Call Center Service Research Articles

DEA Approach for Performance Assessment of Call Centre Agents

The paper focuses on a relatively new and prospective application of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) in the employee performance assessment. In the paper, a novel DEA approach is proposed for evaluating the performance of call centre agents, based on their relative efficiency. Since call centres handle a majority of customer-company interactions, performance of call centre agents largely influences the future success or failure of a company. To ensure the quality of customer service, permanent evaluation of call centre agents’ performance is essential. The proposed DEA model consisting of two input variables (wage and working time) and five output variables (quick-answer calls proportion, customer satisfaction, net first contact resolution, call quality and inbound contact handle time) has been tested on 55 call centre agents working at the call centre of one of the largest telecommunications operators in the Slovak Republic. After measuring the performance of each agent, based on the DEA models, the call centre agents’ performance was evaluated in the DEA matrix format. As a result, the call centre agents were divided into four groups: Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks and Poor Dogs. Finally, based on the proposed approach, recommendations for call centre managers on how to improve or maintain the performance of each of these groups were drawn. The proposed approach provides a practical framework for call centre managers to assess the performance of the agents, and to plan and take steps to improve the quality of call centre services.

Türkiye’deki Çağrı Merkezi Hizmetleri Bölümlerinin Müfredat Analizi

With globalization and developments in communication technologies, there are newly-arising needs and expectations from the sector of Call Services. In order to meet these expectations, it is vital to analyze the education curriculums and to transfer innovative practices to the sector. Within this framework, the aim of this study is to analyze the curriculums of Departments of Call Center Services in universities located in Turkey by revealing the courses which the universities need to focus on in order to provide the qualified individuals demanded by the sector. 19 universities whose curriculums are obtained among 24 universities in Turkey which have “The Program of Call Center Services” are analyzed to the extent whether they have the identified field courses in their curriculums. “Survey Research” which is a method for both quantitative and qualitative research is used within the framework of the study and the acquired data is analyzed via Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive statistics methods of frequency (f) and percentage (%) are used in the phase of data evaluation. As a consequence of the acquired results, it is observed that there are inconsistencies in relationships between the curriculums of the programs of call center and sectoral expectations. It can be said, as a result of this observation, that the education level is inadequate in terms of providing qualifications which will meet the sectoral expectations to the students.

Identifying and minimizing abuse of emergency call center services through technology

BackgroundTo identify and minimize unnecessary calls to emergency numbers and to assess the effectiveness of call-tracking technology in addressing the problem. MethodsA retrospective, interventional study was conducted of all emergency calls made to Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's national Emergency Medicine Service (EMS) during years 2012–2016. In 2015 a tiered technological intervention was developed and implemented by MDA. The call-tracking technology self-identified harassment calls by call duration and frequency. The system automatically diverted harassing calls to a non-emergency number system in order not to lose any call. The rates of harassment calls were analyzed by shift, region, and season. Trends were compared before and after intervention. ResultsDuring the years 2012–2016, 53,527 shifts took place, and 8.2% (4277) of shifts identified as receiving incoming harassment calls. The evening shift (11.5%), the Jerusalem region (16.9%), and the summer season (9.6%) were most prone to harassment calls. After implementing an intervention using specialized call-tracking technology, the prevalence of harassment calls decreased significantly (from 10.9% to 2.9% p < .001). The Jerusalem region showed the greatest decrease of 92% (from 26.5%–2.0% p < .001). ConclusionsMDA's call tracking technology has been shown to identify and minimize harassment calls and can be implemented by emergency organizations to reduce abuse of emergency call services.

Human behavior and lognormal distribution. A kinetic description

In recent years, it has been increasing evidence that lognormal distributions are widespread in physical and biological sciences, as well as in various phenomena of economics and social sciences. In social sciences, the appearance of lognormal distribution has been noticed, among others, when looking at body weight, and at women’s age at first marriage. Likewise, in economics, lognormal distribution appears when looking at consumption in a western society, at call-center service times, and others. The common feature of these situations, which describe the distribution of a certain people’s hallmark, is the presence of a desired target to be reached by repeated choices. In this paper, we discuss a possible explanation of lognormal distribution forming in human activities by resorting to classical methods of statistical mechanics of multi-agent systems. The microscopic variation of the hallmark around its target value, leading to a linear Fokker–Planck-type equation with lognormal equilibrium density, is built up introducing as main criterion for decision a suitable value function in the spirit of the prospect theory of Kahneman and Twersky.

