{"id":552144,"date":"2007-04-29T11:59:50","date_gmt":"2007-04-29T11:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/552144-speaking-up-for-operators.html"},"modified":"2007-04-29T11:59:50","modified_gmt":"2007-04-29T11:59:50","slug":"speaking-up-for-operators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/552144-speaking-up-for-operators.html","title":{"rendered":"Speaking up for operators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\">According to James Futter, technology manager at Sennheiser South Africa, call centre agents are frequently exposed to harsh acoustic bursts that, over time, can damage their hearing.<!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--par1--><font size=\"2\">\u201cCall centre agents are at risk from injury to their hearing if they aren\u2019t equipped with special headsets,\u201d he said. \u201cMost people spend a relatively short period of time on the phone while at work. <!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--par1--><font size=\"2\">\u201cBut call centre agents are constantly interacting with people making incoming calls. People who phone call centres are often angry or irritable and they tend to shout or raise their voices. Outright acts of aggression occur, too. <!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--par1--><font size=\"2\">\u201cSomeone who is angry with the company they are calling, for instance, may blow a whistle into the phone, which can seriously damage the listener\u2019s hearing.\u201d<!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--par1--><font size=\"2\">Futter said cheap headsets lowered the voice quality of a call and were a false economy as they are the primary interface between the company and the customer.<!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--par1--><font size=\"2\">\u201cAn uncomfortable agent will not perform optimally. A well-crafted headset will also help damp down loud noises without distorting the quality of the call.<!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><!--par1--><!--par0--><\/font><\/p>\n<p><!--par1--><font size=\"2\">\u201cThe European Union has taken the headset issue very seriously and in February 2006 issued a directive specifying how headsets should perform. No such legislation exists in South Africa, but call centre operators need to take into account the health considerations of the agents who work there,\u201d he said.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php?t=74117\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many call centre agents spend eight hours a day fielding calls, yet their hearing safety is largely neglected by employers who spend millions on sophisticated technology , but fall at the last fence by providing inferior headsets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}