When I worked on the BT South Africa account many years back, I was privileged to have met Dr Nicola Millard, BT’s Customer Experience Futurologist. She shared that in 2013, BT had already adopted a work-from-home strategy called BT Homeshoring. BT had already seen the value (and cost benefits) of having a large portion of their call centre agents working from home. For many, it was a way of juggling child-minding commitments or just working in peace without constant collegial interruptions. Some were not suited to the discipline of a home environment and opted to go back to the call centre.

Covid-19 forced many companies in South Africa to do the same. The difference in the scenarios is that Wi-Fi and data equipment constantly evolve and get much easier to deploy. The load-shedding curse unleashed upon our wary citizens has put paid to many working from home and are returning to their centres in droves. Whether an agent works from home or a centre is immaterial for most of us. We expect our query to be dealt with most quickly and with the least hassle. Contacting any institution’s fraud hotline should be the most accessible and professional call centre due to the associated trauma of being a possible victim of fraud. Unfortunately, my bank failed that litmus test. The nonchalant attitude of the agent was plausible.
For many contacting a call centre is not a pleasant experience. The quality of VOIP calls used by most call centres is not consistent. Phoning my bank’s normal call centre is a nightmare due to the inaudibility of the agent and the background chatter. People have accents and not all ears contort to so many different pronouncements. With our 11 official languages, accents are not easy to deal with, so it is a bit of a hit-and-miss when the call is eventually answered.
Generation X models prefer the written word. Dr Millard’s research (* Fragvergence, BT/HickmanDavies) shows that the most preferred methods of communicating in order of popularity are (in descending order):
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- E-mail to an organisation (68%)
- Phone call to a call centre (64%)
- Face-to-face (62%)
- Interacting using a website (22%)
- Phone call to automated phone service (19%)
I prefer an email as it gives me a sense of security that I can take my time to understand and research the content further if needed. The Babel chatter at call centres does not give a person the luxury of time and comprehension. When I request the information in an email, I am confronted by a frosty silence. Most marketing call centres do not even bother with an email follow-up. “It’s on our Facebook page, or didn’t you read it on our website?” is the usual retort. I now block every marketing call that comes in from a call centre. Those call centres will never be able to reach my ears again. What a lost opportunity. What a premium companies pay for incompetence and not understanding their customer.
I will continue to articulate my murky quest to unravel the machinations of the call centre and the ‘brain’ behind the agent. If you want my attention – send me a professional email with a follow-up call. Only 22% of people enjoy interacting with a website or the infamous FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) that are fobbed onto the innocent. I pay administrative fees on every contract or account I have. I need my organisations to listen to me. Please communicate with me on my terms, not yours!