize the contributions of their employees to the growth of the company?

4.    How you satisfied with your job?

5.    Would you consider your job as stressful?

The second part of the survey aimed to determine the various factors that were contributing to the stress levels of the employees. Different aspects of the workplace were included in this part. The participants were asked about the programs of the company that are implemented to lessen the stress of the employees. After which, they were asked if these programs were effective.

1.                  Does the company have programs aimed at relieving the stress of their employees?

2.                  Are these programs effective?

3.                  Can interpersonal skills help in combating stress within a call centre?

4.                  Is stress a factor in your want to continue working with the company?

More specific questions were included in the survey to determine what causes employees in the call centre industry to experience high levels of stress. These questions are more related to the routine that they carry out within the workplace. For example, both inbound and outbound call centre agents were asked if certain types of calls result to stress. They were asked to describe the kinds of calls that they get and identify the ones that will most likely stress them.

In addition, the relationship of the agents with their supervisors and co-workers were also investigated. This part of the survey aimed to establish if the interpersonal skills of the employees, as stated in the literature review, affects their stress levels. For example, if an agent is not used to receiving feedback this might cause him/her to take the feedback in a non-constructive manner and thus result to stress. Some of the questions asked are listed below.

1.    Do customer interactions sometimes result to stressful circumstances?

2.    Does pressure to hit clients metrics result to stress?

 

The occupational stress indicator (OSI) (2003) will also be used as an additional questionnaire to determine stress level of the respondents. The OSI will also utilize a 5-point Likert Scale. In the Likert technique, the degree of agreement or disagreement is given a numerical value ranging from one to five, thus a total numerical value can be calculated from all the responses (2004). The equivalent weights for the answers will be:

 

Range                                                            Interpretation

            4.50 – 5.00                                                    Strongly Agree

            3.50 – 4.00                                                    Agree

            2.50 – 3.49                                                    Uncertain

            1.50 – 2.49                                                    Disagree         

            0.00 – 1.49                                                    Strongly Disagree

 

            Finally, personal interviews were conducted on both employees and supervisors to determine the technical nature of work of inbound and outbound call centre agents. This will be done with a guide of an open interview questionnaire regarding the matter. The interviews were conducted to verify and to further investigate the answers of the employees on the survey. These interviews allowed the researcher to ask additional questions that will help clear things or further the description of certain incidences that were not able or could not be accommodated in the survey. Data will be analyzed with the use of the latest SPSS software and will be compared with the use of chi-square.

            The utilization of the Likert scale as well as the OSI provided the qualitative data of the research while the quantitative data were gathered through the review of statistics within the call centre industry.  For example, recent data showing the turnover rate of the industry in general were used to determine if the industry is indeed suffering from high turnover rates.  As such, turnover rates of the call centers were presented in order to make the connection between stress factors and turnover rates. 

 

3.5 Data Collection

            It has been reiterated in the previous sections of this chapter that the research mainly gathered qualitative data in order to determine if stress affects the turnover rate within the call centre industry.  The completed survey forms, answered by both inbound and outbound call centre agents, provided the qualitative data. In addition to the accomplished survey forms, the researcher was also able to gather data through a series of interviews conducted with the call centre agents.

            Qualitative research as a method of data collection is also known as the participative observation. This suggests that the researcher be immersed among the participants of the research instead of just observing them from a distance. Malinowski advocated this method at the turn of the century of research (1992).  This implies that qualitative research is not anew tradition. Therefore, it has been tried and tested through the years. The efficiency of this method proved to be invaluable for many research.

            In addition, this method of data was implemented in the researcher for a couple of other reasons. One of the main objectives of the research is to be able to gain knowledge on the perception of the employees regarding the future of employment opportunities in the call centre industry based on their experiences at the moment. This suggests that the researcher must be able to interact with the participants of the research in order to fully understand the circumstances that surround the topic.

            Related literature may be able to provide details of how the call centre industry operates. It will be able to describe the conditions in which call centre agents work. Articles will discuss problems. It will also be able to pinpoint the source of the problems as well as provide recommendations on how to effectively resolve them. Reviewing related articles can give various insights about the topic. However, fully understanding the underlying conditions that brought about the problem, in the first place, can only be achieved if it is observed or experienced first hand.

            This signifies that the researcher will be able to effectively attack the problem is he is familiar with how the employees operate under a specific conditions. It is possible that the researcher will get an answer from the participants that are not exactly the being done in practice. In other words, the participants may way one thing and actually do another.

            The statement is not implying that the participants will most likely lie about their perception on their work. It is just the case that people tend to think about the possible effects of their answers to survey or interview question on their jobs. As such, they might not be able to provide their true feeling about the topic.  Immersion allowed the researcher to get the feel of the environment that is believed to be stressful.

Natural actions and reactions can be observed and documented. Interactions between the employees and their supervisor and any other superior that have also been identified as contributors to the stress level of the employees can also be observed first hand. With this method, no information can be omitted. Unlike in interviews or surveys that the participants can consciously omitted details that can affect the outcome of the research.

