Round Table

Successful Call Centre

Employees: Understanding
Employee Attributes and
Performance Evaluation
Processes
Abhoy K Ojha
Anand Kasturi

Abhoy Ojha is Associate Professor,

Organisational Behaviour and Human
Resources Management, Indian Institute of
Management Bangalore. aojha@iimb.ernet.in
Anand Kasturi is a consultant trainer,
specialising in service management. His clients
both in India and abroad include, HDFC, GE
Captial, Motorala, Orange (Telecom), Siemens,
Standard Chartered Bank and Texas
Instruments. mail@anandkasturi.com
IIMB Management Review, June 2005

all centres have been part of service operation design in the developed
world for quite some time. Developments in information and
communication technologies (ICTs), however, have given a big
impetus to these activities by facilitating higher levels and larger scales of
reorganisation of work. A recent estimate based on AT&T data suggested
that there were about 104 million calls to call centres in the US alone1.
Traditionally, call centre units were captive, in that they were run by the
same organisation that ran the front office. The next phase of change saw
call centres being outsourced to other providers who specialised in the
activities, but were located in the same country/market in which the service
was being provided. More recent developments in ICTs have encouraged
organisations to move back office operations (including call centres) to places
other than the location in which the front office is located2. Over the last few
years, one can observe the offshoring of call centres (both captive and
outsourced) to locations other than the host country.
In India, the call centre industry has grown phenomenally in the last few
years. The industry consists of offshored captive and outsourced call centres,
as well as call centres catering to the domestic market. While several call
centres cater to domestic needs, the bulk of the call centre industry in India
caters to the overseas markets, i.e., the offshored captive and/or outsourced
call centres dominate the industry. NASSCOM estimates suggest that the call
centre industry employed 10,000 employees and had revenues of about Rs
450 crores (4500 million) in 2000. Today, it employs about 160,000 employees.
It is estimated that by 2008, the industry will employ about 270,000 persons
and generate revenues of about Rs. 20,000 crores (200 billion).
93

People are very critical to

the success of the service
sector. This is particularly true in
the call centre industry as call
centre agents, despite being in the
back office, are front line
employees in direct contact with
the customer, and are often
expected to act as ambassadors
of the company.
A call centre constitutes a set of resources typically
personnel, computers, and telecommunication equipment
which enable the delivery of services via the telephone3. In a
typical call centre, there are a large number of open-space
cubicles in which call centre agents with telecommunication
headphones speak to customers. They are typically assisted
by information about their products, services and customer
information from their databases and intranets. A more
recent trend has been the emergence of contact centres,
which in addition to telephone contact, allow for email, fax
etc. Call centres may be designed for inbound or outbound
calls. Inbound call centres are those that receive calls from
outside callers, who call the centre to seek certain assistance.
Outbound call centres, on the other hand, contact persons
who are already customers or are potential customers, to
market or sell a product or service. Over 80% of the call
centres, by some estimates4, are inbound call centres.
People have always been important to the success of any
industry, but they are more critical in the service sector5. This
is particularly true in the call centre industry as call centre
agents, despite being in the back office, are front line
employees in direct contact with the customer, and are often
expected to act as ambassadors of the company. Their job is
complicated by the fact that they are normally expected to
provide personalised services, without having an opportunity
to interact with a customer in a normal face to face context.
Further, the salary and compensation related costs of the
agents contribute to about 70% of the cost of running a call
centre6. Hence, call centre agent performance is critical for
the company to maintain customer satisfaction, and high
operational efficiency.
Call centre agents with high levels of skills and professionalism
94

