I feel that Channel 4's Cutting Edge programme only served to highlight the problems that consumers have with call centres and did nothing to examine possible solutions. What do you think?

I found the programme a bit shallow and struggled to understand exactly what point they were trying to make. There is an interesting article that sums up how I feel too -
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article3497027.ece

One thing that I did find interesting was the comment that a couple of the customers made recognising that the issues that they had were not related to the poor agent that was trying to handle the call ("I know it's not your fault but....."). Too many contact centres still ignore the fact that the call centre is the ears (and mouth) of the company and the agents have the best view of internal issues (process, product, price, etc) within the company that are causing people to call. Unfortunately, they usually dont have any way to feed these issues back, nor are they ever asked! If more companies took notice of the reasons why customers were calling and actually fixed the root cause, rather than teaching the agents how to deal with the calls empathetically, then customer experience would be vastly improved.

Hi,

Yes was a pretty poor effort to get accross the actuall call center workers side...

Or though I did like the idea of the above the line language...??

anyone have any materials on that ??

Chels

I'll tell you what this program did for me, it made me cringe even more than David Brent in The Office, by the way, was the TL from First Direct his long lost brother??

Did we really have to see a whole Call Centre throwing balls around while customers go about their business? Now the customer has reason to think it’s a kid messing around on the phone while they try to give advice on looking after your money, something that takes a lot of relationship building and trust. Its fantastic to have a fun atmosphere, but it is done for a reason, and its not just because people perform better, its down to keeping hold of people for longer so you have experienced guys there and improve your service. It has to be a place you want to come and work and I didn't hear this mentioned.

Perceptions a great thing and giving your customer one that gives the impression that there’s a professional on the end of phone that can add value or save you money has just been minimised. It would now appear that all we need to do is sell to everyone that calls up for a general query, and you'll be recognised as a star. I just feel that this is going to make customers wary in calling and also ready with a "No thank you" as soon as they hear anything like a sales pitch.

Overseas Call Centres, I've worked in them and I don't think I've ever been in one that had agents that were as hard to understand as the ones shown. I found it hard without the added problem of it being over the phone with any noise in the background.

So to recap, I used to be proud to tell people I build Call Centres, but now, I just hope not too many watched it.

Sorry for the rant, but we've come along way in past few years, and CC's are here to stay, and Channel 4 painted a picture of cost saving at the expense of the customer. It’s going to take a while yet to get back the trust and relationship we need to have with the customer since moving offshore with massive impact on the experience, but it is acceptable if managed correctly.

We just need the customer to get back to the thought that they are calling people of the same calibre that were in the branches, with the added benefit that it can be 24/7 and not 9 to 5. Lets hope there’s another attempt at this type of film, but done a little more effectively. It’s a shame we're a society that thrives on seeing others fail!!

I agree with the comments below that there were some positives in the film and the "above the line language" was good (the film put this together very well to get the training point accross - "that's tremendous!").

What we saw above all thought was the deep negative perception about call centres in the Uk and the issues that surround making sales work for the customer (especially sales on servie calls).

For me it shows the need to take a customer angle on how we plan our call handling policies and our tragets/incentives eg resolving issues, rmoving the root causes and adpating our products - not just handling more nicely things that shouldn't have needed a call in the first place.

Think: "call centres are not about just handling calls"

We didn't see that angle in the film, yet there's some good evidence we are seeing from our members that this is beginning to happen - it would be good to see some of this in the next film!

Paul.

Paul Smedley
Executive Director, Professional Planning Forum
www.planningforum.co.uk

If C4 were trying to demonstrate how outsources were helping to give workers in poor communities opportunities to move on then they did a pretty good job.

You cannot blame the programme makers for presenting yet another tabloid view of the industry - it sells advertising and pays their bills. And with a title like Phone Rage...!

The programme took an angle, picked up on a few extremes and gave the consumer a view of the fact that these people are human as well and, in many businesses, are being failed by the 'system' they are part of. It's our job to fix this stuff.

If you want a insightful view of the industry then you should listen to the In Business programme that was on BBC Radio 4 a few weeks ago. Focusing on the application of Lean processing to the service industry it picked up on a number of ideas that I think are key - listening to and involving the frontline in a continuous improvement process, cross business engagement on customer issues and knowing which 'levers' will make the most difference to improving service. You can link to the archive of the programme from our website. The ideas explained and encapsulated in this short programme are the ones you should be spreading round your colleagues in marketing, sales, distribution and finance.

David Naylor
Budd
www.budd.uk.com