Do you go "back to the floor"?

Ever since being forced to sew 72 pairs of shorts in the first weeks that I joined the working population, I've advocated the practice of management going back to the floor. In a call centre that means taking calls, not just listening to them.

As per our earlier blog, the Budd team did its bit on Red Nose night at Kent CC. An amazing £150,000 went through just this one centre in one evening.

Apart from talking to some lovely people (apart from teh guy who rang to complain about Terry Wogan getting paid...derrrrr but he doesnt do Red Nose day), we also reminded ourselves of some things long forgotten, from this great back to the floor element.

So if any great call centres out there want us to go back to their floor, we're up for some harder challenges.... get in touch peter.massey@budd.uk.com . Here's Jonathan Wilson's comments below:

1. Having no calls is worse than having lots of calls

2. I am not a good typist and excellent typing skills really do help to save time and to enable differentiating service based on acute listening. We should encourage much higher standards of typing as a minimum for call centres.

3. I was interested to note how much time you can have to chat to people while you are putting data in or waiting for a response and how you can have good dialogues without delaying things.

4. I did find it quite tense making which made my neck and shoulders sore, which made me think how important it is to help people (i.e. me!) to learn about posture and relaxation techniques. The wireless key boards were helpful. I would have liked the screens at a different height (lower and tilted further up), I think. I would have liked wireless headphones too to allow more movement. None of this is complaining, I stress! I am just interested how important the ergonomics are in contact centres - even more than in offices, because the extra interaction of orally and aurally connecting has an even greater effect than I realised.

5. I also found my voice straining after a while which led to a difficulty talking clearly after a while even without wine!, I felt. The water helps.…

6. It took a lot of attention to hear/understand what people were saying, especially if it was at all noisy in the centre and/or if there was background noise at the caller's end

7. I thought the input screens were well designed. with a fairly logical flow and I was pleased that you didn't have to follow the input sequence in order so you could put the name in first if you wanted to. I suppose they were too busy, but I would have liked immediate feedback that the donation had been processed satisfactorily instead of just queued. I may have screwed up every one without knowing.

8. I even liked the screen script prompting, which I did not expect to.

9. People tend to look for evidence that confirms what they already believe, and I was encouraged to see that the mouse is a delay and hindrance when you have practice

10. I suppose to summarise, I regained serious respect for the agents' work and skill and I doubly convinced of the value of all managers spending several consecutive hours a month or quarter, taking and processing calls as an agent (i.e. no special treatment). I am sure this would lead to better conditions for agents, slicker processes and much better overall service levels.