are key to achieving high levels of customer service and low

operational costs. Agents who do not possess these attributes
may cause irreparable damage to the organisation. Hence,
hiring, training and retaining a workforce that is skilled and
professional is key to the success of call centres7. However, a
major problem for the call centre industry, including that in
the UK and India, has been the high attrition rates due to the
inability of the industry to design operational and human
resource processes and practices that simultaneously meet
business goals and the aspirations of the workforce8. A
significant amount of research has focused on designing the
processes and practices that can improve employee
performance and satisfaction9. But different persons react
differently to seemingly similar work environments10. Personal
dispositions and assessments influence the reaction of call
centre agents to their work context11. Hence, several
researchers have argued that efforts should also be geared
towards identifying the personal attributes of persons who
will make good call centre agents12. This will allow call centres
to hire potential employees who are better equipped to be
effective call centre employees.
The extensive use of ICTs in call centres allows for the direct
and indirect measurement of a wide variety of operational
metrics without any explicit human effort on the part of the
supervisor or management. At one level this makes call centre
management easier and key decision makers have rich
operational information to make decisions. However, at
another level incorrect use of metrics may encourage call
centre agents to indulge in behaviour that might hurt rather
than help customer satisfaction, which is the best measure of
call centre agent performance, but is difficult to capture13.
This paper attempts to identify some of the personal attributes
that are salient to the performance of a call centre agent.
Based on data collected through a questionnaire survey of
employees in two call centres, eight personal attributes and
their impact on call centre agent performance are examined.
The findings have implications for the call centre industry in
general, and evaluator behaviour and the performance
evaluation processes in particular.

Personal Attributes of Call Centre

Employees: A Study
Two contrasting images of call centres are presented in the
literature. One view uses the metaphor of an electronic sweatshop or panoptical wired cage14. According to this view,

Successful Call Centre Employees: Understanding Employee Attributes and Performance Evaluation Processes

Employees are connected to information technology (IT) that

automatically allocates work, facilitates its completion and
monitors employee performance. Work is conducted in
relative isolation from colleagues but under the constant gaze
of management who are responsible for structuring and
interpreting the electronic information. Work is de-skilled
and monotonous, relieved only by the increasing employment
of part-time workers15. Within this perspective, a call centre
offers an impersonal work environment in which an agent is
reduced to a robot that responds in a pre-determined manner,
to a variety of signals/inputs that s/he receives.
The other perspective reflects the view that the call centre
agent is a semi-professional and an empowered employee.
According to this view, The worker uses IT to seamlessly
identify and service the customer. In addition, appropriate
software assist in on-the-job learning thereby improving
workers knowledge and skills. The front line worker, being
in close contact with the customer, becomes a key strategic
resource, providing market intelligence and acting as the
companys ambassador16. The semi-professional status of call
centre agents is reflected in the favourable work relations
and relatively generous employment relations. Within this
perspective, a call centre uses ICTs to address the routine and
mundane aspects of the job and leaves for the agent a job that
is rich in interactions and communication. It provides a very
fulfilling work environment for people who would otherwise
be less gainfully employed.
We believe, as do Frenkel et al17, that the reality is somewhere
in between the two extreme images. In a typical call centre,
elements of both models can be found as managers try to
reconcile standardisation of processes and products aimed
at lowering unit costs through economies of scale, and
customisation aimed at creating customer satisfaction by
focusing on individual customer requirements18, and in turn
generating revenue. The combination of tight control, heavy
monitoring and scripted work coexist with fun, high
motivation and high quality service levels in most
organisations19.
Call centre work has been described as emotional labour,
which can be very stressful20. Soft skills are more important
than technical skills in a call centre21 as people with good soft
skills are more capable of coping with the nature of the
pressures of work22. Certain persons are more likely to fit the
requirements of customer service work. Outgoing or
extravert individuals are better suited to this form of
interactive work because of their sociable personalities. It is
increasingly recognised that there needs to be a shift towards
IIMB Management Review, June 2005

Call centre work has been

described as emotional labour,
which can be very stressful. Good
call centre agents possess a
specific set of personal attributes
or qualities, which include
patience, tolerance, empathy,
motivation, commitment and ability
to work well under pressure.
extra-functional skills to cope with the demands of a call
centre23. Good call centre agents possess a specific set of
personal attributes or qualities, including patience, tolerance,
empathy, motivation, commitment and ability to work well
under pressure. In the remaining part of this section, we will
present some hypotheses based on the existing literature.

