Original Publication: Customer Management Insight - July 2007
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Are you underestimating the value of your contact center environment? You may be surprised at what a few small improvements can do for your bottom line.
One day, some archaeologist (with or without the bullwhip and fedora) will discover what will turn out to be the oldest fork uncovered to date. The Archaeological Certification Board will identify this object as a fork because, well, duh, it looks like a fork: pointy bits at one end, a handle on the other, it’s just big enough to grab with your hand. What do you think it is? A boomerang? And just as the design of forks has certain timeless qualities, so do call centers.
Overall Spatial Organization/Aesthetics
If you cram your agents into tiny little boxes, they’re going to feel like lab animals — and will likely perform about as well. Managers need to take great care in designing the layout of the call center floor to keep the agents from feeling crammed in and underappreciated.
“We recommend organizing workstations into clusters where each member feels like a part of a cohesive, recognizable team, not just one of 500 worker bees,” says Rick Burkett, principal of Denver-based BurkettDesign Inc. “We also recommend having low agent-to-supervisor ratios and lots of coaching stations [located among clustered workstations] so that spontaneous training can occur in a healthy environment.”
But that alone isn’t enough. “Agents are, generally speaking, treated badly by companies with regard to environment,” says Roger Kingsland, managing partner with Kingsland Scott Bauer Associates (KSBA) of Pittsburg, which specializes in architecture, planning, interior design and project management of call centers. “The aesthetics in the typical call center leaves much to be desired. And the money that companies think they are saving by not investing in office aesthetics, they lose twice over in terms of agent turnover.”
Many options exist for enhancing call center aesthetics. Little things can make a big difference — paint the walls something other than mental-asylum-on-a-budget beige, put some colorful art or decorations on the walls. Plants bring color and a more organic feeling to the call center and go a long way toward creating positive attitudes among agents and fending off burnout.
Ensure Individual Workstations Are Ergonomically Correct
Remember Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother? She’s the patron saint of ergonomics (the science of keeping people in mind when designing things that will be used by people). She understood a thing some people still don’t grasp: One shoe won’t fit every foot. Accordingly, one workstation is not going to fit every agent.
Research has shown direct links between good ergonomics and enhanced employee performance. For example, following a comprehensive study of the impact of ergonomically designed furniture on productivity of employees who use video display terminals, Springer Associates concluded that ergonomically sound furniture contributed to a 10 percent to 15 percent performance improvement, with one-third of this improvement being attributed to enhanced seating alone.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has estimated that employers spend about $120 billion a year on costs directly and indirectly related to poor ergonomics. According to call center furniture designer Interior Concepts, about one-third of workers’ compensation dollars are spent on repetitive motion injuries — injuries quite common in call centers. Such high costs can be avoided by making a relatively small investment of time and money in effective workstation design.
Call centers need to ensure that agents are well-versed in making adjustments to their equipment for ideal comfort. Alliant Utilities’ call center in Janesville, Wis., in addition to providing all agents with 7'x7' cubicles equipped with ergonomically advanced chairs, footrests/armrests and adjustable workstation desktops, brings in an occupational therapist to work with each new training class. The therapist shows each new-hire how to adjust the equipment and position his or her body to avoid repetitive stress injuries.
All call centers should adopt a similar program, recommends Burkett. “A good way to say you care, and to back up your words with action, is to provide good equipment and train people how to use it. Many benefits follow, including reduced agent injury and absenteeism, lower health insurance costs, increased productivity and higher employee morale.”
Cubes, Pods and Teaming Spaces
More agents are now sitting around cores, also known as hub-and-spokes or pods, where they face central cores separated by partitions. This high-density design helps reduce noise.
Unfortunately, these designs leave the agents' backs exposed, provide no privacy and permit supervisors to sneak up at any time. To circumvent this, some call center agents fit mirrors to their stations in order to see behind them.
"If you need more aggressive supervision, then rectilinear rows, hub-and-spokes work fine," says Kingsland. "If your supervision is less aggressive, then more conventional cubes, with three or three-and-a-half panels, offer more privacy."
If your call center works in teams, you should consider either a workbench design where more than one agent and desktop share the same primary work surface, or conventional cubes arranged around a supervisor's station. This way they can focus on individual and group tasks as needed.
Some design firms, such as Workplace USA, have pointed out that pods and zigzags not only cost up to 15% more, they also consume up to 20% more space because they require more circulation room between workstations. They claim that these designs have not proved more effective at retaining and attracting agents.
Poor Acoustics Can Be Costly
Call centers, with their open-plan workstations and incessant noise, present a daunting acoustical challenge. Agents who can’t hear callers clearly are more likely to make mistakes or be forced to continually ask customers to repeat information. Neither is going to help your bottom line. And customers don't like hearing background noise when talking to agents.