It is evident that the researcher used another research method aside from the participative observation. Surveys and interviews have been mentioned a couple of this. This means that the researcher also used the

As stated in the previous section of this chapter, the research gathered data by using survey and interviews. Two survey forms were distributed to the participants with the instructions of answering one before work and the other one after work.

In addition to this, an occupational stress indicator questionnaire will also be distributed to measure the stress levels of the employees. In contrary to the survey questionnaire, was only completed once. To better capture the effects of stress on the employees, the survey forms were distributed on the day that heavy call volumes are expect (inbound) or the day that the shift is expected to hit a certain figure (outbound).

            The two forms have basically the same set of questions. However, since the participants were asked to complete them at a preset interval, it was expected that the events that transpired during that day would somehow affect their perception and thus affecting their answers.

            The participants were asked to stay in a single room while answering the survey. They were also instructed not to talk with one another while completing the survey. This will ensure that their answers will not be influenced by the answers of their peers. Upon finishing the survey, each participant was asked to immediately pass the survey form and walk out of the room. This process was repeated after the shift of the participants.

            After the completion of the survey forms, the researcher formulated the questionnaire for the interview. The questions were based on the results of the survey. The interviews were done to reinforce the findings of the survey. In addition, these meetings will allow the researcher to observe if there were any changes in the perception of the employees after the completion of the survey.

            There was only one interview per participant. These were done a few days after the survey was conducted. The interview also served as the validation of the answers of each participant to the survey. It is recognized that there are some questions that needed to be expounded on in other to provide the best possible answer.

The supervisors were also for gaining knowledge on the technical aspect of a call centre work. The supervisors also served as the bridge between the participants and the researcher. The researcher directly coordinated with the supervisor to let the participants know about the schedule of surveying and interviews. In addition, the supervisors were also interviewed to determine if the interpersonal skill of the employees affect the way they handle stress or how the agents are stressed.      

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 Analysis

4.1 Overview

This study was conducted in order to investigate the different working conditions that affect inbound and outbound agents in UK. Their perceptions towards their job as call center agents are also identified. In this research, 8 call center companies within UK had been selected for the participant selection. A total of 500 inbound and 500 outbound agents were randomly selected for the data-gathering. A survey questionnaire structured in Likert format was distributed to the selected respondents. The questionnaire was divided into two main parts: the profile of the respondents and the survey proper. The responses of the participants were then totaled for the weighted mean computation. Results were then interpreted using the Likert scale. Interviews using some of the selected respondents were also conducted in the process to obtain useful data that would elaborate or explain the responses in the questionnaire. The answers of the participants in the interview were integrated in relevant survey results.

           

4.2 Demographic Profile

            For the profile of the respondents, the questionnaire asked for the participants’ age, gender and their duration of service in the company. The following information had been provided in order to stress that the actual participants and research gathering process has been carried out. Although the demographic data holds no direct value to the analysis, it is essential that the following details are provided as it is part of the distributed questionnaire. Moreover, these data will provide readers of the basic characterization of the research sample. Below are the graphs summarizing the gathered values for each profile category:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 4: Age Distribution of the Respondents

            In Figure 4, it is clear that majority of the selected participants belong to the 20-25 year age group. None of the participants however were older than 36 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 5: Gender Distribution of the Respondents

 

            Figure 5 shows the number of surveyed inbound and outbound agents based on gender. The bar graph indicates that there were more male outbound and female inbounds agents gathered during the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 6: Duration of Service of the Respondents to their respective companies

            The figure above indicates that most of the selected agents had been working in their companies for a year or less.

 

4.3 Discussion

            In this section, the results of the survey are discussed in relation to the research questions and objectives of the study. Specifically, the differences of the perception of inbound and outbound call center agents towards the nature of their jobs are described in this section. In addition, factors or working conditions that affect the job satisfaction of the selected call center employees are also identified. Interview responses that would explain relevant factors are integrated in the discussion. Related literatures were used to support points raised.

 

Job Perception

Perception on Current Job

 

5

4

3

2

1

Weighted Mean

Interpretation

1. I am presently receiving a high level of job

IB

107

201

113

64

15

3.64

Agree

satisfaction.

OB

0

54

126

215

105

2.26

Disagree

2. Considerable pressure in my current work are

IB

112

209

164

8

7

3.82

Agree

affecting my personal and professional

OB

246

215

9

30

0

4.35

Agree

well-being

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. I feel much stress with my current job.

