In your opinion, what changes could be introduced to resolve some of the problems faced by Call Centres such as the Tropinhar Call Centre. Give justifications

IIIULUI ITU JULICUL T ICULTY - X, A ' ' = = = = ' =' D I Font Paragraph Styles Lax 1 Case study 3 Topinhar Call Centre By Michele Promholtz two months. In some cases, longterm employees have presented special cases to get permission to work in just one shift period. For example, some women prefer always to work the night shift so they can look Some 195 call officers work at the Topinhar after their children during the day. Their husbands or Insurance Co. call centre in Bangkok. Most of them other members of the family can look after the answer the phone constantly, responding to inquiries children well enough when they are asleep. The shifts about new accounts, insurance claims. overdue are regular enough, with a little juggling for payments and other matters that arise with customers. employees on leave. Occasionally, such as when a The work is unceasing, and while the call officers do new marketing campaign is launched, extra work is not individually carry huge responsibility for each available for those who wish to work overtime to meet task they are required to have extensive knowledge of consumer demand. the organisation, its insurance products, billing If any of these call officers wishes to move to systems and avenues for correcting problems. It is a another shift, they need to get approval from one of 1ob that also requires diplomacy and patience as the nine supervisors who manage the workers. The customers are often annoyed or angry when they call supervisor would usually approve arrangements by Many of those inquiring about new policies need to be which employees plan their own swaps with each guided through some basic points before they can other even when that means crossing between the access useful information. shift groups, such as day to evening). Where The call centre is open 24 hours a day since people employees have not sorted out such a swap the with urgent travel insurance problems may call from appropriate supervisor is expected to make any part of the world at any time of the day, However, arrangements, but they seldom try very hard unless since most customers are Thai people with other types there are extenuating circumstances. Supervisors do of insurance, most calls occur during working hours not feel it is their role to put pressure on employees to in Thailand and most emplovees work during the day. rearrange their lives. If the employees do it Three groups of employees generally work on the day themselves, supervisors are not put in the situation of shift (8 am to 4.15 pm). the evening shift (4 nm to making themselves unpopular. Because of this, the 12.15 am), and the night shift (midnight to 8.15 am), employees generally make their own arrangements The 15 minutes at the end of each shift is to enable and have them approved. smooth changeovers between call officers and the In general, calls are routine but sometimes, to sharing of any important information or customer resolve matters, call officers need to contact other details. They work with phone headsets and employees in the organisation. For example, a call computers in an open-plan office with cubicles, They officer might need to ring the Accounts section to share desks through the rosters so there is little chance clarify the status of a customer's payment if the to establish or control a personal space. Employees in computer records are not showing the latest each group work on a fortnightly roster, working 10 transaction indicated by the customer. On other days straight and then having four rostered days off. occasions, such as when a new product is being The day, evening and night shifts are allocated on a launched, new questions emerge and the call officers rotational basis, as the evening and night shifts are have to make further inquiries to increase their normally not popular. Since there are fewer night and i knowledge and to provide answers to customer evening shifts that day shifts, there is not usually too much of a problem with this most workers are questions. When new products or major changes are compelled to do such a shift only about once every introduced, the call officers are also paid overtime to ced States) attend special training update sessions (usually only a with their jobs, and some have left the company. Yet half day in duration). The call centre is the central the number of complaints has not varied. Although interface between customers and the organisation, but some individual call officers have been summoned to behind the scenes there are other parts of the a supervisor's office to discuss their methods and/or organisation Accounts and Audit, Human advised to attend training sessions to upgrade their Resources, Marketing and Product Development, phone techniques, most workers have been found to Claims and Inspections and 35 retail outlets around be performing well and in accord with company the country. The company is affiliated with a larger requirements. global company and many of its products are replicas Senior management believes that further of that company's offerings. monitoring should occur to get to the bottom of the In the previous year, a survey of the call centre problem that is, monitoring should continue and workers conducted by the company's HR department found that the call officers generally accepted the pay working hours, supervisors, office layout and facilities of their jobs without too much unhappiness. Despite this, a large proportion of them felt bored because they did the same thing all day every day and did not often have a real sense of the outcomes of their calls with customers. They also did not get much chance to make friends with their co-workers since they were on the phone all day, Recently, the company has been concerned about an increasing number of customer complaints. These are mainly sent in written format as letters and emails to a generic company contact point. Once these complaints are received by the company, along with general inquiries about products, policies and other matters, no particular section of the organisation has been allocated to deal with the matters. They tend to go to the most relevant section, according to the nature of the complaint or inquiry. Many of the complainants say they only deal with a dissembodied voice and/or that their problem is not resolved quickly. The senior managers of the company were concerned enough to institute a system of monitoring the call officers' calls on a random basis. The call officers were advised that this would be happening. They were also advised to warn callers that the call might be monitored and to ask whether this was acceptable. If the customer demurs the call officers must flag the call, which might otherwise be monitored by the supervisor on duty. The supervisor is located in a nearby office, visible to the call officers through a glass partition, although it is not evident which call officer, if any, the supervisor is monitoring at any particular time. Since the monitoring was introduced three months ago as a quality control and corrective