4 Parallels between Call Centers and School
Agents see their job in the call center as an extension of the years they spent in school. Supervisors see that metaphor as well. School is a symbol all employees can relate to, whatever their country of origin, because everybody that works in a call center has lived through the experience of school years. Supervisors will sometimes talk about their agents and refer to them as “my kids.” We’ve heard supervisors say “My kids are doing great.” Or, “The kids are loose again,” or my favorite, “All right everyone, play time is over, back to your desks.” Supervisors know from their school experience that their role mimics the teacher’s role. The meaning of supervisors equating agents to school kids is not to demean the intelligence of the agents, it is to emphasize the similarities between school and the call center that everybody can relate to.
Parallel 1 – Cliques and Styles
We can all remember the cliques that formed in middle school and jr. and high school. People gravitated towards the group that had people most like them, or most like who they wanted to be. The cliques were a big part of each student’s experience in school. The same is true in call centers. Supervisors must recognize that agents bond differently with one another based on a multitude of factors. Remember in school when you would eat lunch with your group of friends? Usually those groups were somewhat familiar. Agents treat lunch the same way. Remember in school how you only liked certain classes, parts of the day, and certain teachers but not others? Agents view the call center the same way. For example, agents may dislike taking member servcie calls from Alabama, but love taking calls from Oregon. Agents may dislike one supervisor but value the intelligence and input of another. And agents may dislike making outbound telsales calls to prospects before 10 a.m., but love to do so after 2 p.m.
TO READ MORE, INCLUDING 3 MORE PARALLELS BETWEEN THE CALL CENTER AND SCHOOL, DOWNLOAD THE WHITEPAPER “HOW CALL CENTERS ARE LIKE SCHOOLS!” HERE http://store.callcentertoday.com/frwhpa1.html
March 5, 2012 8:03 am | 
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