I have never worked in a call-centre, having sat at Level 2-3 IT support in my younger days, but I’ve worked very closely with first-line support and felt the pressure that they are under. Their challenge is process as many calls as possible in shortest time, yet maintain quality. This means that the driver to find ways to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) is strong for the business. The main KPI being length of call which is easy to measure, quality is more difficult.
This has lead to innovations on the tracking of call-centre employees by correlating the metrics on the calls they take with what the employee is doing on their computer screen. This brings us to the use of surveillance, which is not just cameras, but telecommunications made easier with voice over IP together with a piece of software to enable screenshots when the call is being taken.
Is this disproportionate? Me with my privacy hat, says YES. Although clearly to record these actions for a specific purpose, i.e. to train, and help improve quality, effectiveness, could be good. This is not only for providing a quality service, but also for the employees who want to be great at what they do!
Some great guidelines have been published by CNIL. It’s in French of course, but the translation is actually rather good.