Background
The case study looks at the history and nature of call centers in the Australia republic. The author states that there has been a departure from the traditional way of doing things and that the trend setters have been overridden by the new and highly active call centers set up today. The industry has been dubbed as the one that is growing at the highest rate in Australia. This has been occasioned by many problems in the capital. The main and major problem is the payment associated with workers. The workers are paid too little and the salaries are kept before being paid. The other very big problem is the bad image that has been associated with call centers. This has made the call centers to have very negative and highly precarious and unwarranted publicity. Although in essence this is not the case in all call centers in Australia the problem has bedeviled many a company that it has become too wide spread. This calls for government intervention. Much need to be done to salvage the growing industry in Australia.
The public has also been complaining as the archaic way of doing things at call centers has not been shed off by the companies offering these services making it to hard to have any direct and fruitful connection with the public when it comes to matters important in the companies and industries. The manner of building structures is always a problem and much needs to be done to salvage public negative view of the call centers as this will make them acceptable to the people all over Australia.
The case study further tries to come to terms with the reason why turnover at the call centers tends to be high and ever-growing and this is not been reflected in such areas as the remuneration of employees and the structural development of the individual companies that basically are the pillars of growth in Australia.
Analysis of Case Study
The case study basically is an overview of the nature of call centers in the Australian country ad how it has translated many problems to the public in as much as it is making much money. It has been billed as the best industry in the country in as much as it is having all these problems. Therefore the case study tries to have an all-around outlook of the issues at hands such as government and public interest and the many other things that come in between.
When entered into the call centers look so beautiful and their present ability is just wowing. It has very beautifully tiled walls and floors and the nature of welcoming is out of this world. However, this is always not the case when it comes to media depiction of the whole industry which leaves a lot to be desired. The media has been overly critical of the industry and its depiction to the outside of too much criticism and complaints. It has scathing remarks directed towards the companies claiming that its customer service is below par and that it is the high time they are styled up.
In the actual sense, everybody that happens to be a stakeholder in the call center business is happy and fulfilled and this draws a very sharp contrast to the media depictions. The employees are highly trained and their training is done over and over again. This is done on regular basis and it sometimes draws criticism as this is not in the public interest to have people trained over and over again. However, at a personal level, it is a good thing as it improves customer service and makes customers happy with the services offered at the call centers especially in the Australian capitals which are multicultural and mixed.
The case study gives an example of salesforce: a company that was voted to be best in service delivery and customer service in the previous year. It says that employees in that company should be happy at the successes of the company which means their work is highly appreciated and liked by many. It attributes this to customer sales turnover but does not actually look at the employees. By turnover sales, the company was actually the most successful in the country and it is a far cry from the industry which still lags behind in some sectors such as technological advancement and greater customer mindedness.
Many complain have emerged pertaining to employer manager relationships that mainly borders on the nature of the business. This means the companies that mainly have this type of problem include especially those with many branches and hence high turnover which they want to maintain meaning they put too much pressure on employees. This pressure mainly makes employees feel like machines rather than people who have rights and have requirements associated with them in workplaces such as a greater need for warmth and comfort. This is especially true where employees want to follow statistics that they have not commissioned hence not exactly approved, to impose working conditions on employees. They especially want to have a specific time for answering calls, which is almost robotic and inapplicable. When abandoning calls an average amount of time has to be followed and this also applies to other many areas that leave employees disgruntled and make it look too official and inhuman making results backfire on the managers.
Solution
The many problems that bedevil these companies can be solved according to the case study. Drawing from examples from the most successful company in Australia, Salesforce, the industry needs to firmly employ people who have attitudes. Other companies look for training and a battalion of skills. Salesforce argues that whereas skills and training can be done to an individual which can radically change their service delivery for the better, their attitude is rooted in them and cannot change at all. Therefore right attitude will majorly define the right employees. This will solve the problem of employee-manager conflict based on service delivery and make it more possible to have a direct impact on employees who most of the time bear the brunt or enjoy the nature of the relationship between the two.
Salesforce also draws its employees from all walks of nature. This includes mothers, young people who have got swagger formal and informal. This mixture of people with very different characteristics ranging from age to personality ensures that there is good and on-point customer satisfaction. Young people will interact very well with fellow young people and this is the main goal of having many very different people working in the same environment. This solves the problem of a bloc of certain customers feeling like they are been left out.
The company has many other features that completely make it stand out. They have employee induction that makes sure that he is culture-oriented. This culture is a concoction of fun, entertainment, creativity, product knowledge that is insurmountable and also a goal towards the performance-based measure of position and standing of an employee. This makes employees have a good and direct impact on the customers and makes the rating of companies remain high. It is a challenge to other companies to emulate the kind of employee culture that has been followed by salesforce which will see their revenues and status grow and make them known to the entire industry.
General Lessons
An industry may be dubbed as the worst but a good company within it may completely draw a sharp contrast to such a conclusion. This is the case with salesforce which operates in a highly critiqued industry but remains to be the best in Australia. Employees should be the basis from which a company operates and should seek to grow from. This is depicted where salesforce employs programs that are employee-oriented such as good training, performance-based payments, awards for good well done and others. This makes that translate to the customer and to grow company revenues. A happy employee, therefore, translates to a happy customer and hence growth in the company.
Managers should develop strategies that work for the benefit of companies as it will work towards making them remain in the company and grow customer satisfaction. Salesforce has had employers for over six years. This will mean that even employees will remain and culture will not be hard to grow in such an environment.
Reference
Prescribed Text – McShane, S. and Travaglione, T. (2007) Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim Focus, McGraw Hill Irwin: Sydney