IB

153

226

50

71

0

3.92

Agree

 

OB

324

157

0

19

0

4.57

Strongly Agree

4. I intend to stay in this job for a long time.

IB

106

176

201

10

7

3.73

Agree

 

OB

0

95

182

184

39

2.67

Uncertain

           

Table 1: Summary of Results for Job Perception among IB and OB agents

Legend: 5 (Strongly Agree), 4 (Agree), 3 (Uncertain), 2 (Disagree), 1 (Strongly Disagree)

 

Based from the gathered results in the survey, inbound and outbound agents tend to have differences and similarities as to how they generally perceive the nature of their work. For instance, the computation showed that while inbound agents are generally satisfied with their job, outbound agents disagree. An interviewed participant noted that dissatisfaction in their job is attributed to several negative factors and working conditions. Although both set of agents agree that work stress and pressures are experienced in their duties, the outbound agents appear to have a higher level of job dissatisfaction. The computed values also showed that while inbound agents have plans of staying in their current jobs for a longer period of time, outbound agents are not as certain.

            From these findings, it is clear that the outbound agents have a more negative perception towards their job as compared to the inbound agents. This result is significantly related to the differences of both employees in terms of the nature of their work. The inbound agents are the ones that directly respond to the concern of the customers for the company. Typical services provided by inbound call center agents include answering queries or complaints as well as providing technical support. Services of inbound agents are typically concentrated on the company’s customers and the specific products it manufactures. Although the stress level may be lower than those experienced by outbound employees, irate customers are often the source of stress for inbound agents. It is then important that inbound agents have a strong sense of self-control and patience for handling these problems.

            On the other hand, outbound call center agents are commonly concentrated on the sales factor. Their duties normally involve marketing and promoting different products that their respective companies over the phone. In some instance, call center companies are hired by manufacturers in order to do the marketing process rather than establish their own call center department. While the process is similar, outbound agents encounter a greater amount of stress that the inbound employees since they are the ones who are making the call in order to make a sale. Naturally, outbound agents would have to call different people, making communication a challenge. As there are customers who are not open to this kind of system, outbound employees often gain little respect from the public. Moreover, as outbound call can take at anytime, customer often find this marketing practice interruptive and annoying ( 1999).

An interviewed respondent also noted compared to inbound agents, outbound employees normally have a certain level of sales or quota which they have to meet everyday. Their persistence to make a sale often lead them to unpleasant interaction with the customers, which increases the work pressure involved. Having the skills that will make an effective outbound agent is also more difficult as compared to inbound agents. Inbound agents would have to know the product or service being offered, including how to address various problems and solutions related to it. Outbound agents on the other hand need not only the knowledge about the product, but also the marketing expertise that will make the item appealing to the customer. They must also have the ability to convince the consumers. In general, the presence of work conditions and pressures in the duties of inbound and outbound agents affect their perception about their job; as the level of work stress is higher among outbound agents, most of the selected participants had a negative perception towards their work.

 

Work Conditions

• Factors that affect IB and OB agents at the same level

            Similar to the respondents’ perceptions towards their job, inbound and outbound agents gave different and similar views on the working conditions that affect their job.

 

Work Conditions

 

5

4

3

2

1

Weighted Mean

Interpretation

The work hours or schedule my job requires

IB

101

277

17

93

12

3.72

Agree

affect me.

OB

120

313

13

47

7

3.98

Agree

Interacting with multiple and different

IB

151

216

21

41

71

3.67

Agree

customers stresses me out.

OB

173

286

24

17

0

4.23

Agree

 

Table 2: Summary of Results for Work Hours and Customer Interaction

Legend: 5 (Strongly Agree), 4 (Agree), 3 (Uncertain), 2 (Disagree), 1 (Strongly Disagree)

 

Based form the results of the survey, inbound and outbound agents are affected by several similar working conditions. For instance, both sets of respondents agree that the irregularities of their work schedules as well as the need to interact with different people are among the major problems that affect their work. With work schedules, both inbound and outbound employees would have to report to work outside regular office hours. This is in consideration of their target or clients’ time zones. Due to different time zones of the customers, call center agents would have to report to work late at night or early morning.

            Both agents also agree that their duty to interact with different people, nationalities and personalities make them more prone to communication issues and conflicts. One participant noted in the interview that differences in accents are often a hindrance to effective communication. In most instances, clients who are not able to understand the agent’s pronunciation or accent would simply hung up the phone. At times, communication problems also make irate customers even more irritated. In turn, this leads to verbal insults and other abuse that inbound and outbound agents would have to take everyday. Conflicts typically arise due to apparent differences; as agents interact with multiple clients from different parts of the world, the likelihood for conflicts is thus, very high. When customers are already irate, relaying a message becomes even more difficult.

(1998) noted that conflict arise due to the perception of personal differences among individuals. Other meanings of conflict defined the term as the process of social interaction between struggling parties over beliefs, status, power, resources and other desires or preferences. There are several types of conflicts related to the work of call center agents, which become a major source of stress. Conflicts are often categorized based on their origin. Affective conflict for instance is a type of conflict that arises when two contradicting parties have incompatible emotions or feelings. This is why this type of conflict is also termed as relationship, emotional or psychological conflict. According to  (1997), affective conflict happens when interpersonal clashes are observed between the contradicting parties. Oftentimes, this type of conflict is characterized by frustration and anger. Diversity is also another source of conflict in call center companies as agents interact with clients with different cultures, backgrounds, standards and preferences. Diversity does not only pertain to people’s gender, age and race; differences in role expectation. Goals, thoughts and values are also part of this concept ( 2003). The concept of diversity is a notion of individual differences. While others may consider this as a way of expanding one’s perspectives, experience or ideas, diversity may be taken negatively and be seen as a factor that hinders goal achievement.

