Purdue News
Purdue News
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February 26, 1993 Purdue opens nation's first service quality research centerWEST LAFAYETTE, IND. – Corporate departments providing toll-free call centers have their first and only education and research center in the nation at Purdue University. The Consumer Affairs Institute for Service Quality Research and Education opened this month in the Department of Consumer Sciences and Retailing. Richard Feinberg, department head and director of the institute, says, "We will be the first university to truly produce educational curricula in the area of customer-service call centers, thereby giving our students a head start in this new discipline." Assistant Director Jon Anton, adjunct professor of consumer sciences and retailing, says the institute keeps Purdue ahead of the pack in the consumer affairs discipline. "No other major university in the nation is doing this work. Purdue will graduate the first professional specialists in this area," Anton says. Toll-free customer-service call centers, also known as help desks, technical support centers, or customer answer centers, enable consumers to communicate with companies and allow businesses to gauge customers' opinions and needs. "The centers also measure customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction with products in meaningful, quantitative and practical ways," says Feinberg. "This customer feedback is absolutely critical in today's highly competitive and global marketplace." "Telephonic customer communications require more than telephone operator skills," Anton says. "In this field an employee must be comfortable with computer and telephone equipment as well as possess good interpersonal and articulation skills. An operator must talk on the phone and get close to a customer and often diffuse a lot of anger while preparing the proper response or finding the correct answer." Anton adds that the industry desperately needs representatives with computer literacy and technical skills to operate the latest software for tracking customer contacts. In addition, he says, industry needs managers to motivate and lead teams of customer-service representatives at these complex telephone-based centers. Less than 1O percent of corporate America has implemented toll-free call centers for their customers. Feinberg predicts many more companies will create such centers in the next five years, making this a hot new market for college graduates looking for positions in major American corporations. "This industry has changed dramatically," says Feinberg. "Ten years ago, products didn't have toll-free numbers for customers to call. General Electric was probably the first company with a complete center responding to calls about anything from their light bulb to their jet engines. "These centers are a major part of corporate America's response to delivering quality customer service, while at the same time fine-tuning a system of listening to consumers' needs and wants." The institute will supply crisis management "swat" teams to temporarily aid business managers with major public relations emergencies and will house a national data base of customers who repeatedly complain about a product or service. Participating companies would then have the advance knowledge that they might be dealing with "chronic" or "professional" complainers who protest or complain about company products or services for financial gain. With a mission to provide education, academic and corporate research and industrial services, the institute also will: The Department of Consumer Sciences and Retailing is providing the initial funding for the center. Raising additional funds will keep Feinberg and Anton busy at first. Before joining Purdue, Anton was with TARP Information Systems Inc., where he assisted more than 2OO companies in improving their service quality by defining their personnel and automation needs. Contact Purdue News Service (765) 494-2096 or purduenews@purdue.edu
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