The american computer maker Hewlett Packard (HP) has one central call center for Europe in Amsterdam. It deals with the support for the newest and most expensive devices. In addition to that, in several european countries HP operates with smaller call centers, for instance in Ratingen (near Ruhrgebiet). The support for cheaper and older models was outsourced to external call centers, for instance to the call center companies Sykes, Stream and Sitel.
About 600 people work in Amsterdam, but only about a third on the telephones. The rest deals with controlling, administration and technical support - for the agents in the HP-call center and those in the outscourced call centers like Sykes. HP hires the agents for two years through temporary agencies (Kellys, Randstand, Content). After that some are taken over permanently. But the turnover is high and many stop the job after two years. The wage for newly hired is about 22,30 guilders (about 10 Euro) an hour (before tax). The agents at Sykes, in Amsterdam just around the corner from HP, get about 16,50 guilders (7,50 Euros). At HP all agents work fulltime with five 8-hour-shifts, Monday till Friday, between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. During the night calls get transferred automatically to Dallas/USA.
HP recalculates its support concept on a regular basis and changes it constantly. Call center departments get reorganized, tranferred to other countries or outsourced to other companies. There is a paragraph in the agents' contracts that - in case their department gets transferred somewhere else - they have to move there, too, or the contract terminates.
The departments in Amsterdam are organised after product groups. The departments are devided once more in language teams (English, German, French, Spanish, nordic languages...). Most calls are about machines which do not work anymore. The callers need advice and support in order to make it work again or to get a substitute device. The number of calls varies between 20 and 40 a day. They last between one minute and about one hour. The first level (welcome desk, identification of the device and transfer to the right department) was outsourced to external call centers. For german callers that is done by Sykes in Wilhelmshaven, for english-speaking callers it is in Glasgow. The agents in the first level have a lot more calls a day and fixed timeframes for each call.
Most telephone workers at HP in Amsterdam are between 20 and 40 years old. 80 to 90 percent are foreigners (not dutch). Many see the job as temporary. They want to live in Amsterdam for a while, learn about computers and get a certificate of a well-known company. But the work is boring. The customers are annoyed because their machines are not working, and go on about that. Some agents stop working there because they cannot deal with being a rubbish bin. Others try to get as few calls as possible.
The HP management reacts by intensifying controls and giving agents more tasks (for instance more products to support, or by transferring english calls as well, a language everybody speaks there). In some departments every day statistics are being put up on the wall on the number of calls, pushed-back-calls, breaks, not-ready-time, etc. Sometimes the teamleaders run around and criticise agents for there allegedly bad statistics. The teamleaders at HP are only controlling and administrating, they rarely have much of a clue about the technical sides.
Furthermore, an external company makes test calls in order to check the support quality. There is constant talk about quality. That is absurd because HP hires agents by looking for certain language skills. After about three weeks of training they shall answer technical questions on the computer devices. That only works somehow by putting callers into the music queue and get the necessary information from other workers or the technical specialists.