 

Work Conditions

 

5

4

3

2

1

Weighted Mean

Interpretation

The monotonous nature of the job is

IB

175

236

73

10

6

4.13

Agree

frustrating.

OB

194

206

19

72

9

4.3

Agree

The demands and pressures of my current

IB

153

218

0

124

5

3.78

Agree

work affect my health and well-being.

OB

161

254

5

41

39

3.91

Agree

 

Table 3: Summary of Results for Monotony and Health Effects

Legend: 5 (Strongly Agree), 4 (Agree), 3 (Uncertain), 2 (Disagree), 1 (Strongly Disagree)

 

            Both inbound and outbound agents also agree on other working conditions that affect their jobs and performance. These include the monotonous nature of their jobs as well as its ability to affect their health. Among inbound agents, the monotonous feature of their job is more evident. In particular, as this job requires the management of similar customer concerns, agents would eventually come across almost every possible issue over time. This then lessens the challenge involved in the job. A job that no longer involves challenge can greatly reduce an employee’s drive to persevere and opportunities to improve. Eventually, the possibility of employees losing interest in their job would look for better opportunities, increasing the rate of employee turnover. The problem on turnover on the other hand can lead to other severe problems for the company.

Continuous speaking with customers over the phone can be has also been considered by the respondents as a major stress factor. In UK, several call center agents had reportedly been suffering from sore throat and voice loss. This in turn become another major problem due to increased healthcare costs. At present, several professionals such as the call center agents rely on their voices to perform their job ( 2000). Call centers are among the growing work sectors in UK; the problem on repetitive voice injury due to weather, office temperature and infection however affect the employees. In the US report, a quarter of its total workers experience voice problems ( 2001); if this will be applied in the UK setting, about 5 million workers are affected by this health issue, resulting to a cost of about £200 million every year.

 

Work Conditions

 

5

4

3

2

1

Weighted Mean

Interpretation

The company provides due recognition to

IB

0

24

156

116

204

2

Disagree

the effort and contribution of the agents.

OB

36

57

28

157

222

2.06

Disagree

Management empowers employees to

IB

76

134

106

111

73

3.06

Agree

overcome work pressures through effective

OB

64

147

122

104

63

3.09

Agree

programs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 4: Summary of Results for Recognition and Empowerment

Legend: 5 (Strongly Agree), 4 (Agree), 3 (Uncertain), 2 (Disagree), 1 (Strongly Disagree)

 

            Inbound and outbound agents also agree that their respective companies’ lack of effort to recognize their contribution to the company is another negative working condition factor. It has been noted in literature that opportunities to grow professionally in call center companies is very minimal. Considering that call center agents do not have other duties other than answer inquiries or market certain products through phone, skill development is clearly limited. Having little chances of promotion also affects the motivation of the employees to contribute and develop themselves more. From this perspective, the importance of motivating inbound and outbound agents is emphasized.

Motivation is typically defined by psychologists as a stimulation that causes the creation of aroused, sustained and directed behavior. This behavior in turn leads individuals to work and perform towards goal achievement. Motivation is also defined as the tendency to behave in an appropriate manner to attain certain needs. It has also been defined as the internal drive to satisfy individual needs. In general, employees need to be motivated not only for them to overcome work pressures but also for them to be loyal to their respective companies. This concept has been explained by several motivation theories. But perhaps the most related to the call center environment is Vroom’s expectancy theory ( 2001). This theory stresses that the employees’ effort leads to performance and that this performance should be given due reward and recognition.

Valence, instrumentality and expectancy are the key elements of Vroom’s expectancy theory. The cited elements represent the employees’ beliefs regarding their performance. The expectancy element pertains to the person’s level of belief if a particular task can be done or not; thus, if the employee strongly believes that a job can be done, he or she is more motivated to perform and accomplish the task. This element can be influenced by several factors such as skill confidence, material or equipment quality, availability of the needed information and the support provided by superiors or subordinates.

The element of instrumentality on the other hand, pertains to the employees’ belief on the gains or rewards they will get out of their performance. Thus, a high level of job performance is observed when the reward involved in the task is gratifying or important to the employee. This element of the theory then suggests that managers should connect high level of performance with the expected outcomes of the employees. Valence is a related element to instrumentality; in valence, the emotional orientations of the employee on the rewards given are considered. If the employees are satisfied with the expected outcome, high levels of performance are observed. In general, these three elements are related as they all serve as motivational factors for the employees.