Hypotheses on Attributes of Call Centre Employees

Intrinsic motivation is a desirable attribute for an employee
in any work context. However, in practice the intrinsic
motivation of an employee depends on the nature of the
work the fit between an employees views of interesting
and challenging work and what is provided, and also on how
relationships with other workers are structured to make work
easier to accomplish24. Although the call centre job involves a
lot of routine work, there is also work that can be intrinsically
satisfying, with opportunities to pursue challenges and express
creativity25.

Hypothesis 1: Agents who experience high intrinsic motivation

in their work will achieve higher levels of call centre agent
performance.
In addition to intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation plays
a significant role in influencing call centre agent performance.
Extrinsic satisfaction depends a good deal on pay and
employment conditions26. A call centre agent is likely to be
motivated by the level of compensation and the nature of
benefits and external rewards based on performance.
Moreover, it is not the magnitude of the compensation/
reward that matters, but the belief that the rewards are good.

Hypothesis 2: Agents who experience high extrinsic motivation

in their work environment will achieve higher levels of call
centre agent performance.
95

Several call centre agents, who

otherwise might be able to cope
with the level of stress in their work,
do not cope well with difficult or
angry customers. Cutting of calls
from difficult customers and
withholding service to complicated
and uncooperative callers are
some of the means by which
agents avoid dealing with difficult
customers.
While motivation may play a significant role in influencing
performance, call centre agents also need to have significant
knowledge and skills to be able to adequately service the
customer. They need to be aware of company-specific
products, procedures, software, practices and people on
whom they depend for information or the solutions for
customer problems. They also need to have conceptual
understanding of products, markets and industrial trends.
This knowledge enables them to understand customer
concerns better and provides them the confidence to deal
with customers27.

Hypothesis 3: Agents who are confident of their knowledge

of the companys products/services will achieve higher levels
of call centre agent performance.
Since the call centre industry relies on hiring from a pool that
may not be aware of their products and services or their
operations, the desire to learn on the job is a critical attribute.
Call centres put considerable emphasis on attempting to
identify potential employees who are predisposed to
becoming effective customer service representatives28. The
selected employees are then provided extensive technical and
soft skills training29 to develop them into high performing call
centre agents.

Hypothesis 4: Agents who have a high desire to learn of the

companys products/services will achieve higher levels of call
centre agent performance.
Patience, tolerance, ability to listen, and ability to be flexible
are all desirable qualities in a call centre agent, particularly as
s/he has to be able to extract all the necessary information
for action, while carrying on a courteous conversation.
30

96

Customers seldom express their problems in the language

used within the organisation. Further, in the case of call centres
handling complaints, being empathetic is important,
particularly when customers are upset. The agent needs to
have the ability to clarify and pinpoint customer requirements
without letting the caller get even further upset31.

Hypothesis 5: Agents who have the ability to be empathetic

will achieve higher levels of call centre agent performance.
During service transactions, employees are expected to
display emotions that comply with certain norms or standards
of the organisation, designed to create a desired state of mind
in the customer. An employee is expected to appear happy
and glad to serve the customer32, an aspect that most service
providers, including call centre agents, find very stressful,
among other emotionally demanding and stressful aspects of
their work33. Many agents find it difficult to remain calm and
tactful in difficult situations with customers while
simultaneously remaining personally disengaged34.

Hypothesis 6: Agents who find the call centre work

environment stressful will achieve lower levels of call centre
agent performance.
Several call centre agents, who otherwise might be able to
cope with the level of stress in their work, do not cope well
with difficult or angry customers. These agents dislike dealing
with difficult customers, and would like to avoid providing
service to them. The incidence of customer abuse (or phone
rage) has increased sharply due to the higher expectations of
customers or a dislike of dealing with an impersonal agent
over the phone. In cases of offshoring, customer abuse is also
a result of loss of jobs in the host country. When agents face
abusive and difficult customers it causes emotional distress35.
Cutting of calls from difficult customers and withholding
service to complicated and uncooperative callers are some
of the means by which agents avoid dealing with difficult
customers36. An agent who avoids difficult customers is likely
to indulge in such behaviour as soon as s/he assesses the
customer as someone who would be difficult to satisfy and
this could be detrimental to the quality of service.

