The management of operations for a customer contact center (CCC) presents significant challenges. Management's direction is to reduce costs through operational efficiency metrics while providing maximum customer satisfaction levels to retain customers and increase profit margins. The purpose of this correlational study was to quantify the significance of various customer service representative (CSR) characteristics including internal service quality, employee satisfaction, and employee productivity, and then to determine their predictive ability on customer satisfaction, as outlined in the service-profit chain model. The research question addressed whether a linear relationship existed between CSR characteristics and the customers' satisfaction with the CSR by applying ordinary least squares regression using archival dyadic data. The data consisted of a random sample of 269 CSRs serving a large Canadian bank. Various subsets of data were analyzed via regression to help generate actionable insights. One particular model involving poor performing CSRs whose customer satisfaction was less than 75% top box proved to be statistically significant (p = .036, R-squared = .321) suggesting that poor performing CSRs contribute to a significant portion of poor customer service while high performing CSRs do not necessarily guarantee good customer service. A key variable used in this research was a CSR's level of education, which was not significant. Such a finding implies that for CCC support, a less-educated labor pool may be maintained, balancing societal benefits of employment for less-educated people at a reasonable service cost to a company. These findings relate to positive social change as hiring less-educated applicants could increase their social and economic status.

Call centers are an important function of most companies’ day to day business activities. They are often the link between a company and its customers and hugely impact the customer’s perspective or point of view (POV) of a company. A call center in the most general sense is a place, representing a business, which receives inbound calls from customers and/or makes outbound calls to customers, the latter being most commonly referred to as telemarketing. There was a time when a typical call center strictly consisted of agents who handled inbound/outbound calls; these agents are considered specialized agents. Generally speaking, a specialized agent is one trained, in-depth, in a particular area of knowledge. Most businesses have transgressed from your typical call center into contact centers. Contact centers operate essentially the same as a call center but interact with the customer in a variety of ways including, but not limited to: Phone, Mail, Fax, Email, and Internet (via online chat and instant messaging applications). The dynamics of these kinds of call centers has caused an increase in the need for agents to become more diverse in their talents and abilities to handle different types of calls. This has lead to specialized agents becoming general or “cross-trained” agents in which they are trained, broadly, over several areas of knowledge. The purpose of this thesis is to compare specialized agents to cross-trained agents and through the use of simulation, determine which of the two are more efficient and reliable in their ability to service the customer. This thesis has three major components: Simulation, Reliability Analysis, and Comparison. The results indicate that a cross-trained model is more reliable and efficient than a specialized model. Performance metrics common to call center literature, simulation, and Lean reliability systems were used to determine the effectiveness and reliability of the two models.

Call centers are an important function of most companies’ day to day business activities. They are often the link between a company and its customers and hugely impact the customer’s perspective or point of view (POV) of a company. A call center in the most general sense is a place, representing a business, which receives inbound calls from customers and/or makes outbound calls to customers, the latter being most commonly referred to as telemarketing. There was a time when a typical call center strictly consisted of agents who handled inbound/outbound calls; these agents are considered specialized agents. Generally speaking, a specialized agent is one trained, in-depth, in a particular area of knowledge.Most businesses have transgressed from your typical call center into contact centers. Contact centers operate essentially the same as a call center but interact with the customer in a variety of ways including, but not limited to: Phone, Mail, Fax, Email, and Internet (via online chat and instant messaging applications). The dynamics of these kinds of call centers has caused an increase in the need for agents to become more diverse in their talents and abilities to handle different types of calls. This has lead to specialized agents becoming general or “cross-trained” agents in which they are trained, broadly, over several areas of knowledge.The purpose of this thesis is to compare specialized agents to cross-trained agents and through the use of simulation, determine which of the two are more efficient and reliable in their ability to service the customer. This thesis has three major components: Simulation, Reliability Analysis, and Comparison. The results indicate that a cross-trained model is more reliable and efficient than a specialized model. Performance metrics common to call center literature, simulation, and Lean reliability systems were used to determine the effectiveness and reliability of the two models.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe išanalizuota tema „Darbo organizavimo, pasirenkant kontaktų centro paslaugas, įtaka organizacijos veiklos efektyvumui“. Identifikuotos problemos bei aptartos galimybės, kaip jas spręsti. Teorinėje darbo dalyje apibrėžti organizacijos ir jos struktūros teoriniai aspektai, išsiaiškintos Užsakomųjų paslaugų kaip alternatyvaus verslo modelio perspektyvos, apsibrėžta Kontaktų centro vietą organizacijoje, įvertinta Užsakomojo kontaktų centro alternatyva, išsiaiškinta efektyvumo samprata ir veiklos vertinimo teoriniai aspektai, apibrėžti efektyvaus Kontaktų centro veiklos vertinimo rodikliai ir jų įtaka organizacijos veiklos efektyvumui. Analitinėje dalyje atliktas kokybinis tyrimas, kuriuo siekiama išsiaiškinti, kokie Kontaktų centro efektyvumo rodikliai daro didžiausią įtaką organizacijos efektyvumui, kaip organizacijos vertina Užsakomųjų kontaktų centrų alternatyvą ir kokios su tuo susijusios problemos, bei galimi sprendimai. / Everyday world becomes increasingly global , people are choosing not only the telephone service, but also other different ways of communication via electronic channels (such as online consultation , exchange of e -mails, text messages and so on) and their combinations. Even for a making good progress organization it is difficult to keep-up with the requirements of the market. The outside requests of the services gain competitive leverage, because outsourcing service providers focus on the provision of these services; they have the experience and the necessary resources (human, technological), and are constantly looking for effective solutions in the field in order to remain competitive in the market. The main objective of the work is to analyse and evaluate the criteria of the performance effectiveness of the contact centres impacting on the organization's operational efficiency. When summarizing the results of the study it was revealed that the key performance indicators of the contact centre which is monitored by the team of the contact centre coincides with the organization's strategic goals, and it allows to make a conclusion that the activities and the planning processes are well organized. The biggest issues faced by the internal organizations of the contact centres are the turnover of the staff and the control of the flow, which are related to the deficiency of the resources of the organization. Outsource contact centre, which mainly has competency of people and flow... [to full text]

