![Police contact centre 1970](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Police_contact_centre_1970.jpg)
A call centre (
Commonwealth spelling) or call center (
American spelling
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American ...
;
see spelling differences) is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
. An inbound call centre is operated by a
company
A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...
to administer incoming product or service support or information enquiries from consumers. Outbound call centres are usually operated for sales purposes such as
telemarketing
Telemarketing (sometimes known as inside sales, or telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent f ...
, for solicitation of charitable or
political donations
Campaign finance, also known as election finance or political donations, refers to the funds raised to promote candidates, political parties, or policy initiatives and referendums. Political parties, charitable organizations, and political ac ...
,
debt collection
Debt collection is the process of pursuing payments of debts owed by individuals or businesses. An organization that specializes in debt collection is known as a collection agency or debt collector. Most collection agencies operate as agents of ...
,
market research
Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Mark ...
, emergency notifications, and urgent/critical needs
blood banks
A blood bank is a center where blood gathered as a result of blood donation is stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusion. The term "blood bank" typically refers to a department of a hospital usually within a Clinical Pathology laborat ...
. A contact centre is a further extension to call centres telephony based capabilities, administers centralised handling of individual communications, including
letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
s,
fax
Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
es,
live support software
A web chat is a system that allows users to communicate in real-time using easily accessible web interfaces. It is a type of Internet online chat distinguished by its simplicity and accessibility to users who do not wish to take the time to insta ...
,
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
,
instant message
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
, and
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
.
A call center was previously seen to be an open workspace for
call center agents, with workstations that include a computer and display for each agent and connected to an inbound/outbound call management system, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centers, often linked to a corporate
computer network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
, including
mainframes
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...
, microcomputer/servers and
LANs.
The contact center is a central point from which all customer contacts are managed. Through contact centers, valuable information can be routed to the appropriate people or systems, contacts can be tracked and data may be gathered. It is generally a part of the company's
customer relationship management
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.
CRM systems compile data from a ra ...
infrastructure. The majority of large companies use contact centers as a means of managing their customer interactions. These centers can be operated by either an in-house department responsible or outsourcing customer interaction to a third-party agency (known as Outsourcing Call Centres).
History
![callcentre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Callcentre.jpg)
Answering services, as known in the 1960s through the 1980s, earlier and slightly later, involved a business that specifically provided the service. Primarily by the use of an
off-premises extension {{Unreferenced, date=December 2009
An off-premises extension (OPX), sometimes also known as off-premises station (OPS), is an extension telephone at a location distant from its servicing exchange.
One type of off-premises extension, connected to ...
(OPX) for each subscribing business, connected at a switchboard at the answering service business, the answering service would answer the otherwise unattended phones of the subscribing businesses with a live operator. The live operator could take messages or relay information, doing so with greater human interactivity than a mechanical answering machine. Although undoubtedly more costly (the human service, the cost of setting up and paying the phone company for the OPX on a monthly basis), it had the advantage of being more ready to respond to the unique needs of after-hours callers. The answering service operators also had the option of calling the client and alerting them to, particularly important calls.
The origins of call centers date back to the 1960s with the UK-based Birmingham Press and Mail, which installed Private Automated Business Exchanges (PABX) to have rows of agents handling customer contacts. By 1973, call centers received mainstream attention after Rockwell International patented its Galaxy Automatic Call Distributor (GACD) for a telephone booking system as well as the popularization of telephone headsets as seen on televised
NASA Mission Control Center
NASA's Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center (MCC-H, initially called Integrated Mission Control Center, or IMCC), also known by its radio callsign, Houston, is the facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, ...
events.
During the late 1970s, call center technology expanded to include telephone sales, airline reservations, and banking systems. The term "call center" was first published and recognised by the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' in 1983. The 1980s experienced the development of
toll-free telephone number
A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge. A toll-free number is identified by a dialing prefi ...
s to increase the efficiency of agents and overall call volume. Call centers increased with the deregulation of
long-distance calling
In telecommunications, a long-distance call (U.S.) or trunk call (also known as a toll call in the U.K. ) is a telephone call made to a location outside a defined local calling area. Long-distance calls are typically charged a higher billing rate ...
and growth in information-dependent industries.
As call centres expanded, unionisation occurred in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
to gain members including the
Communications Workers of America
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico). The union has 27 loc ...
and the
United Steelworkers
The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America. Headquar ...
. In
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, the
National Union of Workers
The National Union of Workers was an Australian trade union formed in 1989.
