CALL CENTERS (CENTRES) - Faculty of Industrial Engineering and ...

centers in terms of dealing with a large number and variety of calls, managing the service quality
of these calls, and how management can overcome the high staff turnover rate, is investigated.
Keywords: Call centers, Customer services, Automatic call distribution, Employee turnover,
Studies, Managerial skills, Quality of service
43. Houlihan, Maeve. Eyes wide shut? Querying the depth of call centre learning, Journal of European
Industrial Training, 24, 2000, 228–240.
Abstract. Call centres are high-pressure work environments characterised by routinization,
scripting, computer-based monitoring and intensive performance targets. This promises a series
of business advantages, but also risks counterproductive outcomes. Drawing on evidence from
ethnographic field data, it is suggested that both desired and risked outcomes are mediated
by personal modes of coping and organizational sustaining mechanisms. A central concern is
to explore the underlying assumptions of call centre design and management, and to establish
whether or to what extent information systems have been constructed as learning sites or behavioural
control sites. When behavioural control is a primary goal, this introduces a climate
of resistance, further inflated by the culture of measurement and enforcement that is likely to
ensue. In this environment, agent, manager and organization become defensive and the main
outcome is a destructive crisis of trust that creates important and difficult implications for the
capacity to learn.
Keywords: Learning, Control, Measurement, Corporate culture
(Appears also in Section IV.)
44. Larson, Richard C. and E.J. Pinke. Staffing challenges in financial services, in Creating Value
in Financial Services: Strategies, Operations, and Technologies, Edward L. Melnick, Praveen
R. Nayyar, Michael L. Pinedo, Sridhar Seshadri (Eds.). Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
2000, Chapter 17, 327–356.
Abstract. Financial services institutions are providing a rapidly expanding variety of products
and services; technology is making customers more mobile, and delay is unacceptable in financial
transactions. These attributes of the financial services sector mean that firms must provide effective,
efficient and reliable service or quickly lose customers to competitors. To avoid huge labor
costs, financial services firms must develop innovative approaches to managing their workforces
and their service delivery process. We outline and provide examples of effective techniques for
managing part-time and flexible personnel in back room operations, bank teller scheduling and
management, improving customer queueing experiences, and the design and operation of call
centers to take into account cross-training, learning and cross selling.
Acknowledgement: The abstract was taken from the introduction of the book.
(Appears also in Section I.)
45. Manione, R. and P. Renditore. Management issues for multi-subscriber Web call center services,
CSELT Technical-Reports, 28 (2), 2000, 257–271.
Abstract. Web call centers are among the most promising services belonging to the integrated
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