Call Centers

The customer contact center and call center industry is well established in Minnesota, especially in key regional cities outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

There are about 400 customer contact center and call centers statewide, and a much larger number of businesses that manage their own in-house calling operations.

Much of what we know about the industry comes from a survey we conducted with nearly 300 call centers. View the full study.

Industry Characteristics
The most commonly provided services are customer services and e-mail response, followed by sales, technical support and order entry.

 The most commonly served industries are retail services, followed by “other business” services, healthcare services, and telecommunications.

The vast majority (78 percent) of call centers identify themselves as in-house centers. They provide services to an affiliate or parent company, rather than operating as subcontractor centers hired by other businesses.

More than half of the call centers have been in business for a decade or longer, and 78 percent have been in business six years or longer.

Of centers that we’ve polled:

• 63 percent provide business-to-business services
• 59 percent provide  business-to-consumer services
• 40 percent provide both business-to-business and business-to-consumer services.
  

More call centers receive inbound calls (78 percent) than make outbound calls (52 percent). About 45 percent of centers operate inbound and outbound call services.

About 62 percent of the centers serve mainly national locations, while 17 percent mainly served Minnesota (the primary sub-national market).

One measure of capacity is the number of seats or stations at a center. About 59 percent have fewer than 50 seats, while 12 percent have more than 200 seats.

Workforce Profile and Compensation
At the majority (63 percent) of centers, the typical agent works a 40-hour week.

About 42 percent centers pay new agents $12 per hour or less. One-quarter of new agents earn more than $15 per hour. Experienced agents earn higher wages, with 45 percent earning more than $15 per hour.

Nearly 80 percent of companies say that all of their employees work at the business location (i.e. no telecommuting workers).

Companies most commonly reward and motivate their employees with pay raises and peer recognition.

Training and Skills
Half of the centers report that their typical agents had some college, and about 30 percent say their typical agents have bachelor’s or advanced college degrees.

About one third of centers provide more than 20 days of training to new agents, followed by 26 percent providing five days or fewer, and 25 percent providing 11 to 20 days of training.

More than 90 percent of centers provided training in-house with a supervisor.

Technology
Technologies currently used by more than half of all respondents are e-mail (93 percent), fax (86 percent), quality monitoring (65 percent) and ACD multimedia (54 percent).

Web self-service is a key area for investment or upgrade. Quality monitoring, computer-telephony integration, VOIP, and ACD multimedia are the next most frequently chosen areas.

A promising industry sign is that 47 percent of respondents expect to increase their investment in technology by more than 5 percent.

Key Differences: In-house Versus Subcontractors

• In-house call centers are more likely to employ agents for 40 hours or more per week (79 percent) than subcontractors (45 percent).
  In-house centers tend to pay higher wages than subcontractors, whether to new or typical agents.
  A larger proportion of in-house centers than subcontractors offer many typical insurance and leave benefits. The exception is work schedule flexibility, which is offered by a much larger share of subcontractors than in-house centers.
  In-house respondents tend to record fewer calls than subcontractor respondents.
  About 69 percent of subcontractors provide training to new agents lasting 10 days or fewer, while 67 percent of in-house centers provide training to new agents lasting more than 10 days.
  

Key Differences: Inbound Versus Outbound

The proportion of subcontracted and in-house centers is similar between inbound and outbound centers.

Inbound and outbound centers offer benefits (e.g. medical insurance, paid sick/vacation leave, pension benefits) in about the same proportions, and have similar wage distributions, whether for new and typical workers.

Outbound call centers are more likely to offer shorter training sessions to new employees than inbound call centers.