History
The National Union of Workers of Australia was formed by a progressive amalgamation of unions from 1989 onwards in a time when all Australian unions were merging ...
represents unionised workers; their activities form part of the Australian labour movement. In
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, Uni Global Union of
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
is involved in assisting unionisation in this realm and in Germany
Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft
(''Verdi'' (stylized as ''ver.di''; ˆvÉ›ÊdiË; German: ''United Services Trade Union'') is a German trade union based in Berlin, Germany. It was established on 19 March 2001 as the result of a merger of five individual unions and is a memb ...
represents call centre workers.
During the 1990s, call centres expanded internationally and developed into two additional subsets of communication, contact centres, and outsourced bureau centres. A contact centre is defined as a coordinated system of people, processes, technologies, and strategies that provides access to information, resources, and expertise, through appropriate channels of communication, enabling interactions that create value for the customer and organization.
In contrast to in-house management, outsourced bureau contact centres are a model of contact centre that provide services on a "pay per use" model. The overheads of the contact centre are shared by many clients, thereby supporting a very cost effective model, especially for low volumes of calls. The modern contact centre includes automated call blending of inbound and outbound calls as well as predictive dialing capabilities dramatically increasing agents productivity. Latest implementations with more complex systems, require highly skilled operational and management staff that can use
multichannel online and offline tools to improve customer interactions.
Technology
![Callcentreterminal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Callcentreterminal.JPG)
Call centre technologies include:
speech recognition
Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the m ...
software which allowed
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems to handle first levels of
customer support
Customer support is a range of services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. Reg ...
,
text mining
Text mining, also referred to as ''text data mining'', similar to text analytics, is the process of deriving high-quality information from text. It involves "the discovery by computer of new, previously unknown information, by automatically extract ...
,
natural language processing
Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to pro ...
to allow better customer handling, agent training via interactive scripting and automatic mining using
best practices
A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to other known alternatives because it often produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing ...
from past interactions,
support automation
Customer support is a range of Customer service, services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal ...
and many other technologies to improve agent productivity and
customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction (often abbreviated as CSAT) is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of c ...
. Automatic lead selection or lead steering is also intended to improve efficiencies, both for inbound and outbound campaigns. This allows inbound calls to be directly routed to the appropriate agent for the task, whilst minimising wait times and long lists of irrelevant options for people calling in.
For outbound calls, lead selection allows management to designate what type of leads go to which agent based on factors including skill,
socioeconomic
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
factors, past performance, and percentage likelihood of closing a sale per lead.
The
universal queue standardises the processing of communications across multiple technologies such as fax, phone, and email. The
virtual queue
Virtual queue is a concept used in inbound call centers. Call centers use an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) to distribute incoming calls to specific resources (agents) in the center. ACDs hold queued calls in First In, First Out order until agen ...
provides callers with an alternative to waiting on hold when no agents are available to handle inbound call demand.
Premises-based technology
Historically, call centres have been built on
Private branch exchange
A business telephone system is a multiline telephone system typically used in business environments, encompassing systems ranging in technology from the key telephone system (KTS) to the private branch exchange (PBX).
A business telephone syst ...
(PBX) equipment owned, hosted, and maintained by the call centre operator. The PBX can provide functions such as
automatic call distribution
An automated call distribution system, commonly known as automatic call distributor (ACD), is a telephony device that answers and distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals or agents within an organization. ACDs direct calls based ...
,
interactive voice response
Interactive voice response (IVR) is a technology that allows telephone users to interact with a computer-operated telephone system through the use of voice and DTMF tones input with a keypad. In telecommunications, IVR allows customers to interact ...
, and
skills-based routing Skills-based routing (SBR), or skills-based call routing, is a call-assignment strategy used in call center, call centres to assign incoming calls to the most suitable agent, instead of simply choosing the next available agent. It is an enhancement ...
.
Virtual call centre
In a virtual call centre model, the call centre operator (business) pays a monthly or annual fee to a vendor that hosts the call centre telephony and data equipment in their own facility, cloud-based. In this model, the operator does not own, operate or host the equipment on which the call centre runs. Agents connect to the vendor's equipment through traditional
PSTN
The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The PSTN is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local teleph ...
telephone lines, or over
voice over IP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of speech, voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms In ...
. Calls to and from prospects or contacts originate from or terminate at the vendor's data centre, rather than at the call centre operator's premises. The vendor's telephony equipment (at times data servers) then connects the calls to the call centre operator's agents.
Virtual call centre technology allows people to work from home or any other location instead of in a traditional, centralised, call centre location, which increasingly allows people 'on the go' or with physical or other disabilities to work from desired locations - i.e. not leaving their house. The only required equipment is Internet access, a workstation, and a softphone. If the virtual call centre software utilizes
webRTC
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication to wor ...
, a softphone is not required to dial. The companies are preferring Virtual Call Centre services due to cost advantage. Companies can start their call centre business immediately without installing the basic infrastructure like
Dialer
A dialer (American English) or dialler (British English) is an electronic device that is connected to a telephone line to monitor the dialed numbers and alter them to seamlessly provide services that otherwise require lengthy National or Internatio ...
