C A S E

Asian Journal of Case

Research
3(1): 1 11 (2010)

Call Centres: Modern-day Sweat Shops?

JO ANN HOa*, KENG KOK TEEb AND SIVAGNAM KAVITHAc

ABSTRACT

The ICS Regional Support Centre (RSC) is a call centre which

provides technical support services to customers from the ASEAN
region and around the world. The centres dilemma arises because of
the stressful call centre environment and the high turnover rate among
its service agents. This case highlights the problems related to the
agents daily tasks, such as repetitive duties, dealing with difficult and
irate customers, and sense of powerlessness over the job due to the
strict scripts to be followed. This case was written with a medium level
of difficulty and can be used to teach human resource management and
organizational behaviour, especially in terms of benefits, training and
career development for retention and job satisfaction.
Keywords: Call centre, job satisfaction, turnover, human resource,
career development

THE DILEMMA

As Gerry, the call centre manager, passed the pantry, he overhead the following
conversation:
Adam : I am fed-up of being pin-pointed for every small mistake
I make.
Chris : I know what you mean Casey constantly picks on
my communication skills. How am I supposed to
improve my communication, if we are not offered any
communication classes here at work?
Eddie : Thats not the only thing Casey picks on. I feel as if
I have no room to move here. I was caught in the rain
when I went for lunch the other day and when I came
back10 minutes past my lunch time. I was pulled to
Graduate School of Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia
* Corresponding author: Email: hja@econ.upm.edu.my
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Asian Journal of Case Research (AJCR)

the room for an explanation. Despite me telling this

was not intentional, I was lectured to adhere to the
schedule.
Gerry wondered if this was one of the reasons for the declining service level
at the customer call centre. The strategic alliance which Gerrys company had
hoped to form with a leading information technology company had hit a glitch.
The company had threatened to pull out of the partnership because of the unmet
targets of the post sale support. Furthermore, the top management at Gerrys
own company had demanded an explanation over the declining service level and
high staff turnover at the call centre. He needed to find out what was causing the
employees to leave their jobs and to resolve the issue fast.

INTEGRATED COMPUTING SYSTEMS (ICS)

Integrated Computing Systems (ICS) was founded in the early 1900s and
quickly became one of the leading information technology (IT) companies in
the world. The company has operations in 164 countries and employes more
than 200,000 people. ICS products include large servers, supercomputers, midrange servers, personal computers, notebooks, software, network printers and
outsourcing services. Apart from these products, ICS also provides solutions to
various industries such as banking, telecommunications, education, petroleum,
manufacturing, multimedia and electronics and insurance. In 1961, ICS set up its
operations in Malaysia.
In 2002, ICS set up its Regional Support Centre (RSC) at Cyberjaya, an
MSC (Multimedia Super Corridor) zone in Malaysia1. The centre was to provide
post-sale integrated technical frontline services, pre-sale technical support and
strategic outsourcing helpdesk support to ICSs clients as well as to ICS offices
worldwide. Facilities at the Centre included six business units which supported
22 outsourced clients. The total space at ICS was 25,000 square feet and it housed
400 workstations which operated 24 hours every day.
Employee information for RSC is shown in Table 1. About 82% of RSCs
workforce consisted of fixed-term contract workers and 18% were permanent
employees. The support centre handled about 14,000 calls per month and provided
services to 95,000 end users for the outsourced clients. The RSC provided support
to countries such as Asia Pacific, Middle East, the United States, Australia and
New Zealand.
MSC Malaysia (formerly known as the Multimedia Super Corridor) is a Malaysian initiative for
the global information and communication technology (ICT) industry. Conceptualized in 1996,
MSC Malaysia hosts more than 900 multinationals, foreign-owned and home-grown Malaysian
companies focused on multimedia and communications products, solutions, services and research
and development.

Call Centres: Modern-day Sweat Shops?

