Take five - Mike Purvis

Each month, Call Centre Helper talks on your behalf to a range of individuals from the world’s contact centres to find out how they believe the industry has changed and what advice they have for those entering it for the first time. This issue, we’ve interviewed Mike Purvis, UK managing director at the outsourcing company Transcom

1) How have call centres changed since you started working in the industry?

The biggest difference is that they have shifted from simply being ‘call’ centres that answer telephones to being ‘contact’ centres that manage more complex operational demands. As new technologies continue to transform the ways in which we communicate, services using e-mails, short messaging service (SMS), and web chat have become integrated in to our set of offerings. At the same time, developments in automation, such as voice recognition, are continuing to transform the industry and enabling these centres to provide more satisfying, integrated services in response to complex customer needs.

The other big change is the variety of outsourcing options now available. These services allow providers to create bespoke solutions for clients, not only as a method of keeping costs down, but in responding more flexibly to the evolving demands of our clients and their customers.

2) What do you think call centres will be like in ten years’ time?

I believe call centres will be less scale-driven. To build these economies of scale, some centres now have upwards of 2,000 seats. Transcom, on the other hand, caps its centres at 500 seats or less and spreads its geographic footprint more widely throughout Europe and with sites in North Africa, South America, and the US.

As call centres continue to become more segmented by industry and region, customer relationship management (CRM) providers will be able to accommodate the needs of their clients more comprehensively and flexibly. Smaller-scale centres also help operations managers to oversee their staff and keep them motivated and directed. Outsourcing will therefore continue to serve a role in this transformation and will become even more articulated as the range of services on offer expands.

3) What is the best aspect of your job?

Transcom is a well-known CRM provider in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, and I am excited to build a similar reputation for the company as it establishes itself in the UK market. Keith Russell (Transcom’s president and chief executive officer) has created a strong culture of empowerment throughout the organisation, and I enjoy the variety of projects I work on and fresh challenges I face each day. Of course, I am also very happy with the amount of early success that Transcom has already found in the UK.

4) Based on your own experience, what advice would you give to those entering the workplace for the first time?

It depends at which level they are entering the workplace. If they are entering in to a managerial position, they should definitely get some exposure working as an operator. This would help them get a better sense of the type of work operators do every day and the dynamics of their interaction with customers and how to make them satisfied. For operators, I would encourage them to become part of the call centre team as quickly as possible and give feedback to their managers so that a fun, productive environment can be created together.

5) What book or professional course would you recommend to others?

The Customer Contact Association (CCA) offers a certification programme for call centre professionals that I think is useful. The training gives managers a more systematic understanding of how to execute the complex processes of call centres more consistently and to identify key areas of improvement. Standards such as these are useful to a company like Transcom - which has almost 13,000 employees at 55 centres in 28 countries - to keep its services to clients reliable and consistent at any scale.