Zombie Robot Apocalypse of Call Centre Workers

Generali

Call centres have taken up a lot of the low-skilled workers in areas that were previously dominated by factories.

Despite the caricature that call centres are all based in India, according to Unison, a million Britons work in call centres (link)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/banking/10733432/Banking-technology-brings-seismic-decline-in-branch-transactions.html

In total, 12.4m people have downloaded banking apps, which allow customers to check their balance and make payments at the touch of a button. They used their devices to conduct 18.6m transactions a week last year, up from 9.1m in 2012.

Writing for The Telegraph today, Anthony Browne, chief executive of the BBA, said the pace of the growth in mobile banking was “mind-boggling”

Thrugelmir

Generali wrote: »

Call centres have taken up a lot of the low-skilled workers in areas that were previously dominated by factories.

Our call centres (quasi public sector) are full of highly trained individuals. The lower skilled fill the administrative processing roles and tasks.

Generali

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Our call centres (quasi public sector) are full of highly trained individuals. The lower skilled fill the administrative processing roles and tasks.

Is that so?

I must admit that I have pretty much no knowledge of the sector but the newspapers generally portray call centre phone answers as women who would otherwise be working on an assembly line (ie low education, motivated to work) or graduates slumming it rather like the barman with a 1st in Zoology.

In that case the Zombie Robot Apocalypse (I really should trade mark that phrase) is hitting the global upper middle class or what British people think of as the lower paid white collar working class. (Please everyone, let's not turn this into another argument about how the British aren't obsessed about class by discussing class for the next 150 posts).

purch

Generali wrote: »

Please everyone, let's not turn this into another argument about how the British aren't obsessed about class by discussing class for the next 150 posts

Yes, that would be a particularly classless thing to do :eek:

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

Is that so?

I must admit that I have pretty much no knowledge of the sector but the newspapers generally portray call centre phone answers as women who would otherwise be working on an assembly line (ie low education, motivated to work) or graduates slumming it rather like the barman with a 1st in Zoology.

Not necessarily. Think of the motivations that organisations have to set up a call centre (or more recently and in part replacing it, online support). Call centres replace a lot of functions where you would have previously had that interaction face to face. So it could involve speaking to someone relatively low-skilled on the phone and keyboarding; or it could be a way of getting a lot of technical people together (such as a tech support line), or subject specialists, such as legal advice from Shelter or Citizens Advice.

I spent a lot of time working with the set up of call centres when they first really emerged here in the 1990s. The focus in the media tends to be on the big call centres with 200+ people for insurance, banking, utilities, etc... These really are white collar factories. However there are a huge number of small call centres, or virtual call centres and these really could provide information and/or specialist knowledge about anything. An example: libraries around the world operate a virtual call centre where people can telephone a librarian and get access to really obscure information. Subject experts in their fields around the world work together to share what can only be described as really arcane knowledge: definitely not keyboard factory fodder.

It's about maximising the cost, availability and efficiency of each contact, not the degree of specialisation/skills required.

ETA: I do of course mean minimising the cost, or maximising the efficiency... oops..

Thrugelmir

vivatifosi wrote: »

It's about maximising the cost, availability and efficiency of each contact, not the degree of specialisation/skills required.

Correct. In the year April 2012 to March 2013 our finance contact centre received around 40,000 calls. I've yet to see the figures for the last year but know that calls are well down. With 6 of the team transferring across to procurement today the start of the new financial year.

In addition to these contact centres the organisation has specialisms in Property Management, Grants. HR and Payroll. The whole emphasis on the service is for an operator to follow through a problem to resolution where ever possible.

The service is supported by a Knowledge base where callers can be directed to obtain policies, forms, instruction guides etc.

N1AK

Generali wrote: »

Is that so?

I must admit that I have pretty much no knowledge of the sector but the newspapers generally portray call centre phone answers as women who would otherwise be working on an assembly line

I work for in shared services for a family owned group with both a call centre business and a manufacturing business. The call centre operatives are better educated and have a very different skillset to factory floor staff and are certainly paid better.

That's only one example of a couple of companies with a few hundred workers but I've also worked with other call centre firms and the calibre of staff manning the phones is, on average, higher than you expect.

N1AK

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Correct. In the year April 2012 to March 2013 our finance contact centre received around 40,000 calls. I've yet to see the figures for the last year but know that calls are well down. With 6 of the team transferring across to procurement today the start of the new financial year.

Our call centre is also in finance. Our staff numbers are stable but only because we're expanding our customer base. As we move more and more functionality on-line it isn't unlikely that we'll end up needing less staff.

Uxb

Sadly my experience of call centres is either that they attempt to not help you or that they lie.

My last two experiences were the latter.
Ring BT as there is a fault on line. By some other test I can do myself I've determined its a 'single line dis' fault where just one of the two wires that comes in has failed. Call centre says they have tested line and there is no fault - really I say so why no dial tone then? ......ah, yes, well, err, mm
Course there was a fault - another pack of lies from a call centre.

Next up was the credit card call centre - I have to ring up to make a change. Change later discovered not to be done. I formally complain and get told there is no record of any change being requested.
Oh dear, really? unfortunately for them I was recording the call and my BT account has a record of the start/finish time.
Ah, yes well um, err - we will fix it.
Yet more lies from a call centre - obviously they never made the change on the account.

So to be honest now I try and communicate by some non-verbal means with any organisation so there is a non-disputable record of what I said.

Thrugelmir

Uxb wrote: »

Sadly my experience of call centres is either that they attempt to not help you or that they lie.

No one is disagreeing that there are poor ones. What's developing is the Next Generation. Technology is bedding down and organisations are finally getting round to optimising it.

Thrugelmir

N1AK wrote: »

Our call centre is also in finance. Our staff numbers are stable but only because we're expanding our customer base. As we move more and more functionality on-line it isn't unlikely that we'll end up needing less staff.

I went to a presentation in the early 70's by Roy Jenkins , who was then head of the ASTMS union. A very clever man who foresaw the impact of computer technology. Only main frames back then I should add. We used punch cards for our accounting.......