Careful space layout will help minimize acoustical interference. Other measures are often required. Many well-designed call centers, according to Kingsland, attain “acoustic privacy” by introducing partial-height screens, highly absorptive ceilings and walls, and “noise-masking” systems that mask sounds such as human speech with a slightly louder sound.
“Typically, the sound is provided by a specially designed random noise generator and a series of loudspeakers installed in the ceiling,” explains Kingsland. This masking noise becomes a permanent part of the call center environment. Kingsland stresses that the system mustn’t be turned off while the call center is occupied or the masking effect will be lost. A typical noise-masking system costs as much as $1 per square foot. Examples of call centers that have effectively implemented noise-masking systems are AT&T’s Customer Care Center in Pittsburgh and Liberty Mutual in Phoenix.
Don’t Use a Bulldozer where a Broom will Do
Do you have a bunch of fanatical go-getters whose single driving purpose in life is to see how many calls they can field superbly every hour? Are there also, well, agents on your team who are a little less spectacular than that? And, yeah (you’re nodding your head grimly) you probably have a couple of agents you’re afraid to leave alone for more than 30 seconds.
When designing or redesigning a call center, be very precise about how much supervision you provide and to whom. This will affect how your call center’s design will be determined. You may be forced to hire less-than-ideal people who need more supervision than you had planned. If so, managers’ cubicles will need to be more centrally located.
Another danger is that managers can start micromanaging the good agents as well as the bad. If you’re trying to lose those good agents, that’s really probably the best way, short of firing them outright, of accomplishing that questionable goal. Your agents — good and not so good — face enough challenges — don’t joggle their elbows excessively.
Fava Beans and a Nice Chianti
In “Silence of the Lambs,” one of Hannibal Lecter’s demands in exchange for his help is for a transfer from his subterranean prison cell to one with a window so he can look outside and see some running water or a tree.
How many of your agents have a window? The ones who don’t — What horrible thing, exactly, did they do?
Management at centers serious about enhancing agent performance understand the stress agents face day after day on the phones. That’s why they provide special amenities to agents cool down and gear up.
For example, TeleCorp (an affiliate of AT&T Wireless) has taken innovative measures to ensure that agents remain fresh and enthusiastic. In addition to window seats for all agents, the company’s Memphis call center features a full-sized fitness center and an onsite wellness program.
“We looked at every aspect of the working environment and incorporated innovative design and amenities so our employees will be prepared to provide the very best service to our customers,” explains Scott Weismiller, TeleCorp’s vice president of customer care.
Alliant Utilities’ call center features two “quiet rooms” — each equipped with couches/recliners, books and CD players — where agents can retreat during breaks. One room has exercise machines for those who want to burn off their stress. The call center even contracts with a local massage therapist who works on tense agents during peak season (April through October).
The company reports that its investment has more than paid off in the form of reduced agent absenteeism and turnover, as well as increased productivity.
But merely duplicating what other call centers have done may not be the best solution for your center, says Kingsland. “Things like a fitness center can end up being a big waste of money if your agents don’t use it. Find out what they want before investing in what you think they want. You might put in a fitness room and then find out that agents would have been much happier with a simple barbecue pit out back.”
Let There Be Light
Many employee health problems are tied to eyestrain caused by lighting that doesn’t correspond to the unique requirements of video-display terminals (VDTs), according to Kingsland. Call centers, he explains, require uniform ambient lighting for VDTs, and task lighting for hard copy reading and writing. “Computer terminals act as mirrors that reflect ceiling glare, causing eye strain,” he says. “Therefore, a uniform light level at the ceiling is important, and because VDTs produce their own illumination, the level of illumination required for comfortable viewing is approximately half the level needed for hardcopy reading and writing.”
According to Kingsland, the best ambient lighting system is indirect lighting. Such systems are usually mounted between 18 and 24 inches below the ceiling and shine upward. In addition to reducing glare, indirect lighting creates a calming level of light throughout the workspace.
Don’t limit lighting improvements to the phone floor. Agents also spend a fair amount of time in conference and training rooms. Poor lighting can cause subtle distractions during important meetings or coaching sessions. In break rooms, poor lighting may interfere with the agents’ ability to rejuvenate before returning to the floor, adds Burkett.
“Conference and training rooms should be brighter than the phone floor [so that agents remain alert and ready to receive important information],” Burkett explains. “Whereas break rooms should always have lots of natural lighting and a completely different feel than the rest of the facility.”