171 p. / Submitted by Santiago Fabio (fabio.ssantiago@hotmail.com) on 2012-12-19T19:01:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 55.pdf: 2509189 bytes, checksum: 11ef6c7878335d93846ea4bb6db6f8a0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-12-19T19:01:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 55.pdf: 2509189 bytes, checksum: 11ef6c7878335d93846ea4bb6db6f8a0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar a influência da liderança no desempenho de atendentes de contact centers no Brasil no ano de 2010, sob a ótica dos liderados – os atendentes – em relação aos seus líderes – os supervisores –, a partir de um estudo de caso na organização líder deste mercado, a Contax S/A, que possui aproximadamente noventa mil funcionários e é a segunda maior empregadora privada do país. Para tanto, realizou-se a fundamentação teórica para a compreensão da liderança, do desempenho e da relação entre liderança e desempenho nas organizações, além da caracterização sobre contact centers, buscando discutir os pilares de gestão de pessoas voltada ao desempenho e fatores influenciadores, além da liderança, dos resultados individuais e grupais. O modelo conceitual de pesquisa propõe: caracterizar e identificar a liderança a partir da escolha de algumas abordagens teóricas - a dos estilos de liderança, a abordagem contingencial e a abordagem da nova liderança; caracterizar o desempenho com o foco nos fatores de gestão e fatores pessoais que podem influenciar este desempenho; e entender a influência da liderança no desempenho individual na organização estudada. Os resultados da pesquisa realizada com 270 atendentes indicaram que em relação à liderança, o estilo democrático é o preponderante entre os supervisores, com influência da abordagem contingencial e modelo voltado a uma liderança participativa. Com relação ao desempenho, notou-se que a Contax é uma organização que mantém alto nível de controle e monitoramento sobre os resultados dos funcionários, mantendo métodos de avaliação de desempenho que favorecem a retroalimentação do processo e a melhoria contínua. Além disto, para 76,5% dos respondentes, a organização faz com que os novos funcionários se sintam pertencentes à organização, fato que contribui significativamente para o senso de pertencimento e aumento da produtividade. Os resultados apontaram, por fim, uma grande relação de influência entre a atuação do líder, o seu esti lo, seu modelo de gestão com o resultado e desempenho individual nos atendentes da Contax, com 83,7% dos respondentes concordando com esta afirmação e 73,3% indicando que colocariam esta atuação do líder como um dos três principais fatores geradores de maiores níveis de desempenho. O trabalho finaliza apresentando os resultados obtidos, conclusões e sugestões para a geração de novos estudos envolvendo os temas e o setor de contact center, considerando o tamanho deste mercado e sua importância para a geração de empregos no país. / Salvador