,
ACD and
IVRS.
Virtual call centres became increasingly used after the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
restricted businesses from operating with large groups of people working in close proximity.
Cloud computing
Through the use of
application programming interface
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...
s (APIs), hosted and on-demand call centres that are built on cloud-based
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is con ...
(SaaS) platforms can integrate their functionality with cloud-based applications for
customer relationship management
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.
CRM systems compile data from a ra ...
(CRM), lead management and more.
Developers use APIs to enhance cloud-based call centre platform functionality—including
Computer telephony integration
Computer telephony integration, also called computer–telephone integration or CTI, is a common name for any technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be coordinated. The term is predominantly used to describe desktop- ...
(CTI) APIs which provide basic telephony controls and sophisticated call handling from a separate application, and configuration APIs which enable
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
(GUI) controls of administrative functions.
Call centres that use cloud computing use software that
Gartner
Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its clients ...
refers to as "Contact Center as a Solution" (or CCaaS, for short) that Gartner defines as "a software as a service (SaaS)-based application that enables customer service organizations to manage multichannel customer interactions holistically in terms of both customer experience and employee experience".
Outsourcing
Outsourced call centres are often located in
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
, where wages are significantly lower. These include the call centre industries
in the Philippines,
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
, and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
.
Companies that regularly utilise outsourced contact centre services include
British Sky Broadcasting
Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...
and
Orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
*Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum
* ...
in the telecommunications industry,
Adidas
Adidas AG (; stylized as adidas since 1949) is a German multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufactur ...
in the sports and leisure sector,
Audi
Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide.
Th ...
in car manufacturing
and charities such as the
RSPCA
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity operating in England and Wales that promotes animal welfare. The RSPCA is funded primarily by voluntary donations. Founded in 1824, it is the oldest and largest an ...
.
Industries
Healthcare
The healthcare industry has used outbound call centre programmes for years to help manage billing, collections, and patient communication. The inbound call centre is a new and increasingly popular service for many types of healthcare facilities, including large hospitals. Inbound call centres can be outsourced or managed in-house.
These healthcare call centres are designed to help streamline communications, enhance patient retention and satisfaction, reduce expenses and improve operational efficiencies.
Hospitality
Many large hospitality companies such as the
Hilton Hotels Corporation
Hilton Worldwide (legally Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.) is an American multinational hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and resorts. Founded by Conrad Hilton in May 1919, the corporation is now led b ...
and
Marriott International
Marriott International, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational company that operates, franchises, and licenses lodging including hotel, residential, and timeshare properties. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. T ...
make use of call centres to manage reservations. These are known in the industry as "central reservations offices". Staff members at these call centres take calls from clients wishing to make reservations or other inquiries via a public number, usually a
1-800 number. These centres may operate as many as 24 hours per day, seven days a week, depending on the call volume the chain receives.
Evaluation
Mathematical theory
Queueing theory
Queueing theory is the mathematical study of waiting lines, or queues. A queueing model is constructed so that queue lengths and waiting time can be predicted. Queueing theory is generally considered a branch of operations research because the ...
is a branch of mathematics in which models of service systems have been developed. A call centre can be seen as a queueing network and results from queueing theory such as the probability an arriving customer needs to wait before starting service useful for provisioning capacity. (
Erlang's C formula is such a result for an
M/M/c queue
In queueing theory, a discipline within , the queue (or Erlang–T model) is a multi-server queueing model. In Kendall's notation it describes a system where arrivals form a single queue and are governed by a , there are servers, and job service t ...
and approximations exist for an
M/G/k queue.) Statistical analysis of call centre data has suggested arrivals are governed by an
inhomogeneous Poisson process
In probability, statistics and related fields, a Poisson point process is a type of random mathematical object that consists of points randomly located on a mathematical space with the essential feature that the points occur independently of one ...
and jobs have a
log-normal service time distribution. Simulation algorithms are increasingly being used to model call arrival, queueing and service levels.
Call centre operations have been supported by mathematical models beyond queueing, with
operations research
Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve deci ...
, which considers a wide range of
optimisation problems seeking to reduce waiting times while keeping server utilisation and therefore efficiency high.
Criticism
Call centres have received criticism for low pay rates and restrictive working practices for employees, which have been deemed as a dehumanising environment. Other research illustrates how call centre workers develop ways to counter or resist this environment by integrating local cultural sensibilities or embracing a vision of a new life. Most call centres provide electronic reports that outline performance metrics, quarterly highlights and other information about the calls made and received. This has the benefit of helping the company to plan the workload and time of its employees. However, it has also been argued that such close monitoring breaches the human
right to privacy
The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. On 10 December 1948 ...
