Demanding Challenges for a Complex Workplace

Today’s call centers have evolved to become sophisticated, high-tech showcases of service, support, and sales. Meanwhile, the look and layout of call centers is changing to keep up with the new demands being placed on them. Call centers are getting more respect as their image morphs from backroom to corporate centerpiece. No longer do executives dismiss their call centers as a necessary evil best operated on a shoestring. Instead, many progressive companies are coming around to the opposite view, one that recognizes the potential of call centers to have an unrivaled impact on the bottom line—for better or worse.

“The boiler room mentality is disappearing,” says Laura Sikorski, managing partner of Sikorski, Tuerpe and Associates, a call center consulting firm in Centerport, New York. “Today, executives are realizing that the call center just might be their most important asset and are treating it accordingly.” What’s responsible for the elevated status of call centers? Mainly this: Nowadays, many companies interact with their customers primarily if not solely through their call center. In effect, the call center isn’t just another department, it’s the front door often the only opportunity companies have to build a relationship with customers they’ll never see.

“Call centers are increasingly the main point of contact between a company and its customers,” says Roger Kingsland, managing partner of Kingsland Scott Bauer Associates, a Pittsburgh architectural firm that  specializes in call centers. “And that trend will continue as the technology becomes more sophisticated and our economy becomes more reliant on information and services.”

Many, varied call center applications
After being introduced by the airlines in the 1970s, call centers soon became synonymous with the telemarketing industry, where their reputation languished for years. Today, there are tens of thousands of call centers in the United States and seemingly as many reasons for their existence. Yes, call centers are still used for reservations and telemarketing. But they’re also used for technical support, customer service, telephone banking, catalog sales, surveys, collections, and crisis intervention. Call centers have become so complex they aren’t even sure what to call themselves anymore. “Call center” doesn’t seem quite right, especially for a place that’s as likely to communicate via e-mail and on-line chat as traditional phone calls. That’s why many companies prefer “contact center,” “customer care center,” or perhaps “help desk” instead. And what about the people who work the phones? Are they agents? Representatives? Technicians? Advocates? That depends on whether they’re making sales, assisting customers, resolving a technical problem, or attending to any of the dozens of other tasks assigned to modern call centers. Then, too, advances in technology are expanding what call center representatives do. Many are using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). It transmits voice through the Internet, putting all the information the agent needs on screen. That enables agents to provide a deeper level of assistance beyond, for example, what customers can get from the company’s website.

     When customers shopped for Herman Miller Inc.’s popular Aeron chair, they found one price advertised wherever they looked: $949, the company’s suggested retail price. But an antitrust lawsuit brought by New York state and joined by Michigan and Illinois ended today with a settlement that gives retailers more leeway in advertising prices for the chair and other furniture.

 

     Nonetheless, a Herman Miller spokesman today insisted the Zeeland company can still require stores not to advertise below a certain price, although the furniture could be sold for less. The settlement will cost the Zeeland-based furniture company $750,000 in fines, paid to the three states bringing the suit. Former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer launched the investigation in 2003. “We are pleased to have reached this settlement and put the matter to rest,” Herman Miller’s CEO Brian Walker said in a statement. “Our determination to settle was a purely pragmatic business decision.” Herman Miller denied it was guilty of wrongdoing.

 

     At issue was a pricing policy launched in January 2002, after retailers and online sellers started cutting prices for the chair. Under the company’s Suggested Retail Price policy, retailers could advertise the Aeron for no less than $949. If they broke that rule, they could be denied shipments for up to a year or be cut off completely. A consent decree signed today in U.S. District Court in Manhattan bars Herman Miller from coercing or communicating with dealers who violate that policy.

 

     It can still punish errant retailers, spokesman Mark Schurman said. “We absolutely can unilaterally enforce a minimum advertised pricing program,” he said.

 

Through Dec. 31, 2010, Herman Miller agreed to:

 

• “Not enter into any agreement with any dealer to fix, raise, peg, maintain or stabilize the resale price at which (its) furniture is advertised, promoted, offered for sale, or sold to end-user consumers.”

• “Not terminate, suspend, or fail to fill orders of any dealer …. or to coerce (a) dealer to adhere to any of Herman Miller’s MSRP (minimum suggested retail price).

• Print this disclosure on every pertinent price list and advertising: “Retailers are always free, however, to advertise and sell Herman Miller for the Home Products at whatever price you want.”

• Submit monthly reports to the state showing sales, forecasts

Article Courtesy of  Chronicle News Service

     Herman Miller, Inc., based in Zeeland, Michigan, is an American manufacturer of office furniture and equipment, as well as modern furniture for the home. It is notable as one of the first companies to produce modern furniture, and the manufacturer of the Equa chair, Aeron chair, and Eames Lounge Chair. Despite the header (office equipment), Herman Miller was not primarily in the office furniture business until the late 1960s, although they produced office furniture since the 1930s. Most of their most famous modern products were produced starting in 1946 and running through the mid 1960s, when they discontinued much of their home furniture lines and focused on the business world. In 1980’s they began re-introducing many of their most famous home pieces and now they are about 60/40 office/home.

 

Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman 1923-1930 – historic (non-modern) reproductions

• 1930-1944 – under the direction of Gilbert Rohde, Herman Miller produced modern furniture for the home and office.

• 1946-1970 – under the direction of George Nelson, Herman Miller produced many of the most iconic classic modern furniture for the home and office. It was during this time that Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard and Robert Propst were brought in to feature their furniture designs.

    

     Many of Herman Miller’s products are designed to be ecologically sound, and many are good examples of ecodesign techniques for achieving sustainability include saving materials, energy efficient manufacturing, recycled content, and recyclable content, including design for disassembly. The design process also utilizes life cycle assessment.

 

     Herman Miller helped fund the start of the United States Green Building Council, and hired architect William McDonough to design a factory incorporating green design principles. The building is known as the Greenhouse and is an example of green building. The company is also famous for having partnered with furniture designers Gilbert Rohde, George Nelson, Charles and Ray Eames, Paul Laszlo, Robert Propst and Isamu Noguchi. Influential fabric designer Alexander Girard came to the company in 1952. The line of furniture published by Herman Miller in their catalogs from 1948 to 1952 is considered to be among the most influential in modern design.

 

     Herman Miller is consistently recognized as one of Fortune Magazine’s “Most Admired Companies”, having placed at the top of the list for Furniture companies for the past 18 consecutive years. The company is also noted for its dedication to a people focused employee culture, following a servant leadership concept. These days, whether it’s Malaysia or Italy, Herman Miller is steadily controlling the future of chair design worldwide. Every company in the world is trying to match their designs to Herman Miller’s. I believe Herman Miller has set a benchmark for all competitors not only in the United States but in the world.

 

     In March 2008, Herman Miller settled an antitrust lawsuit with the states of New York, Michigan, and Illinois for $750,000 [1]. The lawsuit focused on Herman Miller’s use of a suggested retail pricing policy, which was found to be within the bounds of the law. Today, many companies employ such policies to avoid price erosion in the internet channel. (Refer to article 2 – “The Lawsuit”)

Information courtesy of Wikipedia