From this theory, call center companies can then employ various means of employee motivation to help their agents overcome negative work conditions; motivation for inbound and outbound agents will also lead to higher employee retention. One way of doing so is to grant promotion opportunities for qualified and deserving employees. (2001) stated that promotion is also synonymous to career success where employees are given higher responsibilities or place on higher authority levels. Promotion is considered an important element of human resource management as it encourages employees to perform with quality. The organizational members’ affective reactions towards their job and to the company are also influenced significantly based on their promotional opportunities. Most importantly, the turnover process is reduced through promotion (2001).

Aside from the fact that rapid employee turnover result to significant financial losses, this also works against employee efficiency and productivity. As the morale of the employees is reduced considerably due to turnover, profits and quality are eventually affected. A high rate of employee turnover influences the productivity of the employees as well as disrupts social relations, which could also cause a negative impact on the company’s performance (2003). With promotion, employees are likely to be more loyal to the company, thus, preventing employee turnover.

Promoting employees will naturally lead to their development. As employees are trained and educated, promoted individuals learn new knowledge and skills. Furthermore, they become more familiar with their company’s operations. Promotion does not only develop a person’s work abilities, but it also develops his or her behavior and values. For instance, promotion can make the employee more responsible, dependable and mature. From this view, employing motivation theories and offering promotion opportunities is not only beneficial for the calls center agents but for the companies also as these enable them to develop a highly-skilled and efficient workforce.

In relation to motivation, the selected respondents also agree that their respective companies are unable to provide them with sufficient levels of empowerment. This is in line with the monotonous nature of call center jobs; due to the limited duties and opportunities for call center agents, empowerment appears to be a least priority. Empowerment is an important factor as it promotes learning for the employer and the employees. The employer is able to benefit from this aspect as employees provide various ideas that will benefit the company and help in resolving its problems. The employees on the other hand, learn from empowerment as their decision-making skills are enhanced. Moreover, they learn more about the company and how it can be operated more efficiently. Empowerment then allows organizational learning for the company and its members (2000). Empowerment can also serve as a way for motivating the employees. The absence of this factor within the selected companies is then considered as a stress factor both inbound and outbound agents.

 

• Factors that affect IB and OB agents at a different level

Work Conditions

 

5

4

3

2

1

Weighted Mean

Interpretation

 Adherence to work standards is a source of

IB

11

97

33

118

241

2.04

Disagree

stress.

OB

239

190

3

59

9

4.18

Agree

 

Table 5: Summary of Results for Work Standards

Legend: 5 (Strongly Agree), 4 (Agree), 3 (Uncertain), 2 (Disagree), 1 (Strongly Disagree)

 

            Although the participating agents agree on several major working conditions that affect their jobs, the respondents also have different views towards other factors. For example, in terms of adherence to work standards, inbound agents do not see this as a source of stress nor a negative working condition. Interviewed inbound agents stated that by means of work standards, they are able to give uniform responses to their customers. Moreover, these standards help in making their work easier. By means of work standards, agents become more confident in handling different issues as well as customers. On the contrary, outbound agents see works standards as a source of work pressure. Some literatures had discussed this work condition in detail. Typically, call center offices operate under strict regulations. Agents must comply with various work controls and must work under close surveillance. Work times, including meal times and breaks, are precisely managed and carefully scheduled. In most cases, job pace is extremely fast that there is little time in between calls. Work standards also limit outbound agents’ flexibility in answering customers based on their discretion is very limited (1998). Call center agents are commonly those individuals that value creativity, commitment and independence. They also appreciate the freedom to make decisions as well as exercise their judgment. Thus, working on unfavorable schedules, rigid rules and various restraints greatly increase stress levels (2004).

Work Conditions

 

5

4

3

2

1

Weighted Mean

Interpretation

Products offered or problems received from

IB

164

119

41

131

45

3.45

Uncertain

clients constantly increase in complexity,

OB

173

187

36

84

20

3.82

Agree

resulting to higher stress levels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 6: Summary of Results for Product/Service Complexity

Legend: 5 (Strongly Agree), 4 (Agree), 3 (Uncertain), 2 (Disagree), 1 (Strongly Disagree)

 

            The views of the respondents towards work conditions also vary in terms of the complexity of the services they provide or products that they offer. Inbound agents for example are not certain whether this can really be considered as an affective factor to their current job. In particular, inbound agents noted that the monotony of their jobs do not seem to affect the way they deliver their services. The routine nature of their job reduces the complexity of service delivery, thus, it is not really considered as a source of stress. On the other hand, outbound agents consider product complexity as a source of work pressure. Although their jobs are also monotonous, outbound agents offer highly diverse products with different features. As they have to sell these items, agents would have to constantly adjust their knowledge of the product as well as their strategy in marketing them effectively. From this perspective, the differences of the work nature of inbound and outbound agents appear to be the major aspect that caused these different points of view.

 

• Positive Factors

Work Conditions

 

5

4

3

2

1

Weighted Mean

Interpretation

13. The company provides work benefits for the

IB

173

327

0

0

0

4.35

Agree

employees.

