Importance of Quality in Call Center Services
According to the results of a survey, more than half of the enterprises operating in our country started to call-off service in 2007. Organizations that have been providing call center services since 2000 have been active in the finance and communication sectors. Parallel to the increase in call center services, the number of outsourcing service providers has increased significantly, especially after 2007.
In this research, the purposes of using call centers are also examined. In general, internal resource call centers have the following objectives: customer service, technical support, customer loyalty and customer recovery calls and business back office services. The objectives of outsourcing call centers are: telemarketing or telemarketing, collection calls, social media and other calls. That is, customer service is the main purpose of call centers regardless of internal or outsourcing.
If the enterprises that have call center investments in the company also receive call services from external sources, these enterprises prefer the call centers within their own use for all their usage needs except telemarketing or telemarketing, and provide only telemarketing or telemarketing needs from outsourcing.
The important point here is that outsourcing call service centers use more technology than internal call centers. However, most outsourcing organizations often use the technological infrastructure of their customers. Some of them use their own technological infrastructure. As such, a technological diversity is achieved.
The call center seat capacities (call center desk) follow a breakdown by sector: 24 percent in finance and insurance, 7 percent in wholesale and retail, 4 percent in media and entertainment, 2 percent in restaurant and packaging, 2 percent in restaurant and packaging and 1 percent in the automotive industry. As can be seen, seat capacity is very high in finance and insurance sector and it is the leading one when we look at the increase rate.
When we look at the documents of the outsourcing call centers, we can see the following table:
- ISO 9001 certificate percent 81
- ISO 27001 certificate percent 56
- ISO 10002 certificate percent 38
- EN 15838 certificate percent 19
- ISO 14001 certificate percent 6
The documents prepared by outsourcing call centers are as follows:
- ISO 27001 certificate percent 16
- EN 15838 certificate percent 16
- ISO 10002 certificate percent 13
Looking at the experience of the call centers to date, the activities of the call centers are of great importance for the customer to choose the same company again. Call centers serve as a bridge between businesses and customers. Most of the time, call centers are in a position where customers recognize businesses and communicate directly. Therefore, strengthening brand perception is an important point.
What Does ISO 15838 Call Center Quality Management System Gain?
Call Centers are the centers where businesses conduct their communication not only with their customers, but also with their dealers and suppliers. This center consists of computer programs, technological infrastructure and processes as well as human resources. These centers not only answer incoming calls, but also make external calls.
In the call centers, customers are served every day of the week and around the clock, regardless of the working hours of the business they serve.
The standards that set the requirements for customer-oriented call centers to provide proper and correct service were first established by the European Standards Committee. These standards were then published by the International Standards Organization (ISO) as the ISO 15838 Call Center Quality Management System standard. This standard is an international standard that includes the requirements of call centers and is applicable for both internal and external call centers.
This standard, published by the Turkish Standards Institute in our country under the title of TS EN 15838 Customer Relations Centers - Rules for the fulfillment of the service, has been designed by considering call centers and customers on the one hand. In general, the ISO 15838 standard provides a detailed method for calling, dissatisfaction, complaints and similar situations related to the services provided by the enterprises to their customers.
As outlined above, businesses that set up and implement the ISO 15838 Call Center Management System benefit greatly, for example,
- Communication with customers is made in a controlled and quality way
- The quality of service increases and the number of customer complaints decreases with the feedback received from customers.
- Customer rights are protected
- Call center services can be monitored retrospectively
- Continuous and regular data flow is provided for the enterprise
- Customer satisfaction is created
- Effective labor and time management is applied
- Operating costs are reduced, thus increasing productivity
- Contributes to the personal development of employees
- The reputation of the business increases in the market and the brand value increases
- Business has gained superiority over its competitors
If ISO 9001 Quality Management System is applied in the company, both the establishment and integration of the ISO 15838 standard becomes easier and the above mentioned benefits exponentially grow. This system can also be easily integrated with ISO 10002 Customer Complaint Management System and ISO 27001 Information Security Management System.
What are the principles of ISO 15838 Call Center Quality Management System?
Businesses are turning to ISO 15838 standard in order to increase communication activities with their customers and reduce unnecessary time and labor costs. The basic principles of this system are:
- The first principle is to understand the demands and expectations of customers. In line with this information, it is important to provide accurate, open and complete service to customers and to improve service quality.
- The second principle is to have the appropriate infrastructure. In order to meet the demands and expectations of the customers quickly and with high quality, the organization must have established a correct and sufficient technological infrastructure.
- The third principle is to follow customer perceptions. It is necessary to establish a mutual and effective communication in order to learn about the satisfaction level of the customers about the quality of service provided by the organization and the approach of the organization to complaints.
