With its phenomenal growth in the world market, the contact center has taken on an identity of its own. It is now widely recognized as the industry of the future and with its high workforce of young graduates in their 20’s, the fusion of cultures are unavoidable.

In Malaysia the culture in this industry is nothing short of interesting. There are some rather enlightening people and cultures in the contact center industry here. Let us take a look at some that may get you smiling.


1. The Cool gang:

There will always be a group of good looking guys and gals in any contact center. They travel in packs and do almost everything together. They have their breaks, lunch and after work drinks together and are seldom seen with others. To get into this group you either have to be good looking or have something that the group can accept as cool enough to be in like maybe if you drive a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. They are infamous for their wild parties on the weekends and the juicy gossips that come out result of those parties. Everyone wants to get in or be associated with this group and will do whatever it takes to be seen as cool like running errands for them and forming sub-groups in support of them. Sadly not all of its members are the high performance in their contact center due to the overly high ego that comes with being in the group.

2. The IT Zombies:

These group of people are seldom seen on the call floor and are often appear when the machines have issues or web solutions gives you a headache. Most of time we see them twice, once when we join because they would be the ones showing us how to log in and use the solutions available and the other time is when we resign to return laptops and such. They live in a world of their own and are known as the ‘Geeks” or “Nerds” of the company. The IT department is usually located away from the call floor, in another room or way back near to the server rooms. The men in this department get exited reading latest gadgets magazine and their conversation circulate around how to high on Megabytes. The women are rare in this world but the few that exist are mostly the opposite of their male counterparts as they to be to get some action. Many would actually mix around with the other departments to widen their net and stay at least decently cool.

3. The TL’s and high performers :

These people are important to the company because they are the ones that contribute to the overall performances. The TL’s (Team Leaders) attend just too many meetings during the operations hours and spend the rest of the time on their PC’s checking emails and whatever time they have left talking to the few people –the high performers. They seem to more busy then the Management team and even though coaching and motivating are in their KPI”s , they have little time for that. This is the reason where they spend time with the selected few. It’s good to note that some of TL’s are part of the cool group thus making associating with the not cool bunch really uncool.

With the many mix of people and groups in the contact center industry it only contributes to why it is the most dynamic industry to be working in. It is expected that by 2012, 30% of young graduations will get jobs in this industry. We look forward to more great fusion and emergences of great cultures that will make it a wonderful and dynamic industry to be in.