Reference no: EM133157707

Scenario Analysis

The First Appleton Resources and Technology Company, the major supplier of natural gas and electricity to communities across a large rural area, established a call centre approximately one year ago. The call centre is designed to take in-bound calls related to customer accounts and sales. Complaints are handled by a specialist team. In establishing the call centre the following Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were selected: all calls should be handled within two minutes, there should be no more than 30 seconds when staff are not ready between calls and agents must be logged in for a minimum of seven hours of an eight hour shift. To cut costs the company decided to use its existing computer system to handle the calls, even though it was slightly outdated. Under the new Automated Call Distribution Centre (ACDC) calls are sent automatically to available agents; although the supervisor can route a call to a specific person. The time spent on each call is monitored as is number of calls handled; time logged on; and average time per call takes place. For quality assessment five calls per week for each agent are monitored by the team leader. Over time the team have become very skilled at knowing when they are being monitored. Agents undertake an initial two week training period and then receive on-going training provided by the team leader and work mates. Two months ago the team leader, who had previously been with the company in a customer sales role was promoted and a new team leader was brought in from outside the company. The new team leader has a different style of management, is much more target focussed, has little product knowledge and poor people skills. Since the arrival of the new team leader the company has introduced a new Customer Resource Management System. Some information on how to use the system was provided via the Intranet, and the team leader attended a two week training course. The team leader then had the responsibility of providing this training to the team, which has not yet happened. The outdated computers are unable to handle the new system, so crash frequently. This causes calls to back up, and customers to become frustrated. In turn, this affects the agent's ability to achieve their KPIs.

Questions: 1. Identify the main stressors that the agents may experience. 2. What should management do to address these problems?