Table 1 Employee workforce at RSC
Year

Nationality

Gender

Malaysians

Non-Malaysians

Males

Females

2002

158

40

95

63

2003

192

48

115

77

2004

220

55

132

88

2005

232

58

140

92

2006

240

60

144

96

2007

264

66

158

106

2008

275

67

165

110

MEETING EMPLOYEE NEEDS AT

THE REGIONAL SUPPORT CENTRE

The recruitment, selection and training functions for ICSs Regional Support
Centre (RSC) were outsourced to Manpower Staffing Services Malaysia Sdn Bhd.
The RSC manager would notify Manpower on the occasions he needed to hire
a new agent and Manpower would then provide the manager with a pool of
rsum. The managers would interview and select the suitable candidates from
the pool provided.
New agents who had been hired would undergo a basic employee orientation
programme conducted by Manpower. The orientation provided by Manpower
would equip the new recruits with information on the employees benefits and
entitlements. After this session, the new recruits would undergo a two month
training program with the team leader of the group to understand the operations
needs, job functions and product knowledge and processes. The training
programme also contained the following modules:

Organizational structure, culture and expected work ethics

Basic organizational practices/policies leave, amenities, rostering, car

parks

Primary organizational goals objectives, targets, Key Performance Indices,

quality measures, security, business conduct

Basic Tools core PC operation, call-logging, telephone usage & techniques

Customer Environment Familiarization Program

The training program for the new employees is shown in Figure 1.

Only after this training programme were the new recruits assigned to attend
calls from customers. To keep the employees constantly updated with the latest
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Asian Journal of Case Research (AJCR)

Local Agents
(New Hires Onboard
from Agency)
OR
Foreign Agents
(New Hires Onboard
from Agencies
Include WP
Applications)

1 Week
Orientation,
Basic Training,
Programs

3 Weeks
Assigned to
Desk with
Senior Agents
As Mentors

1 Week
Readiness
Evaluation
by Ops Mgrs &
Team Leaders

Figure 1 Training programme of for new employees

products and processes, weekly emails on new technical and process information
would be sent out to all employees.
RSC provided two in-house pantries which provided free beverages and
refreshments to the employees. There were also specially designed rest rooms
equipped with satellite television and a pool table for employees to relax after their
days work. Figure 2 shows the performance management used in the Regional
Service Centre.

THE KEY PEOPLE AT RSC

Gerry Lim, RSCs Manager

Gerry Lim joined ICS as a customer services engineer in 1992. Gerry, who
holds a degree in electronics and electrical engineering, was part of the onsite
services team which visited customer locations to repair and service machine
breakdowns. He was trained to handle the technical details of the point-of-sales
Focus On

ICSs Strategy

Employee Needs

Long Term Goals Competitiveness,

Sustainability & Business Growth
Short Term Goal Operation Effectiveness & Customer
Satisfaction

Recognition, Knowledge, Job Satisfaction,

Employee Satisfaction
Sense of Belonging, Money

Methods of Delivery
Incentive &
Recognition

Training &
Development

Performance &
Morale Mgmt

Agent of the Months

Client Delights Program
Floor Incentive Program
Wall of Fame

GLC e-Learning
CQM Coaching
Product Training
Customer Application Training
Customer Service Training
Leadership Training

Quarterly Performance Review

Relationship Building
Coffee session
One-To-One Interview
Oval Table
Team Meeting

Figure 2 ICS RSCs retention and attrition model

Call Centres: Modern-day Sweat Shops?

(POS) products. Three years later, his position was changed to team leader and
assumed responsibilities to serve a higher range of products which included
ICS mainframes and servers. Gerry demonstrated outstanding interpersonal and
leadership skills throughout his career in ICS and he was awarded The Most
Outstanding Team Leader award twice. To further develop his career, Gerry
enrolled for a Master of Business Administration degree at a local university on
a part-time basis, which he successfully completed two years later.
Gerry was given a new challenge to develop and manage the Regional Call
Centre in 2002. The main goal of the centre was to reduce cost and this was
accomplished by resolving customer issues remotely (through phone). Gerry
made many studies of existing call centres in other regions such as Japan and
Australia. These centres provided technical support to customers for similar
product group and it helped him understand the basic requirements of recruiting,
facilities and tools needed to support customers. He faced many challenges in
grasping the new technicalities of running a call centre such as understanding the
technology and tools in handling live calls through toll free numbers. Gerry stated,
I was overwhelmed by the amount of information I had to read up on. I was also
afraid of trying and failing. But Im glad everythings working out now.

