Service Operations Management

Project
On
Design & Establishment of a 200 Desk Call Centre

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Mr. B.K Srivastava Rahul Malhotra(C-
38)
Jayant
Mendiratta(D27)

1
 1. Introduction

A call centre is a centralized office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a
large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to
administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing
calls for telemarketing, clientele, product services, and debt collection are also made. In
addition to a call centre, collective handling of letters, faxes, live chat, and e-mails at one
location is known as a contact centre.

A call centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace for call centre
agents, with work stations that include a computer for each agent, a telephone set/headset
connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be
independently operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate
computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the
voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies
called computer telephony integration (CTI).

Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include
utility companies, mail order catalogue retailers, and customer support for computer
hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call
centres. Examples of this include help desks, retail financial support, and sales support.

.A contact centre, also known as customer interaction centre is a central point of any
organization from which all customer contacts are managed. Through contact centres,
valuable information about company are routed to appropriate people, contacts to be
tracked and data to be gathered. It is generally a part of company’s customer relationship
management (CRM). Today, customers contact companies by calling, emailing, chatting
online, visiting websites, faxing, and even instant messaging.

Call centre technology is subject to improvements and innovations. Some of these

technologies include speech recognition software to allow computers to handle first level

2
of customer support, text mining and natural language processing to allow better
customer handling, agent training by automatic mining of best practices from past
interactions, support automation and many other technologies to improve agent
productivity and customer satisfaction. Automatic lead selection or lead steering is also
intended to improve efficiencies, both for inbound and outbound campaigns, whereby
inbound calls are intended to quickly land with the appropriate agent to handle the task,
whilst minimizing wait times and long lists of irrelevant options for people calling in, as
well as for outbound calls, where lead selection allows management to designate what
type of leads go to which agent based on factors including skill, socioeconomic factors
and past performance and percentage likelihood of closing a sale per lead.

The concept of the Universal Queue standardizes the processing of communications

across multiple technologies such as fax, phone, and email whilst the concept of a Virtual
queue provides callers with an alternative to waiting on hold when no agents are available
to handle inbound call demand.

Significance of a call centre:

• Making outgoing calls for telemarketing

• Helps a company to interact with their customers
• To manage customer contacts
• It is generally a part of company’s customer relationship management (CRM)
• Helps in improving agent productivity and customer satisfaction

Key challenges facing a call centre:

• Increase Customer Satisfaction

• Reduce Cost Of Operations
• Increase Efficiencies
• Increase Revenue
• Reduce Risk
• Doing a lot more …..With a lot less …..Without compromising quality

3
 • Fulfilling The Key Elements of Most Organizations’ Strategic Plans

2. Technology used

Premise-based Call Centre Technology

Historically, call centres have been built on private branch exchange (PBX) equipment
that is owned and hosted by the call centre operator. A PBX is a telephone exchange that
serves a particular business or office, as opposed to one that a common carrier or
telephone company operates for many businesses or for the general public. PBXs are also
referred to as: PABX - private automatic branch exchange

The PBX might provide functions such as Automatic Call Distribution, Interactive Voice
Response, and skills-based routing. The call centre operator would be responsible for the
maintenance of the equipment and necessary software upgrades as released by the
vendor.

Virtual Call Centre Technology

With the advent of the Software as a service technology delivery model, the virtual call
centre has emerged. In a virtual call centre model, the call centres operator does not own,
operate or host the equipment that the call centre runs on. Instead, they subscribe to a
service for a monthly or annual fee with a service provider that hosts the call centre
telephony equipment in their own data centre. Such a vendor may host many call centres
on their equipment. Agents connect to the vendor's equipment through traditional public
switched telephone network (PSTN) telephone lines, or over Voice over IP. 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 premise. The vendor's telephony equipment then
connects the calls to the call centre operator's agents.

The PSTN is the network of the world's public circuit-switched telephone networks. It
consists of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular
networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables all inter-connected

4
by switching centers which allows any telephone in the world to communicate with any
other. Originally a network of fixed-line analog telephone systems, the PSTN is now
almost entirely digital in its core and includes mobile as well as fixed telephones.

