Sound Masking -- A Boon For Call Centers
There's always a lot of noise in a call center. It doesn't matter how carefully you organize the workspace, or how advanced your equipment is. There will inevitably be some office noise to confront, think about, and ultimately minimize. Additionally, it's important to consider the issue of protecting your clients' privacy. If people hear lots of background chatter when they call your operators, they're more likely to think that their information isn't secure, and worry about possible fraud. Be sure to think about psychology, as well as ergonomics, when you put your call center together.
Cell sensitivity is important at any call center that provides any kind of customer service. This needs to be considered by any call center, whether it is independent or part of a larger corporate structure. This also applies to call centers that are parts of government and military organizations. This risk should also be taken into account for corporate meeting areas, contractors that carry security clearances, and anyone else who deals with sensitive information.
Sound, being what it is, can pass through just about any surface -- doors, windows, walls, ducts, you name it. If someone is deadset on overhearing any private conversation, it can usually be done with sophisticated eavesdropping devices, and only very sophisticated methods of masking can preserve privacy.
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 essentially fills in the sound spectrum, making speech less intelligible in a given space. Often confused with noise cancellation, sound masking does not actually alter a sound wave's frequency. Instead, it simply covers it up. This method of ensuring acoustic privacy is usually the most effective in terms of return on investment.
Essentially, the benefit for the Call Center is not only safety of conversation, but lack of intrusion of equipment. Properly installed sound masking can reduce the costs of cubicle walls while still dramatically improving the environment. It can also reduce the risk of customers or clients overhearing another customer's private information as a call center rep repeats it back to them.
Call Centers can greatly benefit from masking, and worker health will also be improved, in that background noise is a stressor. For health of employees, providing a workplace that is protected from extraneous noise is very important. For both employee and customer, then, sound masking is a boon to Call Centers.
Call Centers are noisy places. 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. If your Call Center deals with any kind of customer service, you will be open to issues of call sensitivity. Sound masking helps both owners and employees of call centers. Office noise or white noise can be very stressful to workers at call centers, and shielding them from excessive noise is quite valuable. It makes business sense to implement masking at a call center, because workers will be more productive.
Published March 4th, 2009
Filed in Business, Management