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Fredia Barry is Executive Director of the Call Center Industry Advisory Council (CIAC, Brentwood, TN) is the only industry-sanctioned organization that certifies call center managers and eventually all other call center job roles including agents, for all types of call center including inbound and outbound customer service and sales centers, for phone and multimedia.
CIAC is sponsored by many leading organizations in the call center industry such as Incoming Calls Management Institute (ICMI, Annapolis, MD), the Call Center Networking Group (CCNG), Avaya Communication, e-Satisfy, formerly TARP and a division of outsourcer TeleSpectrum Worldwide, Manpower International, Frontline Group FTR, a leading financial services consultancy, and Airborne Express, Aspect’s Contact Center University, and Drake International.
Formed by the call center industry in early 1997, following several years' consulting with the industry as to what competencies represent best of class for call center management executives, CIAC will begin certification testing this spring for individuals in operational and strategic management roles. Apprentice Certification will be available for individuals that are now in training to pursue a career in call center management but that does not yet have actual work experience. Certification for other call center job roles will follow implementation of the Management Track. CIAC hopes to offer certification for all job roles by mid year 2002.
Barry points out that with the explosive growth of call centers, the absence of qualifed individuals is hurting recruiting efforts and the ability of call centers to operate at an optimum level. The need to have individuals that are competent to “hit the ground running” is ever pressing. Unfortunately until now very little has been done to validate the call center profession or to promote working in call centers as a credible career choice. The industry, and recruitment for it is also hindered by negative perception of call center as exclusively 'telemarketers'.
"One of the most important issue facing the industry identified from our research is a lack of new entrants into the call center profession, i.e., people pursuing call center careers, "Barry points out. " This is primarily because working in a call center is not viewed as a legitimate career. Most people end up working in a call center while waiting for a perceived better job to come along. Rarely when you ask a person what profession he/she will pursue do you get the response: 'I want to work in a call center'." CIAC wants to change this.
As for the certification of call center management executives, with the rapid growth of call centers no longer can a company afford a 5-10 year learning curve. This is why CIAC’s establishment of competencies that spell out what an individual needs to know and be able to do to successfully manage a call center along with a means to validate that expertise, is so important.
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