Virtual Call Centre Technology allows people to work from home, instead of in a
traditional, centralized, call centre location, which increasingly allows people with
physical or other disabilities that prevent them from leaving the house, to work.

Cloud Computing for Call Centers

Cloud computing for call centers extends cloud computing to Software as a service, or
hosted, on-demand call centers by providing application programming interfaces (APIs)
on the call centre cloud computing platform that allow call centre functionality to be
integrated with cloud-based Customer relationship management, such as Salesforce.com
and leads management and other applications.

The APIs typically provide programmatic access to two key groups of features in the call
centre platform:

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) APIs provide developers with access to basic
telephony controls and sophisticated call handling on the call centre platform from a
separate application.

Configuration APIs provide programmatic control of administrative functions of the call

centre platform which are typically accessed by a human administrator through a
Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Atos Origin works in conformity with the ‘Consult – Build – Operate’ principle. This
approach stresses the correlation between business and IT. This also includes the famous
make-or-buy decision: do we want to keep our call centre activities ‘in-house’ or are we
going to outsource? The market for outsourcing call centre activities is pretty mature. It
can thus be a good choice to have an external party takes care of the call centre activities.

5
The business analyses get closed with a set of requirements. This forms the starting point
of equipping the call centre.

PABX versus VoIP

A specific choice, concerning technique that needs to be made when equipping a call
centre is the use of PABX (Private Automatic Branch exchange) combined with ACD
(Automatic Call Distribution) versus the use of VoIP.

A PABX is actually a switch that makes a connection between the public telephony
system and the internal telephony system. VoIP uses the internet or another IP network to
transport telephony. The choice for one of these two is connected with some other things.
First of all the geographical spreading plays an important role. When using VoIP there is
no quality loss due to big distances, something that can be the case when using
PABX/ACD. Using PABX means having a (big) number of translation waves; every
translation wave means loss of quality. When the call centre is only used within the
boundaries of one country, this issue expires. The benefit of VoIP is that you can transfer
it native.

Secondly the costs of VoIP can be much lower than those of PABX and ACD. If the call
centre mainly has a regional function then PABX combined with ACD (about 20 agents)
can suffice. For bigger call centers and an international scope the choice for VoIP is
obvious. The call centre can be run more structured and speech can use the data network.

Hard versus Soft phones

A next hardware choice is the use of telephone or PC (respectively ‘hard phone’ and ‘soft
phone’). Both alternatives require a headset. It is obvious that buying hard phones results
in extra ‘out of pocket’ costs. Using PC’s (so soft phones) can cut costs since every PC
has a sound card at its disposal.

6
 3. Data management and back-up facilities

A call centre needs to store a significant amount of data that concern call processing. It
goes without saying that it’s important to transfer these data to disc/tape regularly.
Important questions are: for how long do the data need to be stored? What are the legal
consequences of data storage? Redundancy is an important requirement for back-up
facilities. You also create a so-called ‘Disaster Recovery Plan’ for the call centre. This
plan describes the process and procedures that are necessary to guarantee the continuity
of the critical IT-infrastructure in the case of incidents. The back-up facilities need to be
physically separated so that divergence is possible in case of an incident.

Software

The ‘buy’ decision plays an important role here. Apart from the possibility to buy all the
software needed, it’s also possible to buy the software as a service. This process is known
as SaaS (Software as a Service). The benefits of SaaS are that it asks for a low initial
investment and that an organization needs an only a limited knowledge of software. But it
is so that this creates a strong dependency on an external party (for instance for updates
and new features). Because of the standard SaaS supply, organizations may have a hard
time distinguishing themselves from the competition (this wish can stem from the
business analysis with regard to the positioning of the organization and the call centre).

CRM link

Integration of the call centre software with other corporate information systems is
recommended. Especially integration of, if present, a CRM-system is very important. A
link can lead to an agent being able to identify the caller, automatically select an agent
with algorithms (on the basis of client data) and start, for instance, an automated voice
service.