Communications Impact
E-mails and instant messaging are becoming the preferred tools of interacting with employees. Studies show the managers often send them rather than meeting one-on-one. Physically conversing with someone is more disruptive to work than communicating electronically. You could be following a series of instant messages and e-mails while looking at a screen and talking to someone on the phone. But if someone walked over in person, you would have to give them your undivided attention.
If that is the case, then you can use standard cube rows. Also, where your employees sit is no longer important. They could be at the other end of the floor, on another floor, or at home. Look into buying workstations that permit agents to adjust them to fit their needs and to change positions to prevent getting stiff.
Headsets, Sweet Headsets
Headsets have long been the leading ergonomics appliances at call centers for good reason. They are an affordable method of preventing discomfort and damage to the neck and shoulders. Headset manufacturer Plantronics cites a Santa Clara Valley Medical Center study that shows that headsets reduce neck, upper back, and shoulder tension by as much as 41percent. An additional study by H.B. Maynard concluded that adding hands-free headsets to office telephones improved productivity by up to 43 percent.
If your call center is noisy (what with all that pen clicking, food eating, coffee slurping, etc.), consider noise-canceling microphones and binaural (two-eared) earpieces.
To get the highest level of agent comfort and acoustical performance, headsets must be adjustable.
Issue each employee his or her own headset and make each employee responsible for it. Do not have your agents share headsets with others. Why? For the same reason you wouldn’t expect them to share their toothbrushes: It’s not hygienic.
Another option is to buy bone-conduction headsets. The units don't transmit sound through the ear canal like conventional headsets but rather through the bone to the middle ear. Bone-conduction headsets are more expensive but are more sanitary and potentially safer because they do not touch the ear canal. That avoids spreading infection and prevents hearing loss by not irritating ear follicles. Bone-conduction headsets can enable you to accommodate that highly skilled older sector of the workforce that cannot use conventional headsets due to hearing loss.
Another benefit is that colleagues and supervisors can talk to agents wearing bone conduction sets while on the phones. You can't do that as easily with conventional sets.
Key Aspects of Good Workstation Ergonomics
Adjustable chairs. Look for chairs with height, back, and tilt adjustments, as well as, preferably, lumbar (lower back) support, says Christine Critchley of Systems Concepts. She recommends chairs without fixed arms, so all agents are comfortably seated close to their workstation desks.
Adjustable workstation heights. Workstations should be around 27 to 29 inches, says Critchley, and the underside of the workstation must be free of any legroom-obstructing bars or drawers.
Adjustable keyboards. Keyboards should tilt and adjust to a range of comfortable typing positions.
Foot rests. Many agents appreciate these inexpensive items during long shifts.
Wrist rests. The best wrist rests (gel-filled ones) provide some – but not too much – give, according to Christine Jacobs of Interior Concepts.
Monitor positions. The angle between the monitor and the agent’s line of vision should be zero degrees – or a maximum angle of 15 degrees below eye level, says Rick Benham, an ergonomic specialist with Hackley Health Systems. Agents should not have to look up at all to view the monitor, as this places unnecessary stress on the neck. Adjustable platforms that enable agents to make easy monitor height adjustments are ideal. Benham also recommends that the monitor itself be placed 18 to 24 inches from the agent’s eyes.
Design and the Bottom Line
Still not convinced that facilities design can have a significant impact on your contact center’s performance — and your company’s bottom line? See Best Practices in Customer Support to see more examples of how other companies are using better design to improve contact center performance.
He Started It. No, She Did. I Know You Are, But What Am I?
Also be aware of things agents do that might affect other agents’ performance levels. If your best agent smells like the Macy’s perfume counter after an earthquake, she possibly isn’t actually your best agent. Some people are allergic to perfumes, colognes, scented soaps or simply don’t like the smells of them. Perhaps two of your best agents are failing to impress because all they can smell all day are the cloying fragrances worn by other agents.
The list of human-caused annoyances in the workplace is vast: Gum chewing, knuckle cracking, pen tapping, pen clicking, licking a finger to turn a page, loud laughing, continuous sniffling, the aforementioned fire hose application of scents, loud eating, singing, whistling, humming, coffee slurping, nail clipping, stirring a cup with a spoon, cell phone ringtones that make you want to jump, questionable hygiene, “borrowing” someone’s refrigerator-stored items, taking the last cup of coffee, and squirreling away office supplies are just a few of the ways coworkers can turn work into an ordeal.
Consider ways to inform your employees, tactfully, that these behaviors (and others) might be irritating to coworkers. Sometimes, the employee in question is honestly not aware of the behavior. “I slurp my coffee? You’re kidding. Well, I’ll work on that, of course.”
