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Related Experiment Videos

Improvisational choreography in teleservice work.

Jack Whalen1, Marilyn Whalen, Kathryn Henderson

  • 1Palo Alto Research Centre, CA 94304, USA. jwhalen@parc.com

The British Journal of Sociology
|August 13, 2002
PubMed
Summary

Sales representatives expertly improvise during customer calls, blending telephone interactions with tool use. This craft-like performance challenges traditional views of work routines as rigidly structured.

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Area of Science:

  • Workplace Studies
  • Sociology of Work
  • Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

  • Call centre sales representatives engage in complex, dynamic interactions with customers.
  • Understanding the practical organization of everyday work is crucial for service industries.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To analyze the improvisational choreography of sales representatives' actions during customer calls.
  • To investigate how tools and artefacts are utilized in conjunction with telephone interactions.
  • To re-examine the concepts of work routines and routinization in light of observed work practices.

Main Methods:

  • Naturalistic observation of sales representatives' ordinary work practices in a call centre setting.
  • Detailed analysis of turn-by-turn telephone interactions and concurrent tool/artefact use.

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  • Qualitative examination of improvisational elements in work performance.

    • Main Results:

    • Sales work performance is an improvisational choreography, integrating telephone dialogue with the use of various tools and artefacts.
    • Teleservice workers fabricate actions using readily available materials, often strategically arranged for extemporaneous composition.
    • The observed work practices resemble a craft-like performance, highlighting contingency in routine production.

    Conclusions:

    • Traditional notions of 'work routines' and 'routinization' require respecification.
    • Work routines are contingently produced results, not fixed structures.
    • Call centre sales work demonstrates a sophisticated, improvisational approach to service delivery.