This study explores the implications for knowledge creation of customer knowledge in a contact center’s CRM system. A previously developed research model which depicts CRM systems’ support to knowledge creation of customer knowledge was utilized for evaluation and comparison of collected data. Data was collected through observations semi-structured interviews with 14 customer service agents who utilized a CRM system in a contact center at a medium-sized European airline.Analysis of the data suggests that the CRM system’s support for knowledge creation of customer knowledge is in line with previous research. Additionally, the results indicate that there are two processes, knowledge base usage and internal communication processes, which have the potential to increase the CRM system’s support. Based on the reviewed literature, this study suggests that organizational culture and IT infrastructure, are two tools which could be utilized to incorporate those two processes better into the organization’s CRM system.

The aim of this study is to investigate the role Business Intelligence (BI) can play in government and more specifically at the municipality level. The study aims to investigate how data collected from a municipality Contact Center can be leveraged with the help of a BI solution. The study focuses on the Contact Center at Järfälla Kommun (municipality) and investigates whether a BI implementation can help to realize more effective planning, resource allocation and improved services and e-services. Municipality Contact Centers are becoming an increasingly popular precedent providing municipal residents with a centralized service where they can make inquiries, provide information, lodge complaints or commend actions related to activities within the specific municipality. BI can turn raw data into concrete figures and reports, map patterns and trends and support effective decision making. It can also however be costly and difficult to integrate and face resistance due to perceived complexity. This paper aims to take such notions into consideration and investigate the feasibility of implementing such a solution in the context of a municipality Contact Center. This paper identifies various benefits and drawbacks from literature which are then modeled into a SWOT framework. In addition, semi-structured interviews are utilized in this study and targeted at stakeholders knowledgeable in the Contact Center, BI, or both. Findings from the SWOT framework will be measured against the findings from the interviews and an analysis of correlations between the two sources will be investigated.

El presente trabajo de tesis expone la propuesta de una arquitectura empresarial para la mejora operativa de una empresa del sector de contact center en el marco de la norma COPC CX, particularmente enfocada en lo concerniente a la implementación de clientes, servicios y programas. El primer capítulo presenta la información del Grupo 3eriza así como el planteamiento del problema, los objetivos y la planificación del proyecto. El segundo capítulo describe los logros de los student outcomes planteados por la universidad como objetivos que deben alcanzarse en el presente proyecto profesional. El tercer capítulo desarrolla los fundamentos teóricos para la solución propuesta, los cuales permiten sustentar adecuadamente los aspectos conceptuales y definitorios de nuestro documento. En el cuarto capítulo se analiza el proceso empresarial con la finalidad de alinearlo a la norma COPC CX, el cual dará el sustento necesario para la implementación de la solución propuesta en el presente trabajo. El quinto capítulo desarrolla el proceso de diseño y definición la arquitectura empresarial propuesta haciendo uso del método de desarrollo de la arquitectura o ciclo ADM definido por el estándar TOGAF. Finalmente, el sexto capítulo presenta el portafolio de proyectos definidos a partir de los bloques de construcción identificados en las fases anteriores, así como el plan de implementación y migración que aborda los aspectos relacionados de cómo moverse de la arquitectura de línea base a la arquitectura destino. / This thesis work exposes the proposal of a enterprise architecture for the operational improvement of a company in the contact center sector within the framework of the COPC CX standard, especially focused on the concern to the implementation of customers, services and programs. The first chapter presents the information of the 3eriza Group, as well as the problem statement, objectives and project planning. The second chapter describes the achievements of the student outcomes set by the university as objectives that must be achieved in this professional project. The third chapter develops the theoretical fundamentals for the proposed solution, which allow us to properly support the conceptual and defining aspects of our document. In the fourth chapter the business process is analyzed in order to align it with the COPC CX standard, which will provide the necessary support for the implementation of the solution proposed in the present work. The fifth chapter develops the design and definition process of the proposed enterprise architecture using the ADM cycle development method defined by the TOGAF standard. Finally, the sixth chapter presents the portfolio of projects defined from the building blocks identified in the previous phases, as well as the implementation and migration plan that addresses the related aspects of how to move from the baseline architecture to the destination architecture. / Tesis

