Call centres and Work Ethic

I think a lot of industries need an evaluation of the skills needed and those employed. At call centres, things that are important include sales targets, customer satisfaction and building rapport.They would benefit from an avoidance of rigid structures such as rushing calls to meet AHT (average call handling time) and time pressure. Having the supervisor monitoring everything does not help either.

As long as the job is done well and it is making money for the company then why pressure employees over speed of calls and punishment for 1 or 2 minutes lateness or idle time? A friend of mine said that call centres are the modern day equivalent of sweat shops. It sure can feel like going through the mill when you have loads of fuming customers in the call queue and computer systems struggling to cope. Enough said and no more for me. Thanks.