.
Complaints are often logged by callers who find the staff do not have enough skill or authority to resolve problems, as well as appearing apathetic. These concerns are due to a business process that exhibits levels of variability because the experience a customer gets and results a company achieves on a given call are dependent upon the quality of the agent. Call centres are beginning to address this by using
agent-assisted automation
Agent-assisted automation is a type of call center technology that automates elements of what the call center agent 1) does with his/her desktop tools and/or 2) says to customers during the call using pre-recorded audio. It is a relatively new ca ...
to standardise the process all agents use.
However, more popular alternatives are using personality and skill based approaches.
The various challenges encountered by call operators are discussed by several authors.
Media portrayals
Indian call centres have been the focus of several documentary films, the 2004 film ''Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: The Other Side of Outsourcing'', the 2005 films ''John and Jane'', ''
Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night
''Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night'' is a 2005 documentary film by filmmaker Sonali Gulati.
This film explores business process outsourcing in India. Told from the perspective of an Indian living in the United States, the film provides a glimpse i ...
'', and ''1-800-India: Importing a White-Collar Economy'', and the 2006 film ''
Bombay Calling
''Bombay Calling'' is a 2006 feature documentary film directed by Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada which follows the journey of Kaz Lalani the pioneer of Call Centre Outsourcing. ''Bombay Calling'' ...
'', among others. An Indian call centre is also the subject of the 2006 film ''
Outsourced'' and a key location in the 2008 film, ''
Slumdog Millionaire
''Slumdog Millionaire'' is a 2008 British drama film that is a loose adaptation of the novel '' Q & A'' (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup. It narrates the story of 18-year-old Jamal Malik from the Juhu slums of Mumbai. Starring Dev Patel ...
''. The 2014 BBC
fly on the wall
Fly on the wall is a style of documentary-making used in film and television production. The name derived from the idea that events are seen candidly, as a fly on a wall might see them. In the purest form of fly-on-the-wall documentary-making, t ...
documentary series ''The Call Centre'' gave an often distorted although humorous view of life in a Welsh call centre.
See also
*
Automatic call distributor
An automated call distribution system, commonly known as automatic call distributor (ACD), is a telephony device that answers and distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals or agents within an organization. ACDs direct calls based ...
*
Business process outsourcing
Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...
*
Call management
Call management is the process of designing and implementing inbound telephone call parameters, which govern the routing of these calls through a network. The process is most prominently utilized by corporations and the call centre industry and ...
*
List of call centre companies
*
Predictive dialling
*
Operator messaging Operator Messaging is the term, similar to Text Messaging and Voice Messaging, applying to an answering service call center who focuses on one specific scripting style that has grown out of the alphanumeric pager history.
Early history
In the 1970 ...
*
Queue management system How does the queue management system work?
Queue management is the process of managing the experiences of customers waiting in the queue to improve business.This system quantifies queuing demand for your business, such that your staff can be mad ...
*
Skills based routing
*
Virtual queue
Virtual queue is a concept used in inbound call centers. Call centers use an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) to distribute incoming calls to specific resources (agents) in the center. ACDs hold queued calls in First In, First Out order until agen ...
*
The Call Centre
''The Call Centre'' is a BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary following staff at the call centre of a Welsh company called Save Britain Money. Although now in administration at the time of filming the call centre was described as Swansea's third-larg ...
, a BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary at a Welsh call centre
*
*
References
Further reading
* Cusack M., "Online Customer Care", American Society for Quality (ASQ) Press, 2000.
* Cleveland B., "Call Center Management on Fast Forward", ICMI Press, 2006.
* Kennedy I., ''Call centres'', School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, 2003.
* Masi D.M.B., Fischer M.J., Harris C.M., ''Numerical Analysis of Routing Rules for Call centres'', Telecommunications Review, 1998
noblis.orgPsychosocial risk factors in call centres: An evaluation of work design and well-being.
* Reena Patel, ''Working the Night Shift: Women in India's Call Center Industry'' (Stanford University Press; 2010) 219 pages; traces changing views of "women's work" in India under globalization.
* Fluss, Donna, "The Real-Time Contact centre", 2005 AMACOM
* Wegge, J., van Dick, R., Fisher, G., Wecking, C., & Moltzen, K. (2006, January). Work motivation, organisational identification, and well-being in call centre work. Work & Stress, 20(1), 60–83.
* Legros, B. (2016). Unintended consequences of optimizing a queue discipline for a service level defined by a percentile of the waiting time. ''Operations Research Letters'', ''44''(6), 839–845.
External links
*
* Mandelbaum, Avisha
Call Centers (Centres) Research Bibliography with Abstracts Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Call Centre
Computer telephony integration
Telemarketing
Outsourcing
Telephony
Customer service