Call Center Business And The Assessment Answer

Call center business and the impact of IT on the call center business.

Introduction:

This report entails the modern developments in IT that have influenced the call centre businesses round the world. Information and Communications Technology have been the basis of operations for the modern call centres and they have made the service delivery seamless with the least possible chances of errors. At the same time, the modern IT has also provided some loopholes which act as the entry points of various unethical actions such as data breach by hacking. Hackers have broken into personalized systems of various call centres and compromised with client data tarnishing the reputation and stalling the profitability of several call centres around the world. Therefore, the call centres must ensure the highest possible degree of data security for ensuring such cases do not occur on a large scale that might harm the business. Adequate protection can be deployed through continuous update and installation of new security systems those offer enhanced data security against such data breach(Wheatley, 2008).

Positive influence of IT on call centre business:

The main objective behind adoption of call centre technology by a business concern is to achieve reduced costs and rising profits. Call centres are run by the various business houses nowadays for the purpose of providing continuous support to the customers in solving their various queries related to the products or services purchased from that company by the customers. In this regard, it can be said that Information Technology has played a gargantuan role in achieving employee efficiency and productivity in the call centres on the globe. The major domains in which IT has helped in achieving efficiency of call centre employees are the need to reduce multi-tasking functions, achieving better internal communication, achieving higher business efficiency and improving the efficiency of the call centre agents (Mastan, 2016).
The use of IT and the other digital technologies by the call centre agents have reduced the need for a call centre staff to undertake multiple tasks that previously the call centre agents had to undertake few years back. But, with the upgrade in the IT and digital communications systems, specific sets of tasks are allotted to the call centre agents that has contributed to more single-tasking rather than multi-tasking. Secondly, the use of the modern Information and Communications Technologies has influenced the professional lives of the call centre agents. Now, they have to undertake internal communications among peers, juniors or superiors through various applications those are based on modern ICT and that has made them more technologically sound and also improved their communication and interaction skills. Modern systems of IT have contributed to automated tasks and the achievement of streamlining of the various workflows. Thus, the business processes have been able to achieve higher efficiency for the employees by offering them automated systems which result in quick workflow and minimize errors. This makes the call centre employees more productive (Sherman, 2016).
Some of the theories that are used by the call centres across the globe for enhancing their productivity are information infrastructure theory and the institutional theory. The information infrastructure theory is particularly build upon the ANT and is also particularly focused on the networked, complex as well as the constantly growing business operations like call centres to be precise. On the other hand the institutional theory suggests that, the particular rules and regulations, and routines that should be established and followed by the call centres for maintain a proper social behaviour (Lawrence, Suddaby and Leca, 2011). The institutional environment can highly influence developing the formal structures in the call centres.

Information security breaches at call centre:

Though IT has changed the way in which the customer support is being offered by the medium and large business organizations round the globe, yet the advancement of the IT has also brought with it a host of data security issues those often hamper the normal flow of business processes in the call centres. One such information security breach that is most commonly encountered in a call centre nowadays is that of the data breach. As per the information published by CNN and Risk Based Security, there are cases of more than 149 billion consumers those have been the victims of data breaches in the tear 2017. The attackers mainly steal the sensitive data related to the customers by breaching into the systems of the call centres where such customer data are stored. The majority of the call centres generally implement a process known as Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like SSN, card numbers of customers or date of birth of the customers to grant them access to their respective accounts. But, after a security breach has been accomplished by the hacker, he can easily have access to all those information (Pindrop, 2018).
The attackers or hackers can then use such information of the customers for signing into their accounts with the organization. Then these fraudsters will steal all the secret information and use them to the peril of the call centre organization. This will not only compromise the customer accounts but will also tarnish the reputation of the call centre business. The customers will have to undergo substantial losses if such breach of security happens and they will naturally lodge complaints against the business in the consumer forum of being cheated. Though the management of the call centre would apologize for the issue and try to make the customers understand that this was an act of fraudsters, yet the customers might logically counter by asking the reason behind not adopting sufficient information security measures to prevent such detrimental events. The business will be liable in such circumstances and it will have to face a lawsuit and compensate the customers. As for example, the e-commerce company eBay faced a similar security breach in May 2014 that stole personal information of around 145 million users (Armerding, 2017).

<h3">Conclusion:

On a concluding note to this report it is understood that the modern call centre businesses operate depending heavily on the Information and Communications Technologies. The rigours of modern business have necessitated fast customer response and offering prompt and accurate solutions to them after a product or services has been sold. The success depends on which organization is able to offer best customer solutions. In this regard the unprecedented growth and development in IT has made it easier for call centre agents to offer quick solutions to customers and at the same time enhance their own knowledge and expertise. But, on the flip side the vast improvement in IT has made ways for data breaches in call centres where vast volumes of client data are being stolen or compromised by hackers by invading into the call centre systems due to some lack in adequacy of security measures. This area is of prime concern and every call centre should endeavour to deploy the best possible security measures to prevent such unauthorized data access that might put the business and its reputation at stake.

Recommendations:

The recommendations for the call centres will be as follows:

• The security system of the call centre business must be updated to accommodate all the modern encryption techniques of sensitive data

• The recent antivirus, anti-spam and other security applications must be installed and regularly updated

• Personal information of customers should be kept absolutely secret and not shared with one another within the call centre unless for the purpose of the tasks.

Bibliography:

Lawrence, T., Suddaby, R., and Leca, B. (2011). Institutional work: Refocusing institutional studies of organization. Journal of management inquiry, 20(1), 52-58.
Mastan, J. (2016). Part 2: The digitization of customer service. Retrieved from whatsnext.nuance: https://whatsnext.nuance.com/customer-experience/how-digitization-impacts-the-call-center/
Pindrop. (2018). MASS DATA BREACHES MEAN TROUBLE FOR CALL CENTER SECURITY. Retrieved from pindrop.com: https://www.pindrop.com/blog/mass-data-breaches-mean-trouble-call-center-security/
Sherman, K. (2016). How Technology Impacts Agent Efficiency in the Call Center. Retrieved from tcnp3: https://www.tcnp3.com/home/call-centers/how-technology-impacts-agent-efficiency-in-the-call-center/