• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, September 16, 2004

Communication, Privacy and Security are Major Call Center Issues with Users

CMP Media's Managing Offshore and Call Center Magazine announced groundbreaking results from a study on the corporate and consumer use of call centers. Rusty Weston, founding editor of Managing Offshore, said "Call centers are at a low point in terms of public and media perception. Between Do Not Call registration and the controversy generated by offshoring, call centers have attracted a tremendous amount of negative attention. This study highlights that both business and consumer customers are dissatisfied with and wary of offshore call centers."

The Web-based study included more than 500 interviews in June and July 2004 on the use of call centers for personal and business purposes. Some highlights of the study include:

- Consumers were evenly split in their depth of interest in the location of a call center. Thirty six percent say it's highly important to them where the center they call is located, while 32% say it's not very important. Sixty percent of consumers sometimes or always ask the agent where the center is located.

- Outsourcers say that 65% of customers are highly satisfied. The customers themselves say they are highly satisfied only 22% of the time.

- Nearly two-thirds of both groups of respondents reported that it is difficult to understand an agent's accent.

- Staff is 'poorly trained,' agents 'misunderstood my accent or English', and agents 'were unable to resolve my problem': all of those options scored at least 40% from both groups.

- Customers are less likely to come away from an email, Web, or other 'alternate' interaction with better feelings than from a telephone call, however, customers prefer the phone to any other mode of interaction.

- One in five business customers say that they have experienced a security or privacy concern on the phone with an offshore center.

SOURCE: CMP Media LLC