Call Centers are noisy places. No matter how carefully you position the workstations, or how good your audio and call equipment is there will be office noise to deal with, noise to plan around, and noise to eliminate. Furthermore, there is always the issue of sensitivity in conversation to deal with. If people call into a Call Center and sense background noise and chatter they are more apt to regard the Center as a fly-by-night operation and potential fraud risk. Not only ergonomics but psychology must rule the construction of a good Call Center.
If the Call Center has to deal with any sort of customer service, you’ll be dealing with issues of call sensitivity. Offices all over the place which have customer service arms must consider this factor, whether the Call Center is located off the company campus or is in-house. This is the case as well for government and military operations, contractors with clearances, or corporate meeting areas in private corporations. You are at risk in any place where you deal with personal info.
Because of the unique properties of sound, it is able to pass through many materials such as parts of a building. If someone is intent on hearing the conversation of somebody else, they would likely be able to do this using machines specifically for this purpose. Also, privacy can only be kept if the most careful measures are taken to do so.
Conventional acoustic treatment techniques include the creation of rooms that have high sound attenuation. This means diminishing the intensity of the sound that is traveling through a medium and is achieved via absorption, spreading, or scattering the sound. Many organizations don’t have money available for high-class attenuation and thus look to another option: sound masking.
Sound masking basically fills in the sound spectrum and makes speech less intelligible in given places. Usually confused with noise cancellation, sound masking will not truly change the frequency of a sound wave. It just covers it up. This technique of ensuring acoustic privacy is often the most effective in regard to the return on the investment.
Basically, the benefits for the Call Centers are not just the safety of the conversations but also the lack of equipment intrusion. Sound masking, if installed properly, reduces costs for cubicle walls while also greatly enhancing the overall environment. It also reduces the risks of clients or customers overhearing other customers’ private info when call center reps repeat it back to them.
Call Centers will benefit greatly from masking and workers’ health will improve, since background noise is such a stressor. For the health of the employees, giving them a workplace environment protected from extraneous noises is vital. For both customers and employees, sound masking is a great help for all Call Centers.
Call centers, by definition, are noisy places. After all, everybody is talking! It is important,however, that this office noise not be allowed to define the business to the client. No one wants to think their personal information is at risk. Since sound can pass through almost all mediums, the office managers should consider sound masking. Masking doesn’t cancel the sound but fills in the spaces of the spectrum so speech is not identifiable and the result is a white noise. Masking is more cost effective than other methods. The results are more pleasing to both the workers and the clients.
- Frank Barnett