Your call is very important

Talking through headsets while pounding keyboards and monitoring computer screens at the same time, the multi-tasking agents at GE Money's call centre are too busy even to offer a visitor a glance. More than a hundred of them sit in the 1,200-square-metre room, which operates around the clock.

At the GE Money call centre, which handles 1.5 million calls a month, staff are drilled in the importance of the F-I-R-S-T approach.

Some 200 agents there take 750,000 calls a month, half of all 1.5 million calls ringing non-stop in the room monthly, or one call every two seconds. The other half are answered by a computer system called interactive voice response (IVR).

Naturally, not all calls translate into business. Some are made by lonely people who call the centre 30 times a day. Some are pranks by naughty youngsters, who ask for a million baht when they dial Hello Cash 02-345-6789.

Technology is increasingly used at call centres, thanks to the cost effectiveness it provides. Yet technology is unlikely to replace humans eventually, at least over the next 10 years. Since call centres are the front line that can make customers love or hate a company, it is critical that the staff there deliver excellent services.

The call-centre business in Thailand is growing at a rapid pace. While there are no official statistics on the size of the industry, the Call Center Industry Association of Thailand estimates the figure at 30,000 to 40,000 seats, up 30% on average in the last few years.

Although most industries use call centres, the dominant ones are banking and finance, insurance, manufacturing, services, tourism, transport and pharmaceuticals and telecommunications.

Rohit Khanna, GE Money's chief operating officer, said the company was willing to have half of the phone calls handled by agents despite the higher cost because its survey showed a lot of clients, in particular people unfamiliar with technology, prefer talking to people.

"The call centre is the heart of our service business. Eighty percent of the action takes place at the call centre. So we have to make sure that all call-centre representatives need to have service minds," said the Indian executive.

GE won the 2009 award for Best In-house Call Center With over 50 Seats given by the association.

Tharinee Suratpipit, GE Money's customer service leader, said it launched a programme called F-I-R-S-T, which stands for friendly, intelligence, responsibility, speed and trustworthy.

"We have created a measurement system around each call to make sure it's a F-I-R-S-T call," she said.

To improve the business, the association has introduced the first industry benchmarking report. It conducted an online survey, asking thousands of agents questions in many areas such as their work environment, their companies, teamwork, achievement, training and coaching, and employee engagement.

Naoum Mark Manolas, the association's chairman, said the survey found many areas that call-centre staff could improve to deliver excellent service.

One interesting observation he found was the different understanding between call-centre agents and their companies. While the former viewed the companies are rigid, the latter had an opposite view.

When agents feel the company has a rigid policy that limits their creativity or autonomy in answering some questions, they tend to pass the lines on to managers, which could undermine the excellent delivery to consumers and brands, according to Mr Manolas.

He added that the business was in a regulated consumer environment. Outbound calls aiming to sell services or products such as credit cards and insurance are watched by consumer protection groups. As a result, he said, training to avoid complaints was important.