Artingence News

Artingence have outgrown their research and development facilities...

Artingence have recently announced that they have outgrown their research and development facilities at the Bioscience Centre in the Centre for Life Newcastle upon Tyne.

"The Centre for Life has proven to be a fantastic spring board to assist us to the level of success we have achieved this year. As we are expanding the core of the business the time has come to take on larger facilities. We will continue to utilise the Centre for Life as we do require the office space to handle administration but new premises offer us space for a 30 man operation. It was always been our intention to expand however our level of progress this year has far exceeded expectations. Cuthbert House gives us the facilities we require to continue the momentum as we move out of the research and development stage for AIDA and into production and manufacturing. Special thanks should go to both Keith Suddick and Ian Blythe our technical managers heading up operations." says Adam Rogers, Sales Director. The new Research and Development facilities for Artingence are located at Cuthbert House, City Road, All Saints, Newcastle upon Tyne. September 18th 2008.

Business XL magazine reports on "the next big thing: automated call-centres"

Along with airport car parks and fake tan, call centres are one of the great ills of the modern world. A company based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Artingence, believes it has discovered the antidote.

Sales Director Adam Rogers says: ‘We believe we are going to revolutionise the call centre industry. Rather than seeing it as taking people’s jobs, we see it as automating minimum wage jobs that pretty much nobody wants to do.’
Read more from the July/August issue...

Cyber call centre ‘staff’ to end need of being on hold - May 16th 2008

COMPUTERISED agents called Aida could start answering phones at call centres across the world within a year, if a North- East business goes to plan.

Artingence, an artificial intelligence company, is developing computerised call centre agents that sound like humans. Called AIDA (Artificially Intelligent Directed Agent), they will answer the phone and deal with callers.

The company, which has become the latest tenant of the Bioscience centre at the Centre for Life, in Newcastle, believes its technology will remove the need for callers to be put on hold.

Robots trained to staff call centres - May 16th 2008

HUMAN call centres could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a North technology firm. Artificial Intelligence company Artingence, based in Newcastle’s Centre for Life, is developing technology which will allow the centres to be staffed by computerised “robot” agents that sound and respond like real people.

The software agents will be trained and managed in the same way they currently are, but businesses will be able to focus on improving customer service rather than staffing issues.

Because of the cost effectiveness of the technology, companies will be able to bring their operations back to the UK rather than running them offshore, creating high-grade jobs locally.

The firm also hopes the technology will mean irate customers will no longer have to listen to the words “your call is important to us, you are being held in a queue”.

BBC Radio talks to Artingence - May 15th 2008

Jon Harle form BBC Radio Newcastle interviewed Karl Dorner and Adam Rogers from Artingence on the drive time programme to talk about the artificially intelligent call centre and the robot called Aida. Audio link to the interview.

Brave new world at the Centre for Life - May 14th 2008

A new company in Newcastle is offering a revolutionary concept in communication which could make call centre staff a thing of the past. Artingence, an “artificial intelligence” company, is the latest tenant to take up residence at the Centre for Life, Times Square.

The Centre for Life’s chief executive, Linda Conlon, said: “At the Centre for Life, it’s one of our objectives to support science-based businesses like Artingence and to help them become established. I am delighted to welcome them to our science village.”. Read more at the Centre for Life web site...

Two new technical managers appointed - April 15th 2008

Artingence is pleased to announce the appointment of two new technical managers with over twenty years in the call centre industry between them. Ian Blythe and Keith Suddick both worked in senior technical positions at Convergys in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. They bring with them a wealth of knowledge of call centre systems, telecoms and project management experience which will greatly help the product development.

Industry News

Indian call centre worker 'froze customer's account and changed his identity' as revenge for having service criticised - October 30th 2008

Phoning a bank's call centre can be a frustrating experience. So after he had to deal with a 'rude and arrogant' operator, George Bates felt justified in registering a complaint. As he took part in a follow-up survey to monitor customer satisfaction Mr Bates gave the lowest scores he could. It was the start of a costly nightmare.
When he called the Abbey the next day, carpenter Mr Bates was unable to access his account for 'security reasons', despite correctly giving his date of birth. He was told to visit his local branch but was unable to do so because he was working. Then a hole-in-the-wall machine swallowed his cash card.
When the worried 23-year-old finally got to his local branch he was horrified to discover his identity had been changed to that of a Ugandan divorcee ten years his senior. But the trouble did not stop even after that was corrected.
Read more at the Daily Mail website...

Stressed Indians leave call centres - September 29th 2008

A 23-year-old man, barely out of college, has been recovering from a heart attack in hospital. The doctor's diagnosis: modern lifestyle - stress and odd hours of work. He works at a call centre in Mumbai.

Alarmed? His colleagues at the call centre where he works are. Says one of his best friends and colleague: "I'm leaving. Have been planning to for sometime. "As soon as I get another job, even if it's less paying, I will leave this industry for good."

The youth of India seem to have fallen out of love with the call centre industry. Even before the impact of the economic crisis could be felt on India's $11bn business process outsourcing industry, which gets 70% of all the outsourced work from the US, it was in the grip of a crisis of its own. Several companies, mostly smaller ones unable to maintain international standards, have shut down in Mumbai and Delhi.

UK one of most expensive contact centre locations - June 20th 2008

The UK is among the most expensive locations to have a contact centre, according to Datamonitor.

The UK takes its place alongside the Netherlands and France as the most expensive places for call centre suppliers to locate services. Offshore destinations such as Colombia, Philippines and India are the least expensive.

In its Trends in Global Contact Center Outsourcing Pricing and Attrition report, the analyst said the UK is among the three most expensive in terms of price per agent per hour.

Peter Ryan, head of contact centre outsourcing analysis at Datamonitor, said these suppliers also face problems recruiting the right staff in the UK.

"Many cite an inability to find contact centre agents of a high calibre, and are frustrated at their unwillingness to stay in their role over an extended period of time. The result is an erosion of margin or higher costs being passed back to the client."

Offshored Helpdesks provide poor service - May 7th 2008

Customer service levels suffer hugely when