Management Psychology

Management Psychology

Introduction

In the modern global world, organizations and companies are interested in the provision of information and assistance to the potential and the existing customers of the organization or company. as a result, organizations and companies have been able to decrease the costs that they incurred from telephone conversations and they have put together all the information delivery services into one department in the organization. Call centers are therefore as a result of organizations and companies merging the forms of information delivery into one department that has a team that is responsible and have specialized in handling of all the phone calls in the organization.

Call center is another name that is used in reference to customer interaction centers. These centers are primarily responsible for receiving and relaying a big number of information, customer support and customer inquiries through the telephone. Modern organizations and companies have come to realize the importance of this department in the organization and as a result, call center has become one of the important and indispensable department in an organization or company.

Companies and organizations that need to engage in telemarketing, which refers to marketing over the telephone, have also realized the importance of having this department in the organization. This is mainly because call centers can enable the organization to sell more of its products and services and it can enable the organization or company to develop customer loyalty as a result of the services offered by the call center.

In this profession of being a call center agent, there is hardly a phase in the daily activities and life of the employees in this sector or department in the organization or company that has no relation to the study of psychology. One of the important thing to note from the beginning is that psychology studies the behavior of human beings.

In the organization or company, the behavior of the employees has a great importance to the organization because every activity that takes place in the organization is influenced by the behavior of the employees. Employee behavior is not only essential in the production and rendering of services in the organization but it is also essential towards the achievement of the organizational goals and objectives.

According to Aksin Armony and Mehrotra (2007, p 667), management psychology in the call center is therefore concerned not only in the behavior of the employees in the call center but in the overall employee behavior in the entire organization or company. the quality of work, whether good or bad, that is done by the call center agents largely depend on the influence of a psychologist that the organization has hired. Management psychology therefore plays a very important role in the performance and quality of services rendered in the call center department of any organization.

The organization is one of the best places where the behavior of human beings can be studied. The call center on the other hand provides useful information about the performance of human beings under different situations. This is mainly because the call center agents are faced with different levels of pressure from the clients and customer and the services of a psychologist in the organization can be very useful in enabling these employees to deal and cope with the pressures of the job description.

Management psychology can enable the organization to determine the best services and products to offer to the customers and the potential customers based on the studies that have been developed and done by the psychologist in the organization.

According to Mehrotra, Grossman and Samuelson (2011). the primary activity and purpose of a call center is to ensure that all call to the organization have been received and handled in a proper and sound manner possible. The managers of these call centers are constantly expected to deliver high quality services will at the same time ensure that the costs incurred in this department are at minimum. These managers and agents in the call centers are therefore working under stressful situations in the organization and management psychology comes in handy.

Management psychology in an organization is usually a position where the staff can offer advisory services to the employees of the organization.  Being in this position the psychologist will be able to develop programs that will not only be aimed at the safety of the assets of the organization but also aims to ensure the safety of the employees of the organization.

Hernandez, Morris and Picard (2011, p 127) notes that there are many problems that are present in a call center. One of the problem that a call canter agent encounters on a daily basis is that the work that he or she does is under a highly structured and monitored environment. This creates strong pressures for these employees.

Another problem of working in a call center is the strict nature of work and the work schedules that one needs to work under. In the call centers, the call center agents have nearly no time for rest, lunch breaks and even time to use the toilet because the tasks in the call center are highly planned, limited and monitored.

Management psychology comes in handy under these circumstances because they are able to offer the solution to these problems that the call center agents face on a day to day basis.

The management psychologist will be able to ensure that the organization itself understands the nature of its operations. once the organization has clearly understood its operations, it will be able to select the best suited candidate to work in the call center. This will go a long way in minimizing the problems that the employees in the call centers experience because these employees will be best suited to work in the call canter based on their prior experience.

Important aspects as the suitability of the employees, the experience, adaptability, ability to manage pressures and effective communication skills will be used by the organization or company in the effort to minimize the problems that may arise in the call center (Borodow, Ezerzer and Margulies 2006, p 176).

According to Hernandez, Morris and Picard (2011), the management psychologist will also enable the organization or company to come up with a promotion system that incorporates incentives for the employees. This will go a long way in managing the personnel in the organization. By providing incentives in the organization, the organization will be able to create loyalty, employee enthusiasm and ensure that the organization progresses on a continual basis.

The management psychologist in an organization or company plays a very important role in the organization because he or she enables the organization to realize the important roles that each and every employee in the organization plays.

In the modern organization, stress is rapidly becoming a way of life. Employees in the organization are prone to stress be it in their personal lives of in the professional lives or both. Stress affects all the employees of the organization and in particular employees who work in the call centers stress affects every employee in the organization irrespective of their age, religion, social status, intellectual capacity or believes.

Management psychologists plays an important role in guiding the employees of an organization on the proper ways of handling and dealing with the stresses that come in life (Feinberg, De Ruyter and Bennington 2005, p 176).

