Forty-Six year old Loretto Anthony was sacked from one of India’s leading call centers for taking a break without logging off from the dialer and leaving a customer call unattended. Was this zero tolerance? Yes, it was. Do such sackings take place often? No, they don’t. Is the service provider in question apologetic about this incident? No, it isn’t. The outsourcing firm has instituted zero-tolerance levels in several areas, one of them concerns undermining their inviolable commitment to customer satisfaction.
There is immense pressure on providers to focus on service delivery and implement the highest level of customer satisfaction as offshoring benefits move from cost-saving advantages of cheap labor to more strategic benefits of quality service delivery. This has given rise to a classic dilemma: how to institute processes, standards and discipline at the workplace without stifling the flexibility, innovation and creativity of employees that can make the difference between a mediocre and great organization.
The question plaguing the industry is how much control is too much? Is it simply that service providers, in their quest to optimize employee performance, end up hurting themselves with a regimented workplace that regulates an office like a factory floor? Yet, how do companies get thousands of young workers deliver quality service consistently day after day, and still keep ahead in a competitive business?
The Notion of Zero Tolerance
HR managers in call centers are skeptical about the zero-tolerance concept. They say there is nothing like zero tolerance in its absolute sense, but it is always applied in certain contexts. Companies follow a strict policy of zero tolerance when it comes to issues of security of data, integrity of employees or sexual harassment. Moreover, customers are treated as sacrosanct and, therefore, any rude or irresponsible behavior towards them isn’t tolerated. These are fundamental assumptions on which the foundation of the industry rests on, and these cannot be compromised, according to HR and business managers in BPO firms.
