Call Centers: A Friendly Touch.

Byline: Emily Flynn Vencat

Dismal customer relations has been the standard at call centers for decades. Callers get put on hold, only to be routed to representatives who have no expertise in the problem at hand. Businesses, however, are beginning to realize that this unhappy situation is costing them money--[pounds sterling]250 million for every [pounds sterling]1 billion in annual revenue, according to London-based corporate analysts Data Vantage. The reason: customers tend not to buy products over the phone when they're having a bad experience. What's more, 55 percent of callers just hang up when they're getting the run-around. By contrast, a company with high-satisfaction phone services pulls in 30 to 40 percent more revenue during calls than its counterparts, according to Siemens research.

Companies such as Barclays, Siemens, Prudential and Powergen have begun to invest in new technology to make call centers more like the local shops or chatty door-to-door salesmen of yore. Barclays' Gadbrook Park Call Center, which opened last year and was named best European call center by the industry magazine Call Center Focus, based its customer-service model on Ritz-Carlton's. "We've replicated what a five-star hotel chain would deliver with bespoke service," says director Rob ...