The 'Call-Center Syndrome'

A day back I received a call from a local charity doing work for the under-privileged kids. They had called me on several other occasions before and I had been unable to speak to them at length. Given my interest in the same, this time I took the call with more seriousness. I told the lady on the other side of the phone that I would like to do something for the charity, as much my not-so-deep pockets would allow me to do, but may be on a later date. Hence I told her that whenever I would; be in a position to part with some contribution, I shall contact the charity. I asked for a contact and he gave me the name and number of a person. She hung over the call by telling me whom I was talking to and thasnked me for my time. Another 30 minutes went by and I was in my office busy with my work. Suddenly my phone rang again. I generally never miss my calls and despite being busy took the call. Voila…there was the same lady representing the same charity and making the same request as she would make to a fresh contact. Since the duration between two calls was so less, hence I not only remembered the name of the lady (that she told me before she hung the phone) but also almost unmistakably remembered her voice. I listened to her for a few seconds before interrupting her. I reminded her about our conversation half-an-hour back and how I had noted down the details and the contact and that I had tolf her that I would contact the charity on my own. She realized her mistake and started to profusely apologizer for her mistake. I tried telling her that I did not intend to exact an apology from her but that someone in the organization must keep a track of the conversations and must not make blind cold calls. This would in turn irritate even the genuine donors and may do the charity more harm than good. However my short lecture seemed much wasted on the lady who was going ion apologizing. Anyways I gave up…! The lady must be from one of those call centers who have been given targets that based on the number of calls made per day rather on the richness of those calls. So she was in a mad-spree like other to make as many calls per day. This is what I call the typical ‘Call-Centre Syndrome’.

I had a much contrasting but pleasant experience with another company though. I was looking for a property and called-up a reputed builder group. I had dialed the sales number given on their website and a lady answered the call. I told her about my requirements and she listened patiently. Thereafter she asked me if I had ever contacted them before. I could not remember doing that and told her so. She must have checked her database and informed me that I had contacted the builder group about 18 months back as well and at that time she had put me across to a marketing personnel called Mr. XYZ. I apologized for my short memory and thanked her for the information. She further asked me whether I would like to be put across to the same marketing personnel. I readily agreed. One thing I can tell you for sure that my trust on the real estate group increased significantly because of this initial experience. I thought in my head that a group that could keep track of past conversation with customers, for even those deals that did not materialize, for future reference should be diligent enough in its other dealings as well.

The moral of the two stories in simple and straightforward – Mindlessly bombarding the customer with calls and information shall not necessarily result in more sales and building of brand equity. The companies need to be more diligent in the way they contact customers, keeps track of the conversation and manages not data but knowledge to leverage its interests.

The same holds true when it comes to internal customers or employees as well. The companies must understand that the various channels through which it communicates to the employee, that may include the HR, supervisor, senior managers etc. must become more diligent in communication and keep track of conversations that happen during those interactions, if they really want such exercise to contribute to growth in employee trust and employer brand equity. For example there is a company that has open houses every Wednesday but most employee see it as a wasteful publicity, off-records. Such perceptions have grown because they seldom see any of the concerns shared by them in such open houses being addressed, or any of the promises made by the senior management materialize, later on.

How many times have you felt that the ideas that you shared with your lead, or the suggestions that you made, or the concerns that you raised with your supervisor were heard but little concrete did you see happening later? How many of you felt that next time you spoke to the same person, he/she could not remember the last conversation that you had with him/her, even after you gave clues and reminders? Well, if this is happening too many times then you should know that to your organization is suffering from the same ‘Call Center Syndrome’. Much of that communication is wasteful and disengaging.