Hypothesis 7: Agents who have the tendency to avoid bad

customers will achieve lower levels of call centre agent
performance.
Teamwork is an essential aspect in most organisational work,
particularly in the services domain. In call centres, a great
deal of emphasis is placed on building a strong team spirit
and encouraging team working37. Further, the structure of
the job and the organisation of the workplace are such as to

Successful Call Centre Employees: Understanding Employee Attributes and Performance Evaluation Processes

Exhibit 1
Country

Demographic Profile and Performance Rating of Respondents

Gender

Total
Responses
M

India

75

25

50

UK

94

17

70

Job Tenure
(in months)
NR

<6

6-12

36

11

13

13

15

encourage socialisation to build team solidarity as well as

cope with work pressures. An ability to be a team player will
allow an agent to cope with the potential monotony and stress
of the work38.

Hypothesis 8: Agents who are team players will achieve higher

levels of call centre agent performance.

Research Methods
The first stage of the study, parallel with the literature survey,
was to conduct critical incident, behavioural event and
focused group interviews with call centre agents in three call
centres in which one of the authors had consultancy
assignments. This led to the emergence of certain variables
that were assessed to be critical for the performance of a call
centre agent. Next, a 95-item questionnaire was developed
to capture the variables that emerged. No items from other
survey instruments were used. All the items in the
questionnaire were developed based on the findings in the
first stage and constructed for the call centre environment.
Items seeking demographic information were also included.
The final questionnaire was administered in two call centres,
which were both inbound company owned call centres, and
a third call centre, which was a third-party outbound call
centre, was dropped from the next stages.
Data was acquired from one call centre in India and another
in the UK using the questionnaires. The call centre in India
was a captive call centre of a cellular phone services provider
in India with over 9 lakh (900,000) customers. It was an
inbound call centre that responded to sales enquiries,
conducted routine customer transactions, and also handled
complaints. It functioned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and
handled about 28000 calls a day. The call centre in the UK
was also a captive (but legally separate) call centre for a utility
provider. It was an inbound call centre that responded to
operational complaints on a 24x7 basis, and handled billing
transactions between 8.00 am to 8.00 pm on five and a half
working days.
Given that the data was acquired from only two organisations,
IIMB Management Review, June 2005

Prior Work

13-24 >24

PerformanceRatings

1st 2nd NR

15

30

45

22

39

59

90

28

52

10

it does not meet the criteria of random sampling. However,

beyond this shortcoming, care was taken that the sample be
as representative as possible. Responses were received from
169 individuals. A perusal of the demographic data (Exhibit
1) suggests that the profile of agents in the two call centres
were different in terms of gender composition, job tenure
and prior work experience.
The performance ratings of the respondents by their
supervisors were acquired separately. Although the two call
centres used different rating items and rating criteria, the
ratings were converted to a 5-point scale for agents from
both organisations. These performance ratings were assumed
to reflect the quality of performance of the agents accurately.
As a first step, items that were related to a concept in the
hypotheses, and were designed to capture various aspects of
the concept, were grouped together. Then the scales for
each variable were refined using reliability coefficients. Items
were dropped in order to improve the Chronbach Alpha
score. For example, the items for Intrinsic Motivation, which
had a Chronbach Alpha of 0.911, consisted of 11 items as
given below:
1.

I talk with pride among my friends and acquaintances

about my job.

2. I take the difficulties on the job as a challenge.

3. Work here is fun.
4. Time passes easily for me at work.
5. This job brings out the best in me.
6. Working at a call centre gives me job satisfaction.
7.

I have a sense of individual responsibility, over and above

the team.

