Can call centre make people happy?
I am sitting in a room in an office on an industrial estate in Watford and five men and women in their twenties are telling me that they love their jobs. There are a number of reasons why I am inclined to believe them, and a number of reasons why I am not.
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Among the latter there is the fact that two of their managers and a public relations executive are sitting with us and, frankly, only a lunatic would tell a journalist they dislike their job in such circumstances.
There is also the fact that their place of work is a call centre, and we all know that if there is one thing worse than calling a call centre, it is working in one.
Dubbed the dark satanic mills of the 21st century and likened to battery farms, “customer contact centres”, as many label themselves now, have given rise to more horror stories than Thai jails. There is that famous story about the centre where staff had to raise their hand to go to the loo, and another about the centre where staff were told to wear nappies so that they could spend less time away from their phones. Indeed, call centre work has become a byword for misery something I found myself repeating to the Call Centre Association a few months ago. Not so, they replied. There are plenty of “customer contact centres” in Britain that are fantastic places to work ClientLogic in Watford, for example, which won the 2004 Call Centre of the Year Award and handles enquiries for Sony PlayStation.
So far, on my morning-long visit to check out the claim, there have been encouraging signs. It seems that ClientLogic has systematically removed many of the things that make call centre miserable places to work: (1) the office does not consist of a large number of people crammed into a windowless, airless barn with about 50 agents, it is small and friendly; (2) agents don't have to read out from official scripts, which insist on certain ways of saying hello and goodbye and so on; (3) recognising that answering calls can get deathly tedious, the company encourages agents to switch from dealing with phone queries to dealing with e-mails and monitoring internet forums; (4) between calls, chatting is not prohibited during quiet times agents are even encouraged to play Sony console games; (5) agents are given time to recover from
abusive calls; (6) there is evidence of career development; (7) agents are
not required to wear nappies.
All in all, it is pretty nice. But not perfect. For all the talk of staff empowerment, ClientLogic in Watford is still a keen advocate of the thing that makes call centre work routinely hellish, the thing that has led to some centres being likened to the panopticon, the circular prison-factory envisaged by Jeremy Bentham, the 19th-century social reformer. They monitor their employees obsessively.
The scary software system that does this monitoring goes by the unscary name of Blue Pumpkin. Paul Titheradge, the command centre analyst, showed me how it works. “It's the heart of the call centre,” he explained, pointing at his screen, a mosaic of bar charts. “From this we can organise agent shifts, which are usually seven-and-a-half hours long and include two paid 15-minute breaks and one unpaid half-hour lunch. If the screen is purple, it's good, but if it's red it means agents aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing.”
Does this extend to monitoring toilet breaks? “We have a thing called schedule adherence, which we set at 93 per cent.” What does that mean? “We expect agents to be doing what they should be doing 93 per cent of the time.” Blimey. My schedule adherence must stand at about 40 per cent, 30 per cent if you include toilet breaks. Isn't Blue Pumpkin a bit fascistic? “If we let them all run wild we wouldn't know what was going on. With this I can tell if people are mucking around or not.”
This conversation runs through my mind as the five men and women in their twenties sit smiling opposite me, claiming that they love their jobs, as do some of the positive facts dished out by their two managers and public relations executive, such as the centre's below-average absence and employee turnover rates rates that can be as high as 30 per cent and 100 per cent respectively in the industry.
On reflection, I decide that I do believe them. Despite being watched like zoo exhibits, not being paid particularly well and working in a town where, according to my taxi driver, the only attractions are a cemetery and a fish-and-chip shop called The Codfather, Part I, the agents at ClientLogic seem genuinely happy.
However, I don't think the much-maligned call centre industry can improve the lot of its long-suffering workers by copying this rare example of employee satisfaction. For the real reason why ClientLogic agents are happy has little to do with its size, its chirpy PlayStation tournaments or any of the other perks and working practices I have mentioned so far.
The agents are happy because, as twentysomethings, their profile perfectly matches the profile of Sony PlayStation customers. They can relate to the people on the other end of the line and are enthusiastic about the product. In short, they find their work interesting. And, unfortunately for the thousands of people who work in them and for the millions of us who have to call the wretched things, this is not something that most call centres selling credit cards, settling gas bills, offering IT support and so on could ever replicate.