7
Reporting

Reports provide insight in the performance (quantitative as well as qualitative) of call

centre agents and make adjustment and a learning organization possible. These
measurements can also be used to make a planning for the future. In order to receive good
reports it’s necessary to have a tool that can perform measurements and analyses. Such
‘metrics & analysis’ tools are often part of the standard call centre software. But it’s
important to check whether the tool can handle standard reports as well as client specific
reports. Quantitative data that are necessary are, for instance, service level, acceptance
percentage, handling time, first time fix and the number of sales. For qualitative data
these are, amongst others, the quality of the agent’s conversations and the way the
supporting systems are used.

The infrastructure should allow an outsourcing vendor to maintain multiple applications

and systems for multiple clients and should enable rapid deployment and integration.
Hence it becomes necessary for an outsourcing vendor to select the right infrastructure
and architecture.

Infrastructure requirements of a typical customer service center include the

following:

1. Telecommunication network

2. Hardware

3. Software

Telecommunication Network

The telecommunication network connects a caller with the agent. The basic elements of a
telecommunication network include public switched telephone network (PSTN), router,
long distance carrier (LDC), Ethernet switch, modem and contact center server. When the

8
outsourced call center is located in another country, the LDCs in the two regions are
connected through the International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC), which is an agreement
that provides connectivity through cable or satellite on lease. Companies have recently
started using the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, which is used to
transmit voice, fax and data to another location through Internet Protocol (IP) network.

Hardware

A customer service center should have state of the art hardware components such as local
area network (LAN), desktops for agents, automatic call distributor (ACD), predictive
dialer, computer technology integration (CTI), Web integration, interactive voice
response, fax on demand, and voice logging and messaging. Integration of these different
components becomes easy if they have a single platform.

Software

Software is as important as the telecommunication network and hardware in a call center.

Various Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software are available that enable an
agent to gather information about a customer (who is on line). CRM software also allows
segregation of the customers into different types and determining the value of each type.
Vendors can use end-to-end CRM software as well as packages catering to specific
functions such as telemarketing and technical support, etc.

The telecommunication network and hardware at a typical call center that uses IPLC is
given in Figure 1. The client and the customers are generally located in a developed
country such as the US and outsourced vendor is located in an offshore destination such
as India (Read the report on outsourcing to India for details on India’s value proposition
as an offshore destination). The customer connects to a PSTN at the client site. The call is
then routed over to LDC in the US. This call is further connected to India through the
IPLC between India and the US. The Indian LDC and a local loop transfer the call to the
call center server through a router, while the data is transferred to the call center LAN.
The ADC distributes the calls to the agents. Other hardware components are used to

9
either obtain information about the customer from the database or to manage the calls
efficiently.

4. Location for a call centre

Infrastructure is critical to call centre operations. We expect the call centre to operate
regardless of external factors. Of course, we can provision for business continuity through
back up power, redundant telephony connectivity etc. But the single largest factor
influencing operational survivability will be the location and it’s pre-disposition to floods,
power outages, hurricanes, snow etc.

Of course, we must remember that some locations such as the Canadian Atlantic region
may get a great deal of snow each winter season. They are used to this and have built
buildings and infrastructure in expectation of these conditions. Businesses in the state of
Virginia lose more work-days to snow than do businesses in Prince Edward Island.

Real estate in any considered location is also critical. If you have found a great market
with no available real estate that is suitable, then your options become delaying the
project in hopes that something suitable becomes available (unlikely in a small market) or
to delay the project and build to suit. This is often a longer and more capital intense
option, though it can have the lowest total cost of ownership/operation over a five to 10
year operating window.

The prevalent wages in the target market, associated level of education at that wage level,
and prevalence of union activity are all valid considerations and ones you must assess and
incorporate in building a budget.

