How to work effectively with your furniture vendor to create a productive call center

Call centers are unlike other business offices. Their pace is faster and more stressful. They require a complex mix of hightech computer and telephone systems. Call centers serve customers differently and are organized into client response teams differently than traditional offices. Call centers grow and change faster than other office environments.

Too often, however, companies treat the process of furnishing a call center like furnishing any other corporate office. This happens frequently when the call center is part of a corporation with an office standards program, and the corporation tries to force-feed their call center with furniture that's great for corporate offices, but not for call centers. It also occurs in start-up operations that are building their first call center facility, or existing facilities that believe upgrading their facility's furniture means just adding more of the same.

The design of your call center has a significant impact on productivity. The call center furniture and the layout you select affects how well people communicate internally, and how well they respond to customers. Furniture is also important because it helps call centers attract and retain employees by creating a workplace environment that is attractive, safe and comfortable.

The call center work environment also has an impact on human resource costs. Call center employees sit for long periods, enter data for hours, stare at VDT screens and work in a noisy, stressful environment. Ergonomic furniture that addresses these problems helps reduce the cost of worker's compensation claims, absenteeism and turnover. Selecting furniture that enhances productivity requires looking at your call center's specific needs. Then you can create a work environment that address those needs from work flow to ergonomics to accommodating technology.

Ensure Productivity

How can you be sure your call center promotes productivity? Start by working with the right people to help you make furniture and layout decisions. Furniture companies are taking on a new role with their clients. More and more, they are workplace consultants that combine their understanding of furniture and floor plans with insight into employee organization and productivity.

When you choose a furniture vendor, the vendor should have a wealth of knowledge in the call center industry. You should expect the vendor to be an integral part of the planning process and to develop an interactive, collaborative relationship with your company.

Some companies design their own space plan for their call center. They bid out the project, and simply take the lowest bid as opposed to taking advantage of the knowledge of an experienced furniture vendor. Furniture companies that have call center experience can often provide insight from their previous projects. The vendor may be able to say, "Another client had the same problem and this is how we solved it." When you develop a partnering relationship, you make the vendor an active participant in creating your call center. Your vendor can then help you make decisions that meet your design, scheduling and budgetary requirements.

The Planning Process

During the planning stages, you need to make it clear to the vendor the specific problems you need solved and the changes you want. Otherwise, you only get the minimum amount of information in response to a general request. You are not tapping into the vendor's valuable expertise in the industry.

To achieve the best results, your furniture company should be involved as early as possible in the project. Preplanning at the early stages can save time and prevent wasted effort. After learning your requirements, the furniture vendor can offer various options for you to evaluate.

The process begins with an initial site visit. If you are upgrading an existing call center, you'll want to discuss what furniture and layout your call center has today, and what is or isn't working and why it isn't working. It's important to allow for what is changing in your organizational structure or technology. It's best to choose furniture that can be flexible enough to change as your organization changes. If you are starting a brand new call center, the same issues apply, but you are starting from ground zero so the furniture company's experience is even more critical.

Management interviews consider larger issues, such as supervision, employee functions as well as communications needs and work flow. For the furniture vendor's Needs Analysis to be effective, you must provide access to your space and share internal information. Making the effort to share information saves time and often money.

The ultimate issue is how to organize your telephone systems, computers and furniture to enable employees to be as responsive as possible to your customers. What kind of attributes must the furniture have to meet your goals? How do you organize your employees into work groups and supervisors? What are your technology needs now and in the future for switches, computers or call-routing systems? How much do you expect to expand the call center in a year? How about in five years? Do you have any special problems that need to be addressed?

During early planning, projected growth or anticipated operational changes should be considered. If you expect your call center to increase its size, you need furniture that is adaptable and can be reconfigured and recabled as new needs arise. If you know a major office automation upgrade is going to occur in a year or two after the space is initially occupied, the extra wiring that will eventually be required should be planned for during the original installation.

Employee Input Is Critical

After the initial issues are addressed and mutually agreed upon by you and your furniture vendor, the next step is to gain further input through employee interviews.

Management starts with a vision of how they want their call center to function. Employees actually using the space almost always have a different view of the workplace than the people who are managing the space. The truth about what is needed to create a productive call center usually lies somewhere inbetween. The facility has to be functional for people who work in it, but also achieve management's goals. Surveying employees enables management to confirm where to direct resources to do the most good for the most people.

Obtaining employees' initial input not only helps you make decisions, but also has a positive side effect. Numerous studies conducted by the furniture industry have shown that when employees are asked their opinions about their workplace, morale goes up because they feel valued by an employer by virtue of being asked for their ideas.

To achieve a consensus, a representative group of employees from various work areas or functions should be interviewed, using questions such as the following: What is the most important issue that concerns you about your workstation? How is the air quality? What noise levels do you experience? How much work surface space and storage do you need? Keep questions posed to employees focused on hands-on issues - what do the employees need to get their jobs done?

The Master Plan

After conducting a thorough Needs Analysis, your furniture company puts together what they have learned from your staff and your company's goals for the future to create a Master Plan. The Master Plan includes preliminary layouts, budgets, installation schedules, and often calls for developing prototypes of workstations for you to review.

Your call center layout is based on the interrelationships of departments and work flow. Areas designated for common use, such as support facilities and shared equipment areas like copier rooms, should be convenient to all-workers. Work areas must have enough room for the type of equipment used, document storage, reception or receiving areas, and workstations. Call center layout is affected by the specific tasks of its inhabitants. Sometimes an employee's rung on the corporate ladder dictates how much space he or she is allocated, particularly when management and support personnel are grouped together.

Selecting furnishings that meet the ergonomic needs of call center personnel is critical. Adjustable desks, keyboards, work surface height mechanisms, foot rests, proper seating, noise control and air quality have a direct impact on productivity. Furniture that makes work easier and more efficient will improve employee health and boost morale.

After product decisions are made, a knowledgeable vendor provides assistance and insight as part of the final design process and anticipates problems before they occur. Installation supervisors review the project site prior to delivery to identify and solve any possible problems. Meetings at the job site enable a vendor to bring potential difficulties to your attention and determine how to resolve them. Planning meetings with the client, furniture vendor and representatives of the trades involved in the project are critical to define the priorities of the project and to determine which responsibilities fall where. The end result is a unified group of professionals dedicated to the same goal - making your call center fully operational and 100 percent productive upon move-in.

After the furniture is installed, follow-up service is critical. New furniture often requires some maintenance or troubleshooting, which the furniture vendor should be expected to handle. An area of follow-up service that shouldn't be missed is providing employees orientation to their new furniture. Teaching an employee how to operate an ergonomic chair should be viewed the same as providing instruction on a new computer or telephone system.

The integration of people, the tools they use and their working environment is essential to achieve productivity. To work effectively with your furniture vendor to create the most productive call center possible, involve your vendor early in the planning process, listen to your employees, consider work flow and working relationships, and take into account today's needs as well as those of the future.

Jeffrey Woodward is vice president of Marketing for CenterCore. Center(ore produces ergonomic office furniture and its Corel seating line for call center, high-density and government work environments.

Copyright Technology Marketing Corporation Jan 1997
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