呼叫中心能让人开心吗
我坐在沃特福德(Watford)一处工业园的一间办公室里，5名20来岁的年轻男女正告诉我，他们热爱自己的工作。我有很多理由愿意相信他们，也有很多理由不相信。
在不信的理由中，有这样一个事实：他们的两位经理和一位公关主管和我们坐在一起。说实在的，只有疯子才会在这种场合对记者说不喜欢自己的工作。
还有一个事实，即他们的工作场所是个呼叫中心。我们都知道，如果还有什么比打电话给呼叫中心更糟糕的事，那就是在呼叫中心工作了。
如今，许多呼叫中心自称为“客户联络中心”，但人们称这些中心为21世纪黑暗的鬼磨坊，并将它们比做拥挤的现代养鸡场。起源于这些呼叫中心的恐怖故事比泰国监狱还要多。其中一个著名的故事是，某个呼叫中心的员工上厕所前必须举手。另一个传闻是，某个呼叫中心要求职员用尿布，以缩短他们不在电话旁的时间。的确，呼叫中心的工作已变成悲惨的代名词。几个月前，我反复告诉呼叫中心协会(Call Centre Association)这一点。他们回答说，并非如此。在英国有大量“客户联络中心”是极佳的工作场所。比如沃特福德的ClientLogic。这家呼叫中心赢得了2004年年度呼叫中心大奖，它处理的是针对索尼PlayStation的问询。
我花了一上午的时间去核实他们的说法是否属实，迄今为止的迹象令人鼓舞。有些东西令呼叫中心成为悲惨的工作场所，而ClientLogic似乎已系统性地消除了这些东西：(1)它的办公室小巧、舒适，有大约50名员工，而不是许多人挤在一个没有窗、不通风的大房间里；(2)客服人员不必按照正式的讲稿念，那些讲稿规定了问好和道别等的专门说法；(3)公司意识到，接听来电可能极其单调乏味，因此鼓励客服人员交替处理电话问询、电子邮件和监控互联网论坛；(4) 并不禁止客服人员在接电话的间隙闲聊，甚至鼓励他们在空闲时间玩索尼PlayStation游戏；(5)允许客服人员在接到漫骂电话后有定神恢复的时间；(6)有迹象表明存在职业发展机会；(7)不要求客服人员用尿布。
总而言之，这里相当不错，但并非十全十美。尽管口头上有种种向员工授权的言论，但沃特福德的ClientLogic仍积极采用某些令呼叫中心工作乏味得可怕的东西。一些呼叫中心被比作圆形监狱，即19世纪社会改革家杰里米?边沁(Jeremy Bentham)所设想的环形监狱工厂。他们监督员工成瘾。
有一种可怕的软件系统来实施这种监督工作，它的名字倒不可怕――蓝南瓜(Blue Pumpkin)。控制中心分析师保罗?蒂瑟拉奇(Paul Titheradge)向我展示了该系统的工作方式。“它是呼叫中心的心脏，”他指着屏幕上纷乱的柱状图解释说。“从这里我们可以安排客服人员轮班，通常一班7个半小时，其中包含两段带薪的15分钟休息时间，半小时不带薪的午餐时间。如果屏幕是紫色，就表明情况很好，但如果是红色，就意味着客服人员没有在做他们该做的事。”
该系统也监督上厕所的时间吗？“我们有一种称为排班契合率的东西，我们把指标设在93%。”那是什么意思？“我们预计客服人员在93%的时间内都在做他们该做的事。”天哪！我的排班契合率必定只有40%左右，如果把上厕所的时间算进去，那就只有30%了。蓝南瓜是不是有点法西斯的味道？“如果我们放任自流，那我们就不知道工作情况如何了。有了这个，我就可以知道人们是不是在混日子。”
当那5名20来岁的男女员工微笑着坐在我对面，表示他们如何热爱这份工作时，上述对话在我脑海中掠过，两位经理和公关主管摆出的一些正面事实也在我脑中掠过，例如中心低于平均数的缺勤率和员工流动率，在这个行业中，这两个指标分别可高达30%和100%。
我沉思了一下，确定我真的相信他们。虽然他们像动物园展览的动物那样被监视着，薪水也不是太高，而且据送我来的出租车司机称，在他们工作的这个小镇上，唯一有意思的地方就是一个公墓和一家名为“Codfather第一部”的炸鱼及薯条店，但ClientLogic的员工看上去真的很开心。
但我认为，对于倍受攻击的呼叫中心行业来说，不可能通过仿效这一少有的令员工满意的模范中心，来改善其从业人员长期受罪的状况。因为尽管ClientLogic员工感到开心，但开心的真正原因与公司的规模、活跃的PlayStation锦标赛，或者我提到的其它任何额外好处及工作安排都没什么关系。
员工之所以感到开心，是因为作为20来岁的年轻人，他们的性情特征与索尼PlayStation的顾客非常吻合。他们能与电话线另一头的人沟通，并对产品充满热情。简言之，他们认为自己的工作很有趣。但不幸的是，对于成千上万在可怜的呼叫中心里工作的人，以及数百万不得不打电话给这些呼叫中心的人来说，ClientLogic的情形，是多数卖信用卡、结算煤气账单、提供IT支持之类的呼叫中心永远都无法复制的。