INTRODUCTION: Despite the unique status of methamphetamine on the Czech drug scene, where the number of problem MA users accounts for 3/4 of all problematic drug users, there is a minimal amount of literature in the literature on how to work with this target group in the addictological care system. OBJECTIVE: The practical part was to monitor the work and access to methamphetamine users in the selected k-centers. Attention was paid to presenting KC clients, perception of key motives in each phases of drug use trajectories, the process of working with clients from first contact to eventual mediation of treatment and description of the specifics of access to MA users. METHOD: The chosen sample was selected on the basis of deliberate targeted selection through the institution. The data were collected by semi-structured interview, which was fixed with audio recording and subsequently transcribed. The patterns capture method as used to analyze the data. FILE: The research sample consisted of eight communication partners (four men). They were employees of selected k-centers, always one worker per facility, from different regions of the Czech Republic, with various length of experience in field (2,5 to 16 years). RESULTS: KC clients are mostly MA users, often polyvalent users, combining MA with other...

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:08:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 154764.PDF: 34480125 bytes, checksum: 0ebff143c7703ca05ce7a3fcc1e7d0d6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-02-26T00:00:00Z / O presente estudo trata da influência do Contact Center na interação de clientes e empresas de telefonia celular e a resultante fidelização desses clientes. A interação entre os clientes e as empresas, quando bem gerenciada, pode ser um diferencial competitivo relevante, num mundo em que as inovações e sua disseminação ocorrem muito rapidamente. Ao contrário, um relacionamento mal gerenciado pode levar à infidelidade dos clientes e à conseqüente troca de fornecedor. Para avaliar a satisfação dos clientes sobre a sua interação com as empresas foi realizado um survey, enviando-se e-mails para usuários residentes no Estado de São Paulo e recebendo-se suas respostas por meio de um endereço na Web. Para a análise do tema, foram utilizadas as teorias de Marketing de Serviços, Marketing de Relacionamento e de Orientação ao Mercado, bem como estudos relacionados aos Contact Centers (ou call centers) e fidelidade. Esta pesquisa contempla três áreas principais: Orientação ao Mercado da empresa; qualidade dos serviços do Contact Center; e fidelidade do cliente. Para a análise dos dados que compõem o escopo desta pesquisa, foram aplicadas técnicas estatísticas de Análise Fatorial e de Análise de Conglomerados (ou Clusters). Além disso, foi realizada uma análise comparativa de fidelidade às principais operadoras e uma simulação para se estimarem as potenciais perdas de clientes. Os resultados apontam para uma grande insatisfação dos clientes com empresas de telefonia celular e com o atendimento em aspectos que lhe são mais urgentes, como o atendimento às suas necessidades e a eficiência do Contact Center. E também assinalam uma forte tendência à infidelidade. Com a vinda da portabilidade do número do celular a partir de 2009, que permite que o usuário mantenha seu número mesmo trocando de operadora, o risco é ainda maior. Neste caso, os resultados mostram que 64% dos clientes declaram sua infidelidade à operadora atual. A relevância deste estudo para as organizações é que o mesmo apresenta uma perspectiva sobre o Contact Center, como ponto de relacionamento e incremento da satisfação do cliente, bem como de um diferencial competitivo que, aparentemente, vem sendo pouco prestigiado pelos profissionais de marketing. / This study approaches the influence of the interaction between customers and cellular companies in the customer loyalty using the contact center as the way of interaction between them. That interaction if well managed can be a relevant competitive advantage in a world where innovations and its dissemination are very fast. On the contrary, a bad managed relationship between customer and companies may result in customer disloyalty and change of supplier. To evaluate the costumer satisfaction about their interaction with the cellular companies it was carried out a survey by sending e-mails to São Paulo State customers and receiving their answers through a specific web address. In order to analyze the subject it was applied theories of service marketing, relationship marketing and market orientation as well as contact center (or call center) and loyalty literature. That survey considered three main areas: market orientation, contact center service quality and customer loyalty. Statistical techniques of factor analysis and cluster analysis were applied to analyze the results. It was also elaborated a comparative analysis of loyalty for the main companies and a simulation in order to estimate the potential losses of customers. The results show big customer dissatisfaction about the cellular companies regarding to subjects that are more relevant to them as receiving answer to their needs and about the contact center efficiency. The customers also show a strong tendency to disloyalty. Considering the cellular phone number portability in 2009, when the customer will be allowed to change the supplier but, at the same time, maintaining his phone number, the risk of lose customers is bigger for companies because in that case 64% of the customer declared his/her disloyalty. The relevance of this study for organizations is that it shows that it is possible to notice the contact center as a customer satisfaction generation point, as well as a competitive differentiation tool that seems to be not sufficiently considered by marketing practitioners.