Determinants of Back-Office Location Selection

Labour Market Determinants

• currency valuation
• wage rates, average 2,080 hours per year per agent
• employee benefits costs

10
• turnover rates
• unemployment rate
• education levels
• language skills
• computer literacy and technology culture
• customer service culture
• public and private training resources

Occupancy Determinants
• occupancy costs usually not to exceed 10% of labour cost
• real estate, lease, taxes, utilities, leaseholds calculated per agent
• right of first refusal on vacated space in building or development
• pre-costed sub-lease or lease termination options
• no requirement to return property to shell (original) condition
• size of space, 125 sq. ft.+ per agent, large centers 50k sq. ft.+
• usually require expansion capacity to 300 agents
• suburban - parking of 7 spaces per 1000 sq. ft
• suitability of space, usually prefer one space, one floor, one floor plate
• presence of columns adds 25% to space requirements/cost
• availability, cost and redundancy of bandwidth
• utilities costs, redundancy, uninterrupted power supply (min. 30 minutes)

Occupancy Determinants Related to Labour Turnover

• proximity to other call centers in building, development and area
• building image, interior esthetic
• work station cubicle size
• air quality, temperature control, lighting, carpeting
• adequate number of washrooms, common space & lounges
• less than 30 minute commute from labour market
• well lit, secure access to subway, bus or rail transit
• transit operation matches hours of work

11
• well lit, secure access to adequate, affordable parking
• proximity to amenities – food vendors, child care, gym
• if single parent workforce m.o., proximity to day care
• if student m.o., proximity to college & university

Key Technology Determinants

• proximity to technology suppliers and consultants
• telecommunications capacity
 telecommunications media
 telephone equipment
• information systems hardware and software
 computer - telephony hardware integration
 call centre management software
 systems integration of voice, data and video
 interactive voice response (IVR)
 automatic number identification (ANI)
 unified vs. integrated messaging
 user interfaces
• telecommunications switches and protocols
 public vs. private systems
 packet vs. circuit switching
 TC/IP vs. ATM
• impact of internet hardware requirements
IVR Phone Systems
IVR phone system is an automatic toll free phone answering software and system. It
collects useful information from a caller before the call is transferred to an agent. The
IVR system could fulfill the caller’s request without a transfer. Our IVR software system
gives your organization a 24 by 7 capability, providing around-the-clock information to
your callers.

12
By responding to prompts provided by our IVR system, callers can now receive any
information you choose to make available. Call centers in particular can become instantly
more productive by letting the phone system gather caller information, verify caller
identity and, if necessary, determine the best service representative to handle this request
using our interactive voice response technology Call recorders.

Music on hold player

 Headsets,
 Wireless Headsets,

Telecom switch

LAN’S

COMPUTER NETWORK

5. Software used in call centers

Speech recognition

Speech recognition (also known as automatic speech recognition or computer speech

recognition) converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes
used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the
case for most desktop recognition software. Recognizing the speaker can simplify the
task of translating speech.

Speech recognition is a broader solution which refers to technology that can recognize
speech without being targeted at single speaker—such as a call system that can recognize
arbitrary voices.

Speech recognition applications include voice user interfaces such as voice dialing (e.g.,
"Call home"), call routing (e.g., "I would like to make a collect call"), demotic appliance
control, search (e.g., find a pod cast where particular words were spoken), simple data

13
entry (e.g., entering a credit card number), preparation of structured documents (e.g., a
radiology report), speech-to-text processing (e.g., word processors or emails), and aircraft
(usually termed Direct Voice Input).

IVR

In telecommunications, IVR allows customers to interact with a company’s database via a

telephone keypad or by speech recognition, after which they can service their own
inquiries by following the IVR dialogue. IVR systems can respond with prerecorded or
dynamically generated audio to further direct users on how to proceed. IVR applications
can be used to control almost any function where the interface can be broken down into a
series of simple interactions. IVR systems deployed in the network are sized to handle
large call volumes.

IVR technology is also being introduced into automobile systems for hands-free
operation. Current deployment in automobiles revolves around satellite navigation, audio
and mobile phone systems.

It has become common in industries that have recently entered the telecommunications
industry to refer to an Automated Attendant as an IVR. The terms Automated Attendant
and IVR are distinct and mean different things to traditional telecommunications
professionals, whereas emerging telephony and VoIP professionals often use the term
IVR as a catch-all to signify any kind of telephony menu, even a basic automated
attendant.