Companies and organizations that have call centers need to incorporate the services of a management psychologist so that they can be able to remain competitive in the midst of high competition in the industry. Management psychologists in the organization will be able the call center agents to develop an alliance with the customer.

This alliance will be based on clear messages that will improve the collaboration between the customer and the agent. It will also reduce instances where problems between the agent and the customer arise in the organization.

There are many roles that psychology in an organization can play in the management of an organization or company. One of the important roles that psychology in an organization plays is to ensure that there is an interpretation of the approaches that have been used in the organization to study and understand the employees within the management psychology study.

Another role that psychology management in an organization has to play is that it directly affects the way people in the organization behave. It is also an important aspect for building organization cultures that are useful in determining the manner in which the employees in the organization are going to behave (Millward 2005, p 170).

Through management psychology, the organization is able to study the different aspects of organizational behavior and organizational life. The central concern for management is to ensure that there is efficiency in the use of resources of the organization. On the other hand, management psychology is centered on the concept of understanding human behavior in the organization so as to ensure that resources in the organization are utilized in an effective and efficient manner possible.

Management psychology in an organization can ensure that there is the use of effective communication skills by the employees of the organization. Management psychologists will educate the call center agents on the importance of using effective communication skills in the organization so that they can be able to serve the customers well.

Call center agents need to ensure that they leave the customer to speak, explain their dissatisfactions about the organization without being interrupted. Once the call center agents have understood the problem of the customer, they should be able to respond to the customer with the best response possible.

In some instances, the call center agents may overestimate their capacity as individuals and they may be reluctant to admit that they overestimated themselves. The management psychologist will be able to offer the best advice to the employee and thereby restore the morale of the employee.

By default, management psychology deals with the behavior of human beings in the organization and it offers the possible solutions for the human problems in the organization so that the organization or company can achieve its intended goals and objectives.

It is evident that there is need for organizations and companies to come up with innovative ways they are going to deal with the many problems that the employees in the organization or company face. According to Muchinsky (2006), these innovative ways that the organization will use in solving human problems will only be successful if the organization understands the human behavior that is present in the organization.

Management psychology enables the organization to institute sound policies that are based on research in the various goal settings in the organization. Management psychologists in an organization will be able to propose sound policies based on the relationships that are present in the organization.

In order for the management psychologist to study the behavior of the employees in the call center, they need to depend on the goodwill and the trust of the employees who will cooperate with them to the point that they disclose the personal problems they face in their lives.

The management psychologist also depends on the goodwill and the trust of the decision makers in the organization or company so that they can be able to improve the performance and the effectiveness and efficiency of service provision in the call centers in an organization or company.

Conclusion

This paper has discussed the various uses of management psychology in the management of call centers in an organization. It has also discussed the importance of having management psychologists in the organization.

It is evident from the discussion above that call centers are as a result of organizations and companies merging the forms of information delivery into one department that has a team that is responsible and have specialized in handling of all the phone calls in the organization.

The primary concern for management psychology in the call center is not only in the behavior of the employees in the call center but in the overall employee behavior in the entire organization or company. The quality of work, whether good or bad, that is done by the call center agents largely depend on the influence of a psychologist that the organization has hired. Management psychology therefore plays a very important role in the performance and quality of services rendered in the call center department of any organization.

In order for the management psychologist to study the behavior of the employees in the call center, they need to depend on the goodwill and the trust of the employees who will cooperate with them to the point that they disclose the personal problems they face in their lives.

The management psychologist also depends on the goodwill and the trust of the decision makers in the organization or company so that they can be able to improve the performance and the effectiveness and efficiency of service provision in the call centers in an organization or company.

Due to the changes in the global business industry, organizations and companies have realized the importance of having call centers in the organization that is dedicated to solving the various problems and queries that the customers have. In instituting and setting up call centers in the organization, organizations and companies are striving to remain competitive in the competitive global business industry.

Bibliography:

Aksin, Z., Armony, M. and Mehrotra, V., 2007. The modern call center: A multi‐disciplinary perspective on operations management research. Production and Operations Management, 16(6), pp.665-688.

Borodow, E.B., Ezerzer, R. and Margulies, E.K., Telephony@ Work, 2006.Call center administration manager with rules-based routing prioritization. U.S. Patent 7,039,176.

Feinberg, R., De Ruyter, K. and Bennington, L., 2005. Cases in call center management: great ideas (that work). Purdue University Press.

Giacalone, R.A. and Rosenfeld, P., 2013. Impression management in the organization. Psychology Press.

Hernandez, J., Morris, R.R. and Picard, R.W., 2011. Call center stress recognition with person-specific models. In Affective computing and intelligent interaction (pp. 125-134). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Mehrotra, V., Grossman, T.A. and Samuelson, D.A., 2011. Call center management. Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science.

Millward, L.J., 2005. Understanding occupational & organizational psychology. Sage.

Muchinsky, P.M., 2006. Psychology applied to work: An introduction to industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 1). Cengage Learning.