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Service Sector and Call Centres
There is a striking parallel between the blind alley that trapped Western manufacturing, preventing it from increasing cost-effectiveness and customer service and the current development trends within the service sector, typified by the call centre.
A ‘whole work’ revolution, similar to that which hit manufacturing in the West, is about to hit the service sector. Currently many service sector offices and most call centres, whilst seeking to have the lowest component cost, actually create large hidden costs either for themselves or the customer. Optimising around the wrong things can create customer frustration and desertion; staff stress, de-motivation and absenteeism and the hidden costs of unhealthy work, dysfunctional organisations and customer loss.
Those organisations able to embrace ‘whole work’ in the service sector will ultimately out-compete those who cling to the current mind sets. Those making the shift to become integrated service organisations which are technically and socially balanced, with lean processes and which provide ‘whole work for whole people’, will gain a significant market advantage through flexibility, reduction of wasteful activity, improved quality and customer service and increased staff motivation, retention and innovation.
Future Competitveness for the Service Sector and Call Centres  Please download a full paper describing Tricordant's approach to this sector.
Which Journey is the Service Sector on?
- The structure of much work in call centres creates friction where customers meet workers who don’t have significant decision-making capacity, often reducing both sides to anger;
- Customers have a growing frustration from imposed poor service. Managers who resent using call centres for their own needs set them up and manage them at work;
- Customer loyalty is being replaced by a commoditised market chasing ever cheaper deals;
- The growth of off-shore call centres doing half a task is leading to further relational separation between the server and the served, increasing the cost of maintaining security and controlling fraud;
- Evaluation is often on the volume of activity and not the quality of outcomes in disjointed systems that are not aware of the knock-on effects;
- Often the call centre system drives the people and not the people the machine, taking away the significance people need from planning their own work.
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“My thanks too - the day went really well and the feedback was excellent. The learning sets picked up many of the ideas that you seeded in the morning sessions - one comment was that "I've taken months of work in ideas away from just this one day" - what more can we ask for.”
Regional Service Redesign Facilitator
“Thank you very much for your support on this assignment. I had high expectations of how you would assist our improvement process in this area and it looks to me as though you have met these”
Change Director, Utility company
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