Skills based routing

Skills-based routing (SBR), or Skills-based call routing, is a call-assignment strategy

used in call centers to assign incoming calls to the most suitable agent, instead of simply
choosing the next available agent. It is an enhancement to the Automatic Call Distributor
(ACD) systems found in most call centers. The need for skills-based routing has arisen, as
call centers have become larger and dealt with a wider variety of call types.

14
In the past, agents answering calls were generally able to be assigned to only one queue
taking one type of call. This meant that agents who could deal with a range of call types
had to be manually reassigned to different queue at different times of the day to make the
best use of their skills, or face being exposed to a wide variety of calls for which they
were not trained. With skills-based routing, the skills needed for a particular call are often
assessed by the dialed telephone number and the calling number or caller's identity, as
well as choices made in any associated IVR system. Given this assessment, a skills-based
routing system then attempts to match the call to a suitably trained agent—the thinking
being that an agent with matching skills will be able to provide a better service than one
who does not.

As a consequence, the separate large queues that were characteristic of the ACD-driven
call centre have disappeared. Instead, each caller seems to have their own waiting area
that they may share with only one or two others. Instead of being served in the order of
their arrival, calls are served as agents with appropriate skills become available.

CTI Software
Computer Telephony software is a robust set of library routines that enable your
application programs to communicate with your phone system. This computer telephony
software lets you increase staff productivity while enhancing your customer relationships
and reducing costs. This is accomplished by combining the capabilities of your phone
system with the custom functionality of your Windows, Unix or Web applications.

VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol (Voice over IP, VoIP) is one of a family of internet
technologies, communication protocols, and transmission technologies for delivery of
voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks,
such as the Internet.

VoIP can be a benefit for reducing communication and infrastructure costs. Examples
include:

15
 • Routing phone calls over existing data networks to avoid the need for separate
voice and data network.
• Conference calling, IVR, call forwarding, automatic redial, and caller ID features
that traditional telecommunication companies (telcos) normally charge extra for,
are available free of charge from open source VoIP implementations

6. HR at call centers

Skill set requirement of a call centre employee

• Good command over English language

• Aptitude for working with computers Good Typing speed
• Knowledge of consumer behavior
• Marketing skills
• Ability to retrieve information quickly from databases
• Ability to analyze problems
• Pleasant and friendly manner
• Ability to work as part of a team
• Ability to Deal with Difficult People
• Ability To Work in a Fast-Paced Environment
• Accuracy and Attention to Detail
• Ability to Learn New Skills
• Passion for customers
• Passion for services

7. Training @ Call centers

The most significant challenge facing the call centre industry is critical lack of trained
and experienced call centre professionals

Basic English Skills

Since English is a second language for most people and people are not always proficient

16
in the same most call centre focus on building Basic English competency before
proceeding to other training. This is required as most of the work would involve English
as the communication media and since the job is highly customer facing and involving a
lot of verbal and non-verbal communication, a basic level of competence in English is a
must to work in this industry.

Accent Training
Every person will have some element of residual accent from his mother tongue in any
language that he/she speaks. Though this is an acceptable element in most areas of work,
the kind of dedicated constant one-to-one interaction that a call centre worker exposes
themselves to makes it desirable to reduce the strength of that accent in favour of a
“standard” or target pronunciation. English speakers with foreign language influence,
which is the case in India, often are unable to create the standard phonemes (sounds) of
English because of lack of familiarity and proper training. They also are not very adept at
speaking with English-standard stress, intonation or rhythm. This is because those
sounds, stresses and intonation patterns may differ in their native language, leading to a
“strong” accent, or an accent heavily affected by the first language.

In Accent training (sometimes called Accent Reduction or Accent Neutralization) the

regional or first-language influence on the pronunciation of English is systematically
reduced to get a “neutral” accent. Though each institute uses their own techniques of
doing the same normally this involves three steps: Recognition, Reproduction and
Repetition.

