‘We Recruit Attitude’: The Selection and Shaping of Routine Call Centre LabourKey Issues in Information System Development

Albert Poghosyan – albert@poghosyan.org Eyad Abu Ali - abuwadeaa@yahoo.com Faraj Salah Amar – farj_amar@yahoo.co.uk

University of Salford

Introduction• So what is a Call Centre?

According to Wikipedia: A call centre or call center is a centralized office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone.

• Fine, but seeing is believing!

Picture of a Call CentreIn practice, this means: A call centre is place with lot of people wearing

headphones and mics and talking about everything imaginable…

How it works…Call Centre is operated by

Company to

Administrate incoming product support

Administrate information Inquiries from customers

or

and

Make outgoing calls forTelemarketing

Debt

AndInformation collection

Usage in business• Most major businesses use call centres to

interact with their customers.

• Among them are mainly:• utility companies • mail order catalogue firms • computer hardware and software • Shops help desks and sales support

And even Mathematical theory• A call centre can be viewed, from an operational point of view,

as a queueing network.• Queueing theory is a branch of mathematics in which models of

such queueing systems have been developed.• It used to support to: planning and management.• To help to improve:

• given service-level

• identifying the circumstances under which economies of scale prevail

• cross-selling is beneficial • call centre should be

quality-driven or efficiency-driven?

And Recent shocking news

• So let’s watch a video about the call centre controversy

Watch Video

So what you think?• Can the birds really do that? Or we need somebody

who knows a little more about human nature?• Is it difficult to select people for this new interactive

service sector?• And what is that mysterious “interactive service work”?

According to Mr. Leindner: Interactive service sector work defines as work involving face-to-face or voice to voice interaction with customers.

So, today we are going to

Introduce you to Call centre labour:• Recruitment,• Selection

and• Training processes…(if we will not failed to do that of course)

• Besides we will try to present you a real issue in all this system…

(and we really hope to get the right one)

And talking about Recruitment• The traditional five factor of personality

measures:• extraversion, • agreeableness, • conscientiousness, • neuroticism and • openness to new experience …

And talking about Recruitment

In shaping call centre labour there are three required qualities which should be considered:

as • polite customer relations, • responsiveness, • friendliness

rather than the underlying substance

of work relations

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

Telebank's selection process is thorough: a job and person specification are designed; appropriate recruitment channels selected; application forms collected and analysed; telephone interviews given; role plays assessed; two person structured interviews undertaken; references and credit checks collected and, finally, job offers made.

Telebank management believes that they require a particular mix of skills. This is less based on

technical abilities (such as keyboard skills) than on social competencies that are more difficult to

identify, yet crucial to Telebank's labour process

Characteristics and Competencies

• On technical skill, Telebank managers look for keyboard skills, basic numeracy and the ability to move around a system.

• As navigational competencies, is measured through role playing.

Characteristics and Competencies

• Testing for such technical skills, however, forms only a small part of the selection process.

• Telebank management is looking for certain personality traits, one of which is a ‘positive attitude’: Customer service.

• A positive attitude towards working. Because the customers' calls coming through are work. A positive attitude, and enjoy what you do.

Characteristics and Competencies

Personality is given priority in this recruitment process. To management good customer service requires a positive attitude and, importantly, this cannot be taught, it is part of someone's personality.

Characteristics and Competencies

The managers appear to be doing is evaluating candidates on the extent to which they have internalized managerial service norms, or who have the potential to consciously manipulate their individual characteristics and competencies in order to produce convincing customer service.

What is the training

Training is an essential element in developing the technical expertise and the skills required for

management, leadership, political effectiveness, community diagnosis and

organization that are needed in a complex environment

They are Two Techniques to control conversation

• The conversation cycle

• The eight elements of conversation

The conversation cycle • During the first stage of the conversation cycle

you just listen very clearly to the other individual

• In the second stage of the conversation cycle you ‘invite’ i.e answering the phone and saying something like ‘Good morning, , how can I help you’

The eight elements of conversation

• Exchanging ideas

• Using the first person

• Stating intention

• Giving attention

• Duplication

• Understanding acknowledgement and providing conversational space

• One practical use of such techniques is to pacify irate customers.

When they raise their voices on the phone

Trainers deliberately vary their voice and actions in order to produce particular feelings

• trainees are then shown how the eight elements of conversation can be similarly used to influence the emotional context of a conversation.

While employees don't necessarily recall or use all elements of such training, they do find it

useful in managing conversations

If you are trainees you should

• Managing a conversation (techniques of conversational control)

• Managing yourself

So it's really good having a one on one with someone who's listened to your calls. You

almost never get negative feedback.

Discussion (in some way)

So…

• What is important in call centre labour selection and what is the main issue?

• This paper raises a really important issues of the double paradox in Telebank’s labour shaping…

Discussion

First Paradox• Why create such a structure process of

systematic selection and training for a routine

job with modest pay? (this is a question that has them thinking)

• The heavy investment in recruitment and training at Telebank is certainly compatible with an HRM emphasis on these processes… It makes a more dynamic organizational environment where customer service is seen as

an explicit part of the profit chain!

DiscussionHmmm…Second Paradox• Is in the tensions between how

the company identifies and then uses social competencies…

• Within the dominant industry self-perception, recruitment and selection is framed in terms of spotting ‘personality’ and ‘naturals’, and emphasizes the importance of the associated communication and other competencies for maintaining competitive advantage.

Discussion

But here’s the problem:

• management action is not consistent with this kind of self-perception

• In practice they appear not to ‘trust’ their own process or judgements about individuals in that new employees are clearly and continually trained to act, both in respect to conformity to scripts and techniques of

conversational control.

Discussion

And of course talking about the Ideal worker:

• Certainly for management, the ideal Telebank employee is someone who is perceived to be able to deep act - a person who has substantial resources of ‘personality’ and can draw on and manage these emotions in a systematic (yet convincing) way.

Conclusion

And eventually:The work demands that Call Centre

workers must be continually energetic and enthusiastic and the selection process aims to identify ‘suitable workers’. In this respect, the care taken in recruiting individuals predisposed by ability or orientation to work in the prescribed manner may not be as misplaced as it appears.

Conclusion

So what is a real issue in this paper? In our opinion it is the pronounced paradox of working in Call Centre.

On the one hand, …

It is routine and hard work systematized to almost the same degree as work in assembly line production…

While on the other, it is highly emotional and intellectual work

Conclusion

Making emotional labour…

• And all that mixed by management and training managers eventually prepare the really good ROBOTS – who are trained to answer any question and reflect to any emotional situation.

And even developing artificial intelligence a piece of cake comparing this this! (just my opinion :)

Thanks anyway

Feel free to ask any question

If you haven’t got any, it can mean two things:

1. You understood everything

2. Or you’re not trying to understand it

That’s all folks!!!