8. I am learning and growing on the job.

9. My job gives me a sense of power.
10. I am here out of my own choice.
11. My job is monotonous. (This item was reverse coded)
Using the process explained above, eight variables, each
reflecting a concept mentioned in the hypotheses, were
97

identified for further analysis. The mean of the items of each

scale was used for further analysis. The number of items and
the Chronbach Alpha scores for each scale are shown in
Exhibit 2.

that some individuals seem to possess all the desirable qualities

while not possessing the undesirable qualities. This hints at
the possibility that if the attributes of a potential recruit can
be assessed, candidates who will make good call centre agents
can be quite easily identified.

A correlation analysis of these eight variables with

performance rating was performed to establish the first level
impact of the personal attributes on call centre agent
performance. Finally, regression analysis was done to examine
the simultaneous impact of the variables on call centre agent
performance. Collinearity analysis was also conducted to
check if the regression results were affected by
interrelationships among the independent variables.

All the variables, except Stressful and Team Player are

strongly correlated with the performance rating. This suggests
that six of the variables are good predictors of call centre
agent performance. While the positive correlation of the
remaining variables with performance is as expected, the
positive correlation of Avoid Bad Customer with
performance is surprising. It probably suggests that
supervisors have little ability to detect when an agent is
avoiding difficult customers. As long as the agent performs
well on measures like time duration per call and generates
some obvious complaints, s/he is likely to get a positive rating.
Ironically, the agent who does not avoid difficult customers
may actually get poorer ratings, as it is likely to lead to a
greater number of escalations to the supervisor.

Analysis
A high level of correlation was revealed among six of the
independent variables, suggesting that call centre agents who
possess one of the six desirable attributes are also likely to
possess the other five. The remaining two variables, Stressful
and Avoid Bad Customer are highly correlated with each
other. Agents who find the work environment stressful are
also highly likely to want to avoid difficult customers.
However, the two variables are not related to the other
variables. This may be because, unlike other variables that
capture desirable qualities, these capture qualities that are
not desired. The findings suggest a clustering that indicates

Exhibit 2

1. Intrinsic

No of
items

Alpha

Mean

Std.
Dev

Perf.
Rating

11

0.911

3.54

0.717

0.373

0.789

3.93

0.590

0.645

3.79

0.409

Knowledge
4. Desire to

0.672

3.59

0.457

Learn
5. Empathy

6. Stressful

7. Avoid Bad

15

11

0.802

0.755

0.787

3.78

2.78

3.16

0.388

0.538

0.606

Customer
8. Team Player

98

(0.000)

Motivation
3. Confident of

Intrinsic Motivation seems to have a significant impact on

performance (b = 0.202, p = 0.062). The direction is
consistent with the correlation analysis, and in line with the

Reliability and Correlation of Personality Attributes with Performance Ratings.

Motivation
2. Extrinsic

Exhibit 3 shows the results of the regression analysis about

the impact of the eight attributes on call centre agent
performance. The table also shows the collinearity statistics.

0.684

3.94

0.425

0.395

0.764

(0.000)

(0.000)

0.310

0.392

0.521

(0.000)

(0.000)

(0.000)

0.338

0.501

0.606

0.626

(0.000)

(0.000)

(0.000)

(0.000)

0.212

0.482

0.514

0.562

0.660

(0.006)

(0.000)

(0.000)

(0.000)

(0.000)

0.046

-0.122

-0.037

-0.240

(0.555)

(0.114)

(0.629)

(0.002)

-.145

0.197

(0.060) (0.010)

0.251

0.037

0.172

-0.042

-0.074

(0.001)

(0.631)

(0.025)

(0.592)

(0.338) (0.124) (0.000)

-0.119

0.147

0.361

0.528

0.535

0.577

(0.057)

(0.000)

(0.000)

(0.000)

(0.000) (0.000) (0.554) (0.121)

0.501

0.590

0.046

0.120

Successful Call Centre Employees: Understanding Employee Attributes and Performance Evaluation Processes

Exhibit 3

Regression Results of Relationship of Personality

Attributes with Performance Ratings

Variables in the Model

Intrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic Motivation

Tolerance

VIF

0.202

0.062

0.390

2.565

0.090

0.470

0.293

3.410

Confident of Knowledge

-0.063

0.050

0.492

2.033

Desire to Learn

-0.013

0.019

0.393

2.543

Empathy

0.282

0.516

0.485.