OB

184

316

0

0

0

4.37

Agree

11. I am receiving a high compensation in my

IB

9

11

216

123

141

2.25

Disagree

current job.

OB

11

6

101

264

118

2.06

Disagree

14. Facilities like pantries and sleeping rooms

IB

136

214

0

125

25

3.62

Agree

are provided by the company.

OB

146

178

0

61

115

3.36

Agree

 

Table 7: Summary of Results for Work Benefits, Compensation and Facilities

Legend: 5 (Strongly Agree), 4 (Agree), 3 (Uncertain), 2 (Disagree), 1 (Strongly Disagree)

 

            Although there are several negative working conditions that affect the work of both inbound and outbound agents, the respondents also agreed on positive factors that somehow alleviates the noted sources of stress. One of which is the provision of various employees benefits by their respective companies. Both set of respondents also agree that call center jobs offer high compensation. Literatures note that this is actually one way how call center companies contribute in alleviating the work stress experienced by the agents. The call center companies are aware that various stress factors are provoking call center agents to leave their jobs; thus, in order to retain their staff, employers are providing commission or bonus schemes to motivate employees to contribute continuously for the company. The provision of these incentives is based on the principle that motivated and satisfied employees result to the better service delivery to the customers (1999). Inbound interviewees however, noted that compared to outbound agents, incentives are not as high as employees do not have much control over inbound calls received. Thus, outbound agents can control how they can make more than their quota, resulting to higher bonus.

To help them cope with the pressures of work, facilities like sleeping rooms and pantries are provided in most offices. Nonetheless, the interviewed inbound and outbound agents stated that there are more negative working conditions in their jobs as compare to the benefits and high pay. Considering that high compensation and good facilities can also be obtained from other job opportunities, call center companies must employ effective strategies that would assist their agents, especially in overcoming the stress factors of their job.

 

Future of Call Centers

            In a research carried out by Cincom Systems using call center agents in UK, the study concluded that only 1 in every five call center agents find their work atmosphere favorable. A total of six percent noted that they like nothing about performing call center work; 25% stated that they dislike the job due to abusive callers or customers. Stress was considered a major negative factor of call center work by 12% while 6% of the agents do not like its monotonous nature. In addition, about 36% of the agents claimed that they receive abuse from callers at least for several times every week; 17% claimed that they are abused at least on a daily basis. Cincom Systems marketing manager stressed that with these evidences, there is indeed a need to improve the working conditions for both inbound and outbound agents ( 1999).

            The results of the survey showed that the stress factors experienced by inbound and outbound agents are not as different from each other. In most cases, the differences in the perception of their jobs are brought about by the nature of their work and their specific duties. However, the work conditions and stress factors experiences by both types of agents are basically similar. Among these stress factors include their work schedules, inadequate promotion opportunities, several work constraints, monotony, health problems, communication issues and conflicts with clients. Although the companies provide certain benefits to help the employees overcome these pressures, the future of the call center industry must be assured more than through work benefits and facilities. As high employee turnover is the main problem of the industry, call center companies must employ strategies that would improve the work conditions of its employees.

            Specifically, companies should learn ways on how to recognize the contributions of their employees. Other than the provision of incentives, call center agents must have a clear career path; this would enable them to become more motivated towards their job. Moreover, the provision of clear opportunities for growth will allow not only company growth but employee development as well. In terms of work constraints, companies must implement regulations that would promote development and discipline among employees rather than stress. For instance, employees must be given enough time for breaks. Programs that would empower the employees to perform other tasks, use different skills and participate in decision-making activities should also be part of the human resource programs for inbound and outbound agents.

Through empowerment, the monotonous nature of call center jobs will also be addressed. Regulations that would control or address customer abuse should also be developed and applied. Most importantly, regular activities or effective programs that would help inbound and outbound agents overcome different stress factors. For example, call center companies can design training activities that would increase commitment and innovations among the employees. With better skills and efficiency, call center agents in general will be more likely to be committed to the objectives of the company. They will also become more interested in developing themselves more through innovation. Sufficient training programs for inbound and outbound agents can also help retaining the employees; employees who had been subjected to training and feel that they are contributing well to the company are less likely to resign prematurely ( 2004).

            In general, inbound and outbound agents encounter a number of different stress factors at work, which affect their performance as well as their satisfaction towards their jobs. In UK, the call center industry is among the fastest growing fields in the service business. The presence of several negative working conditions in call center offices can then greatly affect how the business will progress in the future. It is then imperative for the companies to employ methods and techniques that would enhance the working conditions of both inbound and outbound agents not only for the purpose of enhancing the skills and retaining the employees but also to ensure the continuous progress of the industry.

 

 

Chapter 5

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations

5.1 Summary

This study was conducted in order to investigate the different working conditions and stress factors that affect inbound and outbound agents in UK. Their perceptions towards their job as call center agents are also identified. In this research, a total of 8 call center companies within UK had been randomly selected for the participant selection. A total of 500 inbound and 500 outbound agents were randomly selected for the collection of data. Two research instruments were used for this study. One is a survey questionnaire structured in Likert format was distributed to the selected respondents. The questionnaire was divided into two main parts: the profile of the respondents and the survey proper. The responses of the participants were then totaled for the weighted mean computation. Results were then interpreted using the Likert scale.