Casey Lee, RSCS Team Leader

Casey Lee Chee Seng joined the Service Centre in mid 2004. He graduated
with a degree in Information Technology from a local university. When he first
joined the Service Centre, Casey was placed as a front line helpdesk technical
agent supporting customers from Singapore and Malaysia. Customers were often
impressed with Caseys professional attitude and often complimented him for his
support. Caseys positive customer feedback and his continued interest to upgrade
himself with new skills prompted Gerry to promote Casey to the team leader
position. There was no team leader reporting to Gerry prior to this, but Gerry felt
this would be a good move to boost Caseys morale and also provide him with a
career path within the division.
The team leader position was a new job function created for the team.
Casey was required to assist in handling the customer complaints which often
times was the main reason of stress for the front line helpdesk agents. Although
handling disgruntled and dissatisfied customers were time consuming, Casey took
the trouble of listening to the customers. Caseys other job functions included
scheduling agents work, leave approvals, call quality monitoring, coaching and
mentoring and managing the teams performance.

Marie Tan, RSCs Customer Satisfaction Representative

Marie Tan Siew Kim was a fresh graduate with a degree in Information Technology
from a local college. She joined the Service Centre in June 2006 immediately
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after graduation. She was hired to take over the customer satisfaction issues
which consumed too much of Caseys time, as he needed to focus more on
managing the team and its performance.
The Service Centre agents were impressed with Maries communication
skills and often referred to her for the best ways to communicate and speak to
customers over difficult issues. Maries good communication and interpersonal
skills helped her adapt well to the call centre environment. After undergoing
training on the products and process, she was placed to handle complaints from
customers. However, things did not go so well for her after two months into
the job. Her skills often did not help console an angry customer. Almost all the
complaining customers would rather have their lines transferred to someone with
authority such as a manager or a team leader. Customers were of the opinion
that their complaints would be attended to only if it was handled by people with
authority and who had more power to honour their word.
Marie spoke to Gerry about this and on a few occasions expressed the
difficulties she faced with the customers. Although she tried to convince the
customers on their support and coverage, often times they ended up demanding
for support or services which were not part of the warranty.

A DEAD-END JOB?

Gerry reviewed the telephony reports for the month of September and October
2008 (Table 2). He could see that the abandoned calls rate was very high for
these months as the service level achieved was way below the minimum 5%
service level agreement of the Service Centre. Even the 90% service level for call
Table 2 Telephony Call Statistics for September and October 2008
Target
Calls Offered

September 2008

October 2008

Actual

Actual

13,453

Calls Answered ACD

13,144

11,993

10,689

Calls Answered ACD within 60 secs

60 secs

10,164

7,563

% ACD within 60 secs

>90%

75.60%

57.50%

Total Calls Abandon (ABN)

1,460

2,455

ABN after 60 secs

60 secs

676

1,493

% calls ABN after 60 secs

<5% @ 60 secs

5.30%

12.30%

Average Abandon Time

<60 secs

0:01:08

0:01:24

Avg Speed of Answer (ASA)

0:00:22

0:00:48

*Total Calls (ACD + ABN >60 secs)

12,669

12,182

Call Centres: Modern-day Sweat Shops?

pickup within 60 seconds was poor. He was wondering whether the number of
agents he had for Service Centre was adequate to handle the volume of calls
coming in through the hotline.
Gerry also examined the Service Centre Calls Received and Answered
Report (Table 3) for the months January till October 2008.
Table 3 Service Centre Calls Received and Answered: January October 2008
Jan

Feb

March April

May

June

July August Sept

Oct

Calls Received 13,127 12,590 14,487 11,175 13,703 13,399 13,863 13,808 13,453 13,144
Calls Answered 11,884 11,822 13,512 10,828 12,739 12,561 12,264 13,225 11,993 10,689

He recalled a conversation he had with Casey a few months ago. Casey had
complained to him the employee absenteeism rate had been on the high trend
where many were calling in sick and taking emergency leaves. This had resulted
in the working employees handling more calls individually, than the usual, to
reduce the abandoned rates caused by the absent members of the team.
The highly competitive IT industry was also dominated by five other
companies. One of ICSs competitors had also set-up operations in Cyberjaya
last year. This competitor was now on a hiring spree as he had seen many banners
around Cyberjaya advertising their walk-in interviews. Gerry had also received
the exit interview reports from Manpower which stated that six of the Service
Centre agents had joined the competitor in the last quarter of 2008. The competitor
had offered permanent jobs to the agents.
In the past, Gerry had received many feedbacks that the service centre agents
felt a dead end in their career growth. These agents were hired on a fixed term
contract basis which was renewable yearly depending on their performance.
However, Gerry had tried to ensure that the employees did not have any sense
of job insecurity. He had even helped convert some of the agents who performed
extremely well in their duties to permanent staff. He thought this would be
a motivating factor and that the agents would work harder to prove their
capabilities.