Telephone Skills Training

The ability to effectively communicate with customer and colleagues is a key skill that
most people look for in a call centre employee. A primary ingredient of successful
communication by the employee is telephone skills when communicating with
customers. As said earlier the impact of First Language Influence (FLI) on an
employee’s communication skills cannot be underestimated and they need to be able to
communicate more effectively and efficiently with customers and colleagues in spite of
this. Also they need skills to build empathy and rapport and strengthen relationships with

17
colleagues and customers through the limited interaction media of phone as that is what
their work will involve. This makes telephone skill training very essential.

Empathy Skills Training

Another important skill that employers look for from potential employees is empathy
skills. Empathy (or rather the lack of it) is an important communication challenge that
call centre executives face because of a variety of reasons like limited interaction
possibilities over phone, cultural differences etc. Especially in India the ability to
demonstrate empathy and form an emotional relationship with the foreign customer is a
huge hurdle that most call centre employees face. Hence this work requires a lot of
emotional labour along with the normal labour and the ability to empathize with your
customers and put yourself in their own shoes.

Cultural Awareness Training

When a call centre employee is talking to a customer from a different country, it is not
just a simple exchange of words that is happening, but a virtual connection between two
very different cultures is established. One’s culture dictates the style of the
communication as well as the content, for example the response-answer model as well as
words used might vary from culture to culture and this can raise barriers as a subtext to
the actual conversation. Values, assumptions and perceptions are things that govern the
way we behave and interact, and these are largely conditioned by culture. The way we
behave from the way we stand and talk, to the way we deal with superiors, conflict and
decision-making, the courtesy levels we expect etc are hugely influenced by our culture
and they are imbibed so very deep that we act upon them instinctively, which if not
handled properly can lead to substantial misunderstanding and mis-communication.

Personality Development and Customer Service

Along with all the functional knowledge most institutes also undertake personality
development as this is very important for a customer facing job like this. Also most
institutes give coaching for passing that all-important job interview by giving tips and
tricks on handling interview questions etc.

18
Also as ones career progresses one has to take on leadership roles etc like team lead,
project lead etc and this can happen only with the right set of skills and a pleasing
personality that can get jobs done. This makes personality development a very important
topic in the long term development of a call centre career/Customer service etiquette are
also required for obvious reasons and they are very much similar to personality
deployment as both deal with increasing one’s ability to effectively deal with people.

8. QUALITY

Call center metrics include many areas and factors.

Quality of calls belongs to the most important factors of this industry. That is why the
main task of call companies will be hiring the most qualified and language proficient
personnel. By hiring smart personnel that is highly knowledgeable about the services and
products marketed or sold, you will ensure high quality of outgoing and incoming calls.

Cost per call. Call centers owners should look at actual costs of calls made through their
operations. Usually outbound calls are more expensive, as long-distance telephone rates
are applied. A great number of modern companies outsource manpower from English
proficient countries as labor costs are much lower.

To assess a cal canter business, you first of all, have to look at the operations’ schedule.
Generally, call centers are outsourced, that is why schedules of operations greatly differ
from usual work hours. As an example, Indian call center employees will have to work on
graveyard shifts especially if calls are made from and to Canada or the United States.

Here are some key performance indicators:

19
 • Rate of speed of answer
• Response duration
• Blocked and abandoned calls
• Average call value
• Average handling time per call
• Occupancy and productivity

Key performance indicators must include the fact about the performance rate and there
should be an ability to track it. When setting goals for performance, do not forget that it is
necessary to have a good amount accountability to chase these goals. It is also advisable
to note all performance problems for further diagnosing and improvement.

20
Every call center is an inseparable element in successful functioning of a company. It is
not enough just to enter the market with a new product. As already said above post sale
service is important and thus excellent performance of a call center in a must. In order to
improve performance it is necessary to set goals and measure current and potential
performance. This is where Balanced Scorecard comes into play.

The above diagram shows how to use balance scorecard as an effective tool for
performance management.

• The following steps are used:

• Establish key performance indicators
• Finding major KPI to be evaluated
• Use balance scorecard system
• Obtaining results
• Analyzing results
• Taking measures

21
 • Evaluating counter measures
• Training and coaching of personnel
• Reaching high performance level

Investing in quality management will help to turn call centers from a cost to a profit
center.

22