Unstructured interview was the second research instrument for this study. Here, unstructured interviews using some of the selected respondents were conducted after the survey process to obtain useful data that would elaborate or explain the responses in the questionnaire. The answers of the participants in the interview were integrated in relevant survey results. Along with this information, relevant literatures that explain or support the claims given by the respondents are also integrated. In order to analyze the gathered data from the Likert questionnaire, the weighted mean of each survey item was computed. The result is then compared to the developed scale to interpret the obtained value.

5. 2 Conclusion

            The study highlighted two main aspects of call centers. One is the perception of the call center agents towards the nature of their jobs; the other is on the stress factors experienced by inbound and outbound agents and how they are different based on these factors. In terms of perception, inbound and outbound agents offered different views. The findings showed that inbound agents in general are more satisfied with the nature of their work that outbound agents. The degree of the stress factors experienced by outbound agents appear to be greater that their inbound counterparts, thus, resulting to a higher level of dissatisfaction. Furthermore, while inbound call center agents have plans of staying in their current job position for a longer duration, outbound agents are not as certain.

            The findings then led the researcher to conclude that outbound agents have a more negative perception towards their job than the inbound agents. As revealed by the interviews done with some of the selected agents, the differences of both employees in terms of the nature of their work affected their job perception. The job of outbound agents involves a higher deal of pressure than the inbound agents. The process of calling clients, making a sales and meeting daily quotas are some of the factors that the interviewees pointed out, which make outbound call center jobs stressful and difficult.

            Based from the gathered result of the survey and the interview, several stress factors and working condition affect inbound and outbound agents. In most cases, both set of agents encounter similar stress issues. One of which is the work hours or schedule required from the agents. Inbound and outbound respondents agree that due to the erratic nature of their job schedules, most of them experience moderate to severe levels of stress. The main focus of the agents’ job is to interact with multiple and different clients from several countries. The respondents claimed that while the customer diversity itself causes communication conflicts, stress also arise due to verbal abuse of some clients. Interviewed outbound agents greatly emphasized this factor as more of them are affected by this abuse as compared to their inbound counterparts. As the outbound agents themselves are the ones calling the client, irate clients are more likely encountered.

            Aside from the problems on time and interaction, the monotonous nature of the job is also frustrating and stressful for both sets of agents. Specifically, this factor becomes a source of stress as agents work within a limited job framework. This problem is more evident among inbound agents as they would repeatedly address the same product issues everyday. Overtime, they would encounter almost every customer issue or concern possible, that the job loses its challenge factor.

The absence of challenge in the job also significantly reduces the drive of the employees to persevere and develop themselves into better employees. The disinterest of the agents towards their job branches out to other company problems including poor productivity and high employee turnover rate. With the presence of these pressures all in one workplace, agents also agree that these factors are making them more vulnerable to health problems, such as voice loss and sore throats.

            The lack of drive or source of motivation within call center sites appear to be a major working condition issue as claimed by the selected agents. The respondents noted that most call center companies do not give due recognition to the efforts or contribution of their employees. In particular, there is an apparent lack of promotion opportunities for call center agents in general. This has been emphasized further by the lack of empowerment company management provide for their agents. The job of both inbound and outbound agents basically revolve on making calls and answering queries, offering little room for skill development, improvement and professional progress. These working conditions further stress the monotonous nature of call center jobs. Furthermore, as these conditions reduces the interest of the employees towards their jobs, problems like poor performance and high turnover become even more likely.

            Although the selected agents agree on several working conditions that they encounter in their respective companies, they also differ in other aspects. For instance, in terms of complying with work standards, outbound agents consider this factor as a major stress factor while inbound agents do not find this stressful at all. As explained by the response of the inbound interviewees, following work standards such as the procedure for greeting the client and answering their queries help in making their duties easier. The implementation of work standards also enables them to give uniform information to the clients. On the contrary, work standards restrain the abilities of outbound agents, particularly in making successful deals with customers. In addition, the constraining schedules, work monitors and quotas all add up to the stress experienced by outbound agents.

Another point of difference in working condition experienced by inbound and outbound agents is the complexity of products offered or problems received from clients. Generally, the inbound agents do not really consider this as a stress factor mainly because the problems that they received from clients normally have a single and predetermined answer. Thus, they do not have to adjust as to what details should be provided to the client. On the contrary, the complexity of the products offered by outbound agents is considered a stress factor among the respondents. In order for them to successfully sell the products offered, they must have a good background of the item. Constant changes of products can then be stressful as product knowledge would have to be changed constantly as well.