STRESS, STRESS AND MORE STRESS FOR THE AGENTS

Gerry initiated an internal survey to be conducted among the Service Centre

agents in mid 2007. The survey, conducted by the human resource department,
was aimed to determine the major reasons for the agents stresses. He started
to look through his archived emails for the results which HR had sent to him.
The causes of stress as presented by HR according to the survey are as shown in
Table 4.
Gerry could see that the situations from the stress survey results caused
emotional strain, stress and fluctuations of moods during the agents working
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Asian Journal of Case Research (AJCR)

Table 4 Causes of stress among agents at the service centre
1. High levels of monitoring.
2. The agent had a reduced degree of personal control over his or her own work levels.
3. A wide range of knowledge is required about many aspects of the operations, processes and
products.
4. The agent was often in the firing line of a callers complaint about the services or
products of his or her organization. It was difficult not to take the callers frustration or
disappointment personally, especially as he or she was not directly responsible for the
cause of the callers complaint.
5. After a difficult or confrontational call it was difficult to unwind afterwards.
6. The role of an agent required him or her to multi-task a number of different operations at
the same time. For example listening and speaking to the caller, typing information into the
computer and navigating the system
7. The agent needed to quickly identify the mood of the caller so that they can respond
appropriately.
8. The agent often had to behave in a way which may be contrary to the way he or she was
actually feeling.
9. The agent had to disguise his or her true feelings.
10. The agent needed to have good language skills.
11. The agent needed to have good listening skills.
12. The agent needed to display a positive interest in the caller.
13. The agent needed to learn how to stop taking home, work problems and pressures.
14. The agent needed to have the same level of energy and enthusiasm at the end of the
working day as at the beginning.
15. The agent needed to sound interested even if it is at the two-hundredth time of asking.

hours. Having worked in the customer services division before, Gerry knew
how difficult and demanding customers could get. He was aware that customer
complaints frequently occurred when they refused to accept the warranty limitation
and support as stated in the terms and conditions of their warranty cards. These
customers would insist on being offered something which was not part of the
warranty conditions. This would happen even after the customer had been briefed
at the time of product purchase by the sales executive regarding the terms and
conditions of the warranty coverage.
Based on Gerrys experience, the customers from Singapore were usually the
highest number of complainants. As a result, the agents handling the Singapore
calls were highly stressed. The Service Centre agents commented that the
Singaporeans were always more demanding in terms of services expected and
response to their problems.

THE EXIT INTERVIEWS

Gerry requested Manpower to provide him with the information on the reasons
for the agents resignation which were collected from the exit interviews.
Manpower reverted to him with the exit interview findings as shown in Table 5
below:
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Call Centres: Modern-day Sweat Shops?

Table 5 Results of the exit interviews
Reasons for leaving

Sense of powerlessness or lack of control on the job

Repetition of tasks

13

Daily physical confinement (tied to the desk)

12

Heavily monitored (feeling of being spied on)

Stress over handling complaints and problems all day

14

Lack of job security (Contractual position)

Salary package offered is lower compared to other company(s)

12

Lack of training

13

Lack of career growth

17

Leaving the position to further education

The information indicated many factors which caused the agents to resign.
The positions offered to them currently were contractual positions which were
renewable yearly. Although the contracts were renewed, this was dependent on
the agents performance on the job. As such, most of the employees preferred
a permanent job since it provided them better job security. Many of them also
believed that their career growth in the call centre was stagnant and that they
had no opportunity to grow within the company. Furthermore, almost all of them
performed the same tasks every day and the customers they supported were
also from the same group. For example, an agent who is skilled at supporting
customers from Singapore would stay in the same support group throughout his
or her working period in the call centre.
Salary package was another factor indicated in the exit interview findings for
the agents who left the job. Majority of the agents had left to join other competitors
within Cyberjaya. Many of these companies offered higher allowances to the
employees based on the shift requirements and these allowances provided was a
significant increase to the employees basic salary.