2.062

Stressful

-0.222

0.884

0.583

1.714

Avoid Bad Customer

0.189

0.002

0.583

1.716

Team Player

0.253

0.016

0.544

1.838

R2

0.279

Adjusted R2

0.243

F (p)

7.751

hypothesis. This is also intuitively appealing. Hence, it is argued

that there was support for Hypothesis 1. Extrinsic Motivation
does not have any significant impact on performance (p =
0.470). This is not consistent with the correlation analysis,
which showed a significant relationship. Hence, we believe
that there was no support for Hypothesis 2. Confident of
Knowledge has a significant but negative impact on
performance (b = - 0.063 , p = 0.050). Again the relationship
is different, or actually opposite, of that shown in the
correlation analysis and as stated in the hypothesis. Hence, it
is argued that there is no support for Hypothesis 3. Like the
above variable, Desire to Learn also seems to have a significant
but negative impact on performance (b = -0.013, p = 0.019).
Again the relationship is different, or actually opposite of that
shown in the correlation analysis and as stated in the
hypothesis. Hence, there is no support for Hypothesis 4.
Empathy does not seem to have an impact on performance.
This result is also at variance with the correlation analysis.
Thus, one cannot claim support for Hypothesis 5 based on
this study. Stressful does not seem to have any impact on
performance and one cannot claim support for Hypothesis 6
based on this study. Avoid bad customer seems to have a
significant but positive impact on performance rating (b =
0.189, p = 0.002). This finding is also surprising. However,
based on the study, there is strong support against the
acceptance of Hypothesis 7. Team player has a significant
and positive impact on performance rating (b = 0.253, p =
0.016). This result is consistent with the correlation analysis
and the prediction in the hypothesis. Hence, it can be argued
that there is support for Hypothesis 8, as being a team player
has a positive impact on performance.
IIMB Management Review, June 2005

0.000

Discussion
A perusal of the regression results presented above indicates
that only two hypotheses (1 and 8) were supported in the
study. Agents who experience high intrinsic motivation in
their work and those that are team players achieve high levels
of performance.
There was no significant relationship for three hypotheses (2,
5 and 6) implying that extrinsic motivation, an ability to
empathise with the customers, and an inability to control
stress have no impact on performance. These findings are
surprising. In the case of extrinsic motivation, it is possible
that some of the other variables in the model better explain
the variation in performance, and the relationships shown in
the correlation analysis are spurious. It probably indicates
that in the presence of other attributes, extrinsic motivation
is not a sufficient motivator to achieve high performance. As
earlier research has emphasised, it is probably a hygiene factor
that is demotivating if absent, but does not necessarily
motivate when present.
The lack of support for empathy is really surprising, as
empathy seems to be the most important variable for the
service sector. Also, in a call centre, the ability to understand
and address the problems of the customer without personto-person contact or any visual cues was expected to be
strongly affected by empathy. This is probably an indication
that supervisors/evaluators monitor only the quantifiable
aspect of performance and are unable to capture the role of
empathy in customer satisfaction. Furthermore, an
empathetic agent may take longer at calls and actually be
99