While the respondents had identified several working conditions that affect their job, they also cited some positive conditions that help in alleviating the pressures they are experiencing. One of which is the provision of good compensation and work benefits. The respondents noted that gaining high compensation in a call center company is very possible as companies provide incentive and bonus schemes so as to retain their staff. For outbound agents, the compensation is even higher as they work under quota; with good selling abilities, meeting the quota regularly is very likely, greatly increasing the agents’ salaries.

Aside from these, companies also provide various facilities like pantries and sleeping rooms in order to help agents’ relieve a little of the stress they encounter while on duty. However, the respondents stated that although there may be benefits in working as a call center agent, high compensation and good facilities can be achieved in other job opportunities. This response then indicates the great need for call center companies to reconsider their operations and protocols, particularly in addressing negative working conditions that their agents encounter daily.

            In conclusion, both inbound and outbound agents encounter similar stress factors at work; however, outbound agents appear to encounter greater pressures resulting to a more negative job perception. The perception of the agents’ towards their jobs appears to be related to the degree of pressures that they encounter at work. Both inbound and outbound agents agree that time, customer interaction, monotony, health problems and lack of motivation are some of the major negative working conditions that they encounter. Outbound agents however, also consider product complexity and adherence to work standards as major stress factors. There are also some beneficial factors while working as a call center agent; nonetheless, respondent noted that call center companies must address the cited work pressures, considering that the benefits they offer can be achieved in other job opportunities. Call center companies in general must then do some changes in their priorities, particularly those that would focus on meeting the needs of their agents.

 

5.3 Recommendations

            The results of the survey emphasized that both inbound and outbound agents experience various stress factors at work, which affect their perception toward their job. This then suggest the need for call center companies to develop and apply new means that would address these factors. In this section, recommendations will focus on citing ways on how call center companies can enhance the work environment of their agents.

• Develop clear career path for inbound and outbound call center agents as well as effective reward system.

This recommendation is directed towards the integration of employee motivation within call center companies. Through the development of a clear career path, employees will be able to understand their direction with their jobs in the future; in other words, they would have something to look forward to. A clear career direction is likely to make employees more determined to stay in the company. Moreover, this will also make them more interested in learning more about their job. Overcoming work hurdles and various pressures will also be easier for the employees as they are aware of the fruits of their effort. This concept is based on the principle behind several motivation theories. Aside from offering opportunities for promotion, call center companies should also provide effective reward systems. Other than giving out monetary incentives, companies can give out other forms of reward such as official recognition, trips and others. For this recommendation, it is essential that the company is aware of the employees’ individual needs; in this way the effect of the reward will be more meaningful for each agent.

 

• Provide sufficient and continuous training for the employees.

This recommendation is in support of the one above. In order for employees to qualify for the promotion opportunities of the company, the human resource department of the call center companies must allow skill development through effective training programs. The training of the employees will also increase their flexibility and confidence in handling the different demands of their jobs. Most importantly, the provision of sufficient training will also help the call center agents in overcoming the stress and work pressures that they encounter. In turn, this will eventually lead to better job satisfaction among the employees.

 

• Allow agents to be exposed to both inbound and outbound duties.

One of the problems noted by both inbound and outbound agents is the monotonous nature of their jobs. Due to monotony, the interest of the employees to do their job effectively is significantly lessened. The lack of challenge in the job can then affect the performance of the employees as well as the services they provide for the customers. For this reason, it is then essential for call center companies to ensure that changes in the agents’ duties are done to promote job interest. One way of doing so is through job rotation. For instance, call center companies that cater to both inbound and outbound services should let their agents perform both duties. In this way, both types of employees will be able to encounter regular work challenges, which will drive them to perform better. Exposing the call center agents to different job responsibilities can also help in developing a well-rounded workforce; this could benefit the company, particularly in hiring employees. If the agents can perform both duties, companies no longer need to employ more workers, thus, reducing costs.

 

• Balance work standards.

Work standards, particularly among outbound agents, can be constraining. It is then important that the call center companies balance its work standards in such a way that the employees will be able to attend to their needs and perform through their own capabilities. For instance, in terms of time schedules, employees must be given enough time to have their meals or breaks properly; time to stretch out or rest should also be considered. If possible, companies may employ the flexible time system where employees can design their own schedules based on their availability; this is possible considering that most call center companies operate round the clock. In answering the queries of the customers or selling products, agents should be given the freedom as to how they could respond; guidelines on proper communication and relevant matters however, should still be provided. The work standards observed in call center companies should not only focus on satisfying the needs of the clients but of the employees. In particular, the work standards should allow the use of the agents’ independence, commitment and creativity.

 

• Implement policies and programs that would protect agents from customer abuse.

Verbal abuse from customers is a typical stress factor encountered by inbound and outbound agents alike. It is then essential for call center companies to implement regulations that would control this abuse. For example, clients that had been reported as abusive should be noted. Moreover, customer complaints should also undergo proper and just investigation. Aside from these, the employees must undergo the right training for polite and proper communication; companies must ensure that the employees possess the skills for the right language and accent for speaking with the clients.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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