수정된 Anton의 콜센터 서비스품질이 재이용의도에 미치는 영향

수정된 Anton의 콜센터 서비스품질이 재이용의도에 미치는 영향

Knowledge management from the organizational culture in call centers in Manizales

Knowledge management is currently considered a key factor for organizational development, even more so with the constant competitive dynamics of companies, which see in knowledge a fundamental potential to improve productivity. In this sense, its assessment is key, but considering the culture as a conditioning variable to the development of this procedure nonetheless. Although several studies have addressed the subject, there has been insufficient research into the call center services companies in Colombia. The research results presented herein are part of a qualitative research project with descriptive and correlational studies on knowledge management in BPO companies in the city of Manizales, Colombia. An assessment of the knowledge management categories and organizational culture was made, based on the adaptation of a knowledge management assessment model, of which 312 observations were made. It is concluded that organizational culture is statistically significant for knowledge management.

Підвищення ефективності надання послуг call-центрами

Розглянуто напрями підвищення ефективності надання послуг call-центрами. Поставлено акцент на потребі покращення надання послуг call-центрами в сучасних умовах. Визначено стратегічні напрями підвищення якісних і кількісних параметрів ефективності діяльності call-центрів. Обґрунтовано переваги і недоліки кожного напряму та можливості його впровадження. Наголошено на важливості управління в умовах підвищення ефективності надання послуг call-центрами.

Deskripsi Perbedaan Tingkat Kepuasan dengan Tingkat Kepentingan Peserta Pelatihan pada Pelayanan Balai Pelatihan Kesehatan di Batam

This study aims to determine the picture of the relationship of differences in the level of satisfaction and the interests of trainees to the service in Batam of health training national. Population in this research is all training participant who use service. The sample in this research is saturated samples, where all the participants, with the number of respondents as many as 379 people. From the normality test results, obtained the result that all variables are no normal distribution, so the test used is Mann Whitney Test. The method of data collection is documentary search. The results of data processing are presented in the form of tables and graphs. From the satisfaction level obtained an average result of 5.38% stated not satisfied, with the worst service is on service to the complaint that is equal to 10% and best / highest in call center service While the average interest rate of 0.08% of respondents stated that it is not important, with service is not important in marketing services, administration and toilet that is each of 0.3%, and service complaints of 0.2%. The result of the research at 95% significance level obtained p value 0,00&gt; 0,05 Thus it can be concluded that there is no difference of level of satisfaction and level of importance to service in Batam of health training national at 2016.

IMPROVING SERVICE QUALITY OF CALL CENTER USING DMAIC METHOD AND SERVICE BLUEPRINT

AbstractCustomer satisfaction is an important factor to businesses, because it causes customers to constantly return to use the service. Customer satisfaction is also related to the quality of service received by the customer of the companys’ products or services. The problem of OC’s call center service quality happened at the first time a customer contacts the call center where waste of customer’s waiting time is detected. Service quality improvement methods used in the analysis of the waste of customers’ waiting time is the DMAIC and lean approach. Results showed that improvement is seen at the sigma level. The tools used are SIPOC, pareto diagram, CTQ, two proportion test, DOE, p-chart, and minitab-16. Service blueprint analysis is used to analyze and discuss the relationship between service quality improvement using DMAIC in service process, points of contact with customers, and the evidence seen by the customer serviceKeywords: service quality, lean, DMAIC, service blueprint, sigma level

Impacts of R&amp;D Expenditures on High Technology Product Exports in BRICST Countries

One of the best solutions for countries with foreign trade deficit and cannot increase total exports is to improve the added value of exported products. High technology products have the highest added value. The method to increase production and exports in high technology products is to increase RD World Bank, 2012). On the other hand, India has significantly accelerated its economic growth through computer software, natural healthy life support products and remote call center services it offers to developed countries thanks to the individuals it sent for education abroad in the 1960s (Hindistan, 2012). Members of BRICST countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Turkey drew global attention due to their economic growth performance in recent years. Economic performance of these countries affects the foreign trade volume and economic growth for the rest of the world. In the present study, impacts of R&D expenditures and the size of the qualified R&D labor force on high technology exports were investigated for BRICTS countries using panel data analysis for 1996-2014 period. We expected that the study findings would reveal a positive impact of R&D expenditures and qualified labor force in the R&D sector on exports in high technology products. The present study would contribute to the literature as it would draw the attention of developing countries to the significance of R&D expenditures and qualified labor force in the R&D sector.

Kisan Call Centre Services to the Farming Community: An Analysis

Kisan Call Centre (KCC) is one of the major initiatives taken up by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India to provide timely agriculture and allied sector information to the farming community through landline or mobile connection. The service is provided through a toll-free number of 1800-180-1551. Considering the importance of KCC, the research study was conducted in Mahaboobnagar District of Telangana State in India with a sample size of 90 farmers to find out and analyze benefits obtained by the farming community through Kisan Call Centre Services. The results revealed that maximum number of the respondents expressed that KCC advisory was able to save cost of cultivation and in forecasting the pest and disease outbreak in a particular region. The study also showed that farming experience, source of irrigation, contact with extension agencies, participation in extension methods, perception towards mobile phones in farming and innovativeness showed positive and significant relationship with the benefits obtained by respondents.