Hypotheses 3, 4 and 7 were strongly

rejected indicating that those who
are confident of their knowledge and
have a desire to learn are poor
performers, while those who avoid
bad customers are high performers.
All three results are counter intuitive,
but may signal shortcomings in
evaluator behaviour and the
performance evaluation process.
rated lower than another agent who may not be achieving
similar levels of customer satisfaction, but maintaining time
per call imposed by the company.
The lack of influence of stress is also surprising. Industry
data does indicate high level of stress related problems among
call centre employees and it would be natural to expect that
this would affect their performance. One of the reasons why
stress may not have an effect on performance is that agents
may be able to control the effect of stress on their work.
Also, those who find the work really stressful actually leave
the organisation, and this is not captured in the data.
Hypotheses 3, 4 and 7 were strongly rejected indicating that
those who are confident of their knowledge and have a desire
to learn are poor performers, while those who avoid bad
customers are high performers. All three results are counter
intuitive, but may signal shortcomings in evaluator behaviour
and the performance evaluation process. It is difficult to
explain why confidence in ones knowledge has a negative
impact on performance. One can speculate that many
employees who were confident of their knowledge about
the products and services, were in fact not quite
knowledgeable, leading to poor rather than high performance.
Persons with a strong desire to learn probably take more
initiatives and make mistakes, which may lead to lower levels
of performance early in their career. Both are more likely to
make honest mistakes, which create immediate problems
for the supervisor. While it can be argued that such an agent
will develop into a high performing agent, s/he is likely to be
rated low as the evaluator is more concerned about
immediate performance than long-term performance. Both
these findings suggest a weakness in the training programmes,
when people are put on their jobs without adequate training.
100

Many probably believe that they know all that is required to

be known in the short training programmes, and end up
performing poorly. The mistakes are more noticeable and
lead to lower ratings by the supervisor.
The third finding suggests that an agent who has a strong
desire to avoid bad customers is successful in actually avoiding
them, and s/he can maintain a high level of performance. As
long as evaluations are based on quantifiable metrics such as
call duration and average speed of answer etc, avoidance of
bad customers will actually result in higher ratings rather
than lower ratings. An agent who is predisposed to avoiding
bad customers can very quickly come to the conclusion that
a caller is angry or has a problem that will be difficult to
resolve, and politely close or discontinue the call. Except in a
situation in which the supervisor is listening, the formal system
registers the call as one that was terminated in a reasonable
time period, and also required no escalation or intervention
by the supervisor. On the other hand, an agent who actually
attempts to address the problems is likely to take much longer
on a call, and is also more likely to seek an intervention by
his/her supervisor. One can make similar arguments for why
an empathetic agent may appear to have poorer performance
ratings than an agent who can game the evaluation system.
Nearly all the results are influenced by potential problems in
the measure of performance used in this study. The anomaly
of the findings for this variable is the strongest indicator that
supervisor rating may not be a good measure of actual
performance.
While we believe that the hypotheses are based on sound
literature and are also intuitively appealing, one potential
implication of these findings is for the researchers to re-visit
the literature and the context of the call centre to examine
whether the hypotheses really apply to the situation in which
they have been applied. Another potential implication is that
the implementation of the study needs to be improved. It
also bears examination whether the performance rating by
the supervisor is a source of problems.
As with any behavioural research using self-reported
measures, this study probably also suffers from the
respondents providing desirable responses, independent of
whether they reflect their true belief on the items this
probably provides independent variables that are a not as
valid as they should be. Also, variables with Chronbach Alpha
as low as 0.645 have been included in the study. The items
themselves can be refined to improve the validity of the
variables.
However, we believe that the variable that had the greatest

Successful Call Centre Employees: Understanding Employee Attributes and Performance Evaluation Processes

impact on the surprising results is the dependent variable.

Ideally, we should have used the performance rating of the
call centre agent as provided by the customer. However, this
was not available as customers do not normally rate their
individual agents. Even if the customer-based metrics were
available, they would be difficult to link to individual agents.
We have used the call centre agents rating by the supervisor
as a proxy for the performance of the agent. At that time it
appeared a good decision, but the results of the study suggest
that there may be problems in the way call centre agent
performance is rated. There may be differences in the way
performance is perceived by the customer and by the
supervisor/ evaluator39.
In addition to the above limitations, a key limitation is that
data was collected from only two call centres and data
collection within the firms was not really random. Also, the
demographic profile of respondents from the two
organisations is quite different. These limitations may limit
the confidence with which conclusions based on this study
can be made and generalised.

