How Call Centre Agents Cope With Work Related Stress

There are many other ways that call centre agents cope with their stress at work. Houlihan¿s (2000:230) research provides plentiful evidence of agents engaging in prescribed routines with their own strategies, including cutting off difficult customers, withholding service to complicated and uncooperative callers, and a range of call avoidance strategies. Such actions are geared towards achieving targets and minimizing personal frustration and tedium. Hauptefleisch¿s research (2006) indicates that it is the unfair relationship that creates the lack of interest from call centre agents in their jobs. It does not seem like agents start out that way, instead the call centre culture molds them that way. Literature indicates that call centres try to minimize these problems by invoking a range of initiative such as ¿person-job fit¿, (Houlihan, 2000). In addition to this they look for team- based organizing and socialization initiatives. Houlihan (2000: 231) argues that ¿core criteria for call centre agent selection are behavioral skills, personality characteristics, and specific abilities such as telephone manners and ability to be part of a team".