THE AGENTS OUTCRY

All the Service Centre agents were scheduled with daily login, logout, break and
lunch hours. They were monitored based on their schedules and when situations
like unplanned leaves, sick leaves or delayed return form lunch occurred, the
team lead would hold them responsible for affecting the teams performance for
the day. Every call received and made by the agent was recorded and the team
leader would listen to the calls on a weekly basis. The call quality monitoring
was performed for the purpose of improving the quality of the call and it helped
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to determine if there were any weaknesses in the skill level of the agent or any
improvement needed on processes in practice for the team. As the monitoring was
performed, the team leader did personal coaching sessions with the agents whom
he believed lacked in product or process knowledge. The agents often complained
that they were affected by the constant monitoring of their activities.
The monitoring process measured the agents based on a standard set
of goals to be achieved weekly. The performances were based on the number
of calls that the agents were able to fix through phone (phone fix) against the
number of calls which they had advised the customer to send their products to
ICSs repair centre. To a certain extent, the agents skill level, product knowledge
and communications skills played a role in influencing the customer to heed the
agents advice. A customer who was willing to listen would follow the agents
advice to troubleshoot and resolve the problem through phone. However, there
were instances when the customers were difficult and refused to co-operate and
troubleshoot through phone. Customers complained the call centre was wasting
their time.
There were also times when the agents felt they were not able to commit and
react to situations based on the severity of the issue. Agents experienced stress
when the customers were unhappy with their explanations that they were not
empowered to decide on a solution, pertaining to issues which were not covered
by the usual warranty terms. The lack of empowerment often placed them in
difficult situations and this often resulted in the customer demanding to speak to
the higher management.

TABLES AND CHAIRS?

Gerry, some agents have complained to me about severe

backaches in the past few months. I initially did not take it as a
serious problem, until recently. I already have around six agents
who have complained about the same issue. Do you think the
chairs we have for them are worn out? It has been four years
since we opened the centre and we have been using the same
chairs ever since, said Casey.
I dont think so. Although it has been four years, we had
ensured that the chairs we purchased were of good quality.
Those chairs were specifically designed for the call centre
environment. What makes you think that the chairs are causing
the backaches? asked Gerry.
I recently read an article about the importance of ergonomics
in the call centre environment. I noticed some of the chairs
on the floor looked worn out and the agents were not able to
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Call Centres: Modern-day Sweat Shops?

adjust them. The adjustment locks did not work. This might
cause the agents to sit in an uncomfortable position, where
their posture was not right. I think this could affect them in the
long run, said Casey.

A WALK ON THE CALL CENTER FLOOR

As Gerry walked out from his room to approach Casey, he found the team leader
chatting and joking with his agents. He could hear a trail of laughter from the
group as they happily chatted and laughed. Can I have a share of the joke too?
asked Gerry. Casey went on to explain that one of the new hires, Rahmat Johari,
who had just been on the job for two days had to deal with a very irate customer.
The customer even took down Rahmats name and said that he was going to
report Rahmat to the Consumer Association! Rahmat was very shaken up over
the incident and had spoken to one of the senior agents regarding this. His seniors
and colleagues informed him that he had yet to encounter the worst. They advised
him to take the matter lightly and getting such calls were common. They said
that this was one of the occupational hazards of the job as a customer service
representative. His colleagues also assured him that he had nothing to worry
about as long as all details were properly checked and that the was given accurate
information about his warranty.
Gerry was amazed by the reaction of the agents over the issue. He could
see a strong bond existed between the service centre agents. They relied on each
other for emotional support, especially after a difficult call. Casey told Gerry that
the agents often gathered after office hours or during the weekends for movies,
dinners or short outings to places like Port Dickson.

A FINAL WORD

As Gerry mulled all this over, he received another resignation letter from an
agent. How am I going to detect the problem and settle it? he wondered out
loud. He thought about the exit interviews and the survey results provided by
HR. Keeping the morale of the Service Centre employees was important but it
could be a problem given the type of job that was involved. Could better human
resource practices help Gerry answer his concerns? What would he need to do to
increase the morale and job satisfaction of the agents? What steps can he take to
prevent his staff from joining competitors? With a sigh, he started drafting out
all the possible problems he found in the centre. He must ensure a solution was
attained for the sake of the team, agents and ICS.

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