The issue of productivity is crucial in determining the future of call center companies. When call center managers and supervisors don't know anything but to depend on Information Technology (IT) in measuring the performance of their staff, it will only provide numerical statistics of each call representative and each phone call received. Productivity is always measured in seconds and minutes of talk-time, idle-time, wrap-up, etc., leaving the customer behind and turning the call center into a business that produces only statistically-measured and time-marked completed phone calls.

In this set up, notoriously called Galley Slave Syndrome, a certain minimum standard of productivity is pegged at, say 20, with a threat of getting fired if it falls below 18.5. Surely, the staff will keep productivity from hitting the bottom but low morale makes them retaliate by ensuring that productivity never really goes beyond 22. In the long run, the company suffers due to a productivity that has been locked in a stationary band that never improves, resulting in high staff turn-over, with customer service and satisfaction becoming sacrificial lambs.

It is important to have some traffic measures to facilitate staffing & rostering. But that doesn't make these operational figures the product of the call center, unless you're a call-producing factory, in which case, the best way to handle the productivity issue is to instruct the reps to hang up on any call duration over 45 seconds. Or maybe even better, have the ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) to do it for you, automatically.

In a Galley Slave call center, there is a constant pressure to answer more calls with less work force to handle the calls, allowing vendors to convince desperate call center managers to implement IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems or that CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) software which can reduce call-lengths by 2 seconds on average, adding up to a productivity gain of 15% yearly, based on brain dead projections of current call figures.

In 1995, a well-known company forbid their directory inquiry reps to say 'good morning' & 'good bye' and instead used 'hi' & 'bye' to achieve productivity gains that would amount to $22 million a year. The fact that senior management bought into this brain dead projection simply underlines how far removed the call center is from the mainstream business.

Currently the worst Galley Slave call centers are: Airline reservations, Credit Card Customer Service & Telecoms. Mind you, all aren't that bad, but most are driven by call traffic numbers instead of call outcomes.

Another approach to productivity is to capitalize on the huge potential of the work force and developing these potentials to encourage growth that can produce a work index potential of 40 instead of 22. Known as the Human Potential Development Model, managers and supervisors should be equipped with the skills of managing people and measuring productivity in terms of revenue and costs, not the meaningless seconds and minutes. And the best way to start motivating your staff is measuring their performance in quality of added value to customer interaction.

The work force or the reps who actually talk to the customers are the real potential for productivity in a call center. Motivating these people is to give them a reason to do better and by bringing out the best in them. When they enjoy their job, they become more interested and fulfilled, bringing 40% of their potential instead of 20%. That's 100% productivity increase which cost the company no monetary investment. It may incur management time and effort, but it sets an environment where everybody from the manager to the newest representative is actively working to improve communication, relationship & sales skills to achieve better call outcomes.

By measuring the improved value of customer interaction with the organization and establishing call center benchmarks to measure call outcomes, a call center can effectively keep itself from falling into the trap of becoming a Galley Slave call center which is only product-focused.