Conclusions
This study, despite some unexpected results, allows the
researchers to draw several conclusions.
First, there is a high level of correlation among the desired
attributes (Exhibit 2) that are also unrelated to the undesirable
attributes. This suggests that there is a profile of persons
among call centre agents who possess desirable attributes
and at the same time, do not possess undesirable attributes.
While not all the attributes are easy to detect, it would seem
feasible to use some of the attributes during the recruitment
and hiring process to identify individuals who have the
potential to be good call centre agents. Quite clearly
individuals who are intrinsically motivated in a call centre
environment and are team players would make good
candidates.
Second, since extrinsic motivation does not have an influence
on performance, call centres should not be spending time
developing elaborate rewards and incentive systems to
motivate performance. As long as employees see themselves
as adequately compensated, they are likely to perform well
even without performance-based incentives. A call centre
organisation needs to ensure that its compensation system is
in the same band as other similar organisations, and then
focus on making of the job and role design better.
Third, since confidence in knowledge and desire to learn
IIMB Management Review, June 2005

have negative rather than positive impacts, there is a need to

have a closer look at induction and training programmes. We
feel that owing to growth pressures, call centre agents are
put on their job much before they are ready. Motivational
interventions may end up increasing the confidence of
employees without necessarily providing them with the
necessary knowledge to perform. In addition to imparting
knowledge, training programmes should also encourage
agents to make a self-assessment of their skills, and be
conscious of the need to be more modest about their
knowledge and skills in the early days.
Fourth, there is a need to train supervisors to focus on some
soft information while evaluating their subordinates. It
appears that supervisors are unable to capture the impact of
empathy on call centre performance, to see the impact of
bad customer avoidance on performance and are probably
unable to perceive stress in their employees and mentor them.
As in many career systems, most call centre supervisors are
individuals who were promoted to the role because they were
good call centre agents. They are rarely provided training to
perform their new role. In short, even as call centres focus on
imparting training to the new recruits to make them
productive call centre agents, they should also have training
programmes to prepare them for the new role of supervisor
when they are promoted.

References and Notes

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6 Friedman, T, 2001, Call Centre Management: Balancing the
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7 Ibid.
8 Cappelli, P, 2002, Managing Without Commitment, Organizational
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9 Ilgen, D R, and J R Hollenback, 1991, The Structure of Work: Job
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101

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2 5 Bain, P, and P Taylor, Entrapped by the Electronic Panopticon?...

2 6 Batt, R, 2002, Managing Customer Services: Human Resource
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1 5 Frenkel, S J, M Tam, M Korczynski, and K Shire, 1998, Beyond

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3 0 Callaghan, G, and P Thompson, We Recruit Attitude...

16 Ibid.

3 3 Zapf, D, et al, Emotion Work as a Source of Stress...

1 7 Ibid.

3 4 Deery, S, et al, Work Relationships in Telephone Call Centres...;

Houlihan, M, 2000, Eyes Wide Shut? Querying the Depth of Call
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18 Ibid.
1 9 Bain, P, and P Taylor, Entrapped by the Electronic Panopticon?...
2 0 Deery, S, et al, Work Relationships in Telephone Call Centres...;
Zapf, D, C Vogt, C Seifert, H Mertini, and A Isic, 1999, Emotion
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Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 371-400.

3 1 Frenkel, S J, et al, Beyond Bureaucracy...

3 2 Sturdy, A, and P Fleming, Talk as Technique...

3 5 Deery, S, et al, Work Relationships in Telephone Call Centres...;

3 6 Houlihan, M, Eyes Wide Shut?...
3 7 Richardson, R, et al, Taking Calls to Newcastle...

2 2 Thompson, P, et al, Ignorant Theory and Knowledgeable Workers...

3 8 Scarbrough, H, and N Kinnie, 2003, Barriers to Development of

Team Working in UK Firms, Industrial Relations Journal, Vol. 34,
No. 2, pp. 135-150.

2 3 Callaghan, G, and P Thompson, We Recruit Attitude...

3 9 Friedman, T, Call Centre Management: Balancing the Numbers.

2 1 Richardson, R, et al, Taking Calls to Newcastle...

2 4 Frenkel, S J, et al, Beyond Bureaucracy...

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