Sound Masking — A Boon For Call Centers

Call Centers are noisy places. No matter how carefully you position the workstations, or how good your audio and call equipment is there will be office noise to deal with, noise to plan around, and noise to eliminate. Furthermore, there is always the issue of sensitivity in conversation to deal with. If people call into a Call Center and sense background noise and chatter they are more apt to regard the Center as a fly-by-night operation and potential fraud risk. Not only ergonomics but psychology must rule the construction of a good Call Center.

Cell sensitivity is important at any call center that provides any kind of customer service. This needs to be considered by any call center, whether it is independent or part of a larger corporate structure. This also applies to call centers that are parts of government and military organizations. This risk should also be taken into account for corporate meeting areas, contractors that carry security clearances, and anyone else who deals with sensitive information.

Sound travels and can be heard through almost any type of surface doors, windows and walls. Additionally, sophisticated eavesdropping devices can also make any private conversation be heard. Only very sophisticated methods can mask these sounds and allow individuals to get privacy.

Standard ways to create low-background-noise environments include creating rooms with high sound attenuation. Attentuation is usually accomlished by absorbing, scattering, or spreading out the sound. However, reducing sound this way can be expensive , so many organizations have found another, lower-cost alternative: sound masking.

Although sound masking is often confused with noise cancellation, it does not alter the frequency of sound waves. Instead, it “fills in” the gaps in the sound spectrum, making speech less intelligible in a given space. In terms of return on investment, this method of ensuring acoustic privacy is extremely effective.

Essentially, the benefit for the Call Center is not only safety of conversation, but lack of intrusion of equipment. Properly installed sound masking can reduce the costs of cubicle walls while still dramatically improving the environment. It can also reduce the risk of customers or clients overhearing another customer’s private information as a call center rep repeats it back to them.

Call Centers can greatly benefit from masking, and worker health will also be improved, in that background noise is a stressor. For health of employees, providing a workplace that is protected from extraneous noise is very important. For both employee and customer, then, sound masking is a boon to Call Centers.

Call centers, by definition, are noisy places. After all, everybody is talking! It is important,however, that this office noise not be allowed to define the business to the client. No one wants to think their personal information is at risk. Since sound can pass through almost all mediums, the office managers should consider sound masking. Masking doesn’t cancel the sound but fills in the spaces of the spectrum so speech is not identifiable and the result is a white noise. Masking is more cost effective than other methods. The results are more pleasing to both the workers and the clients.

- Frank Barnett