Research and Practice on Performance Test of Call Center Platform System

Call center is more and more closely linked with people's daily life. This paper analyzes the three major problems of call center service (cask effect, avalanche effect, cumulative effect), introduces the call center platform performance testing strategy, and uses the Sprint and SilkPerformer testing tools to test the call center platform. The experimental results show that, through the implementation of performance testing, can predict the processing ability of the call center system in real environment, the system will advance the problems exposed, positioning help problem solution.

English

English

A Research on the Future Expectations of the Call Center Services Department Students: Selçuk University Sample

Bu çalışma, Selçuk Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Meslek Yüksek Okulu, Çağrı MerkeziHizmetleri Bölümü, örgün ve ikinci öğretimde öğrenim gören öğrencilerin gelecekbeklentilerini ölçmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Araştırma kapsamında kullanılan anketin ilk bölümündedemografik özellikleri ölçen sorular yer almaktadır. İkinci bölümde ise Tuncer(2011)’in literatür taraması sonucu oluşturduğu 14 sorudan oluşan, öğrencilerin gelecekbeklenti düzeylerini ölçen sorular bulunmaktadır. Araştırma verileri SPSS 24 istatistikprogramında analiz edilip, belirlenen hipotezler çerçevesinde yorumlanmıştır. Çalışmasonucunda; cinsiyete, sınıfa, öğretim durumuna, mezun olunan liseye göre anlamlı farklılıkgörülmemiştir. Ayrıca ailesi en az gelire sahip grubun en az beklentiye sahip grupolduğu, küçük yerleşim alanlarında yaşayan öğrencilerin, büyük yerleşim alanlarındayaşayan öğrencilere göre gelecekten beklentilerinin daha yüksek olduğu bulgulanmış-tır. Öğrencilerin kardeş sayıları arttıkça genel olarak gelecek beklentilerinin arttığı yineçalışma sonucu elde edilen istatistiki bulgular arasındadır.

Evaluating quality neonatal care, call Centre service, tele-health and community engagement in reducing newborn morbidity and mortality in Bungoma county, Kenya

BackgroundNeonatal mortality is a major health burden in Bungoma County with the rate estimated at 31 per 1000 live births and is above the national average of 22 per 1000. Nonetheless, out of the nine sub county hospitals, only two are fairly equipped with necessary infrastructure and skilled personnel to manage neonatal complications such as prematurity, neonatal sepsis, neonatal jaundice, birth asphyxia and respiratory distress syndrome. Additionally, with more than 50% of neonates delivered without skilled attendance, in below par hygiene environments such as home and on the roadsides, with non-existent community based referral system, the situation is made worse. The study aims to evaluate the progress made by an intervention “Collaborative Newborn Support Project” geared towards reducing neonatal mortality rate by 30% between October 2015 and December 2018 in Bungoma County, Kenya.Methods/DesignThis intervention will take a quasi-experimental design approach with experimental and control sites. The project will involve pre- and post-intervention data collection with comparison group to assess intervention effects. The primary outcome will be the percentage reduction of neonatal mortality in Bungoma County. Secondary outcomes include; a) Percentage of mothers or care givers able to identify at least three danger signs in neonates in the project area, b) Proportion of neonates with complications referred to specialized neonatal centers, through the call center, c) Percentage of health providers in neonatal care units who adhere to expected neonatal standards of care (rapid and complete application of standard protocols), d) Percentage increase in neonates with severe complications in the specialized neonatal units and e) Percentage of neonates who stay in neonatal care units beyond 5 days.DiscussionWe outline implementation details of the ongoing ‘Collaborative Newborn Support Project’ in Bungoma County, Kenya. This includes strategies in the operations of the telehealth platform, call centre service, community engagement and measuring of the outputs and outcomes. The funding and ethical approvals have been obtained and the study commenced.Trial registrationPACTR201712002802638 Retrospectively registered on 5th December 2017 at Pan African Clinical Trials Registry.