measure, call officers have been feeling more stressed and less satisfied Acti Go to IIIULUI ITU JULICUL T ICULTY - X, A ' ' = = = = ' =' D I Font Paragraph Styles Lax 1 Case study 3 Topinhar Call Centre By Michele Promholtz two months. In some cases, longterm employees have presented special cases to get permission to work in just one shift period. For example, some women prefer always to work the night shift so they can look Some 195 call officers work at the Topinhar after their children during the day. Their husbands or Insurance Co. call centre in Bangkok. Most of them other members of the family can look after the answer the phone constantly, responding to inquiries children well enough when they are asleep. The shifts about new accounts, insurance claims. overdue are regular enough, with a little juggling for payments and other matters that arise with customers. employees on leave. Occasionally, such as when a The work is unceasing, and while the call officers do new marketing campaign is launched, extra work is not individually carry huge responsibility for each available for those who wish to work overtime to meet task they are required to have extensive knowledge of consumer demand. the organisation, its insurance products, billing If any of these call officers wishes to move to systems and avenues for correcting problems. It is a another shift, they need to get approval from one of 1ob that also requires diplomacy and patience as the nine supervisors who manage the workers. The customers are often annoyed or angry when they call supervisor would usually approve arrangements by Many of those inquiring about new policies need to be which employees plan their own swaps with each guided through some basic points before they can other even when that means crossing between the access useful information. shift groups, such as day to evening). Where The call centre is open 24 hours a day since people employees have not sorted out such a swap the with urgent travel insurance problems may call from appropriate supervisor is expected to make any part of the world at any time of the day, However, arrangements, but they seldom try very hard unless since most customers are Thai people with other types there are extenuating circumstances. Supervisors do of insurance, most calls occur during working hours not feel it is their role to put pressure on employees to in Thailand and most emplovees work during the day. rearrange their lives. If the employees do it Three groups of employees generally work on the day themselves, supervisors are not put in the situation of shift (8 am to 4.15 pm). the evening shift (4 nm to making themselves unpopular. Because of this, the 12.15 am), and the night shift (midnight to 8.15 am), employees generally make their own arrangements The 15 minutes at the end of each shift is to enable and have them approved. smooth changeovers between call officers and the In general, calls are routine but sometimes, to sharing of any important information or customer resolve matters, call officers need to contact other details. They work with phone headsets and employees in the organisation. For example, a call computers in an open-plan office with cubicles, They officer might need to ring the Accounts section to share desks through the rosters so there is little chance clarify the status of a customer's payment if the to establish or control a personal space. Employees in computer records are not showing the latest each group work on a fortnightly roster, working 10 transaction indicated by the customer. On other days straight and then having four rostered days off. occasions, such as when a new product is being The day, evening and night shifts are allocated on a launched, new questions emerge and the call officers rotational basis, as the evening and night shifts are have to make further inquiries to increase their normally not popular. Since there are fewer night and i knowledge and to provide answers to customer evening shifts that day shifts, there is not usually too much of a problem with this most workers are questions. When new products or major changes are compelled to do such a shift only about once every introduced, the call officers are also paid overtime to ced States) attend special training update sessions (usually only a with their jobs, and some have left the company. Yet half day in duration). The call centre is the central the number of complaints has not varied. Although interface between customers and the organisation, but some individual call officers have been summoned to behind the scenes there are other parts of the a supervisor's office to discuss their methods and/or organisation Accounts and Audit, Human advised to attend training sessions to upgrade their Resources, Marketing and Product Development, phone techniques, most workers have been found to Claims and Inspections and 35 retail outlets around be performing well and in accord with company the country. The company is affiliated with a larger requirements. global company and many of its products are replicas Senior management believes that further of that company's offerings. monitoring should occur to get to the bottom of the In the previous year, a survey of the call centre problem that is, monitoring should continue and workers conducted by the company's HR department found that the call officers generally accepted the pay working hours, supervisors, office layout and facilities of their jobs without too much unhappiness. Despite this, a large proportion of them felt bored because they did the same thing all day every day and did not often have a real sense of the outcomes of their calls with customers. They also did not get much chance to make friends with their co-workers since they were on the phone all day, Recently, the company has been concerned about an increasing number of customer complaints. These are mainly sent in written format as letters and emails to a generic company contact point. Once these complaints are received by the company, along with general inquiries about products, policies and other matters, no particular section of the organisation has been allocated to deal with the matters. They tend to go to the most relevant section, according to the nature of the complaint or inquiry. Many of the complainants say they only deal with a dissembodied voice and/or that their problem is not resolved quickly. The senior managers of the company were concerned enough to institute a system of monitoring the call officers' calls on a random basis. The call officers were advised that this would be happening. They were also advised to warn callers that the call might be monitored and to ask whether this was acceptable. If the customer demurs the call officers must flag the call, which might otherwise be monitored by the supervisor on duty. The supervisor is located in a nearby office, visible to the call officers through a glass partition, although it is not evident which call officer, if any, the supervisor is monitoring at any particular time. Since the monitoring was introduced three months ago as a quality control and corrective measure, call officers have been feeling more stressed and less satisfied Acti Go to