One in four calls handled by contact centre workers are delayed by computer-related issues, and nearly two-thirds of staff say that IT slowdown is the biggest limitation on productivity, according to research.

One major issue is the need for staff to deal with multiple back-office systems, said Tim Bishop, head of strategy at Siemens Enterprise Communications, which surveyed 500 call centre workers.

Copying data between different applications can be extremely time-consuming.

“On average staff are using five systems during the course of one call, but in a small number of cases, about five per cent, respondents admitted to using 15 different applications during the course of a single transaction. This must also create an enormous overhead, in terms of the need to manage such a complex IT environment,” said Bishop.

Some 41 per cent of respondents said that they wanted more computer and systems training to help them cope with their work. As automated services take over more basic tasks, staff are being left to handle more difficult jobs.

Call centre workers are being forced to deal with a growing variety of data types and sources, and this will continue to pose a strategic challenge to businesses, said Anne Marie Forsyth, chief executive of the Customer Contact Association.

“Change is very much on the horizon, not just in terms of technology, but also by way of the knowledge that workers must be able to access,” she said.

“In the future, organisations will need to think very seriously about the individuals they employ to build their customer interfaces. This growing level of complexity affects businesses at all levels.”