ANALISIS DESAIN INTERIOR KANTOR CALL CENTER TELKOMSEL DI GEDUNG INFOMEDIA NUSANTARA, BANDUNG DENGAN PENDEKATAN PSIKOLOGI RUANG

Telkomsel Call Center Office is the call center service office for 24 hours which is facilitated by the telecommunications operator service companies Telkomsel in order to optimize the quality of service to its customers. Service optimisation is certainly influenced by internal company both in terms of the work system as well as where its taken place. One case study is taken, i.e. Telkomsel Call Center Office in Gedung Infomedia Nusantara -Bandung. Interior design on this Office has not applied optimally where affect the satisfaction of workers, mainly call center agents. This often raises the boredom on the agents whom do their work repeatedly to serve the consumers who don't rarely give them complaints or criticism. Using a research method of qualitative descriptive (comparative analysis of the condition in existing interior design with the theory of psychological space (five aspects which can form a good workplace design)), it is evident that Telkomsel Call Center Office interior design is not applied optimally to support satisfaction of workers in order to optimize its performance.

Optimal design of Shewhart–Lepage type schemes and its application in monitoring service quality

We generalize popular distribution-free (nonparametric) Shewhart–Lepage scheme for simultaneously monitoring of location and scale parameters using an adaptive approach. This approach is known as percentile modifications of ranks (or adaptive Gastwirth score) in the statistical literature. This is a powerful tool to improve rank tests to detect a shift in the process. The adaptive Gastwirth score is not much familiar among quality control practitioners and therefore rarely used in practice. Nevertheless, such scores are very useful in detecting various types of shifts in the process characteristics. Considering its distinct advantages, we develop a new class of Shewhart-type adaptive Lepage–Gastwirth (ALG) scheme. We discuss optimal implementation strategies of the proposed scheme to achieve lower out-of-control (OOC) average run length (ARL) and false alarm rate (FAR). This scheme is typically designed to monitor service quality where the reference sample may be non-normal. Post signal follow-up procedures of the proposed Shewhart-type optimal ALG chart is discussed. We illustrate the use of optimal ALG charts with a recent data on Vancouver city call centre service quality monitoring.

New perspectives on language and gender: Linguistic prescription and compliance in call centres

AbstractDespite a shift to service-based economies, male-dominated, high-status workplaces have been the predominant focus of research into language and gender in the workplace. This study redresses this shortcoming by considering one female-dominated, low-status, highly regimented workplace that is emblematic of the globalized service economy: call centres. Drawing on 187 call centre service interactions, institutional documents, interviews, and observations from call centres in two national contexts, the study employs an innovative combination of quantitative and qualitative discourse-analytic techniques to compare rule compliance of male and female workers. Female agents in both national contexts are found to comply more with the linguistic prescriptions despite managers and agents emphatically denying the relevance of gender. The study offers a new perspective on language and gender, pointing to the need to expand the methodologies and theories currently favoured to understand how language perpetuates occupational segregation in twenty-first-century workplaces. (Call centres, language and gender, new perspectives, male/female differences, globalized service economy)*

Improving operational measures in a financial institute call center: a case study

This article presents a case study that shows the impact of a proposed method of performance measures in a call center service system in one of the largest financial institutions in Israel. It proposes a policy for load-reduction in the peak hours coupled with an improvement in the automated routing of customers’ calls. The case study shows the system's current state, and offers improvements to shorten the overall service time while increasing utilization of service personnel in order to decrease the abandon rate (AR) and increase service quality. The article starts by introducing the financial institute and its telephone service structure, the unique characteristic of the current service system, the different types of customers and their characteristics, the utilization of the system and emphasizes the phone call duration and AR. In addition, the article shows a simulation of the current state with an analysis of current service. It compares the current system with an alternative service system that aims at improving the main performance measures including average wait time (AWT), service personel utilization time, and customer abandon rate. The proposed system includes additional "back office" with a callback system to reduce churn rate, and improved the IVR routing. The proposed service system was simulated and all the service measurement was tested statistically. The results indicated a significant improvement in terms of service measurements between the current and the proposed system. Operators’ utilization increased, while abandoning rate decreased significantly.

Measuring service quality in telematics service: development and validation of multidimensional TeleServQ scale

The extensive use of telematics system in the new generation of automobiles contributed to the rising trend of using automobiles as a channel to provide remote service. Yet the measurement of telematics service quality (TeleServQ) is not well established. This paper aims to identify the dimensions of TeleServQ. In-depth interviews are used to investigate the initial items in measuring telematics service. Conceptual framework of TeleServQ scale is proposed based on items sorting. Then the multidimensional scale is refined and validated with questionnaire survey. As a result, six dimensions including efficiency, system reliability, information quality, security, customisation and call centre service are identified. Some of the dimensions are consistent with the literature related to technology-based services, and others are specific in telematics context. Among six dimensions, efficiency and system reliability have the strongest relationship with customer satisfaction and loyalty intention. The scale demonstrates good psychometric properties based on the findings of reliability and validity tests. Finally, theoretical contributions and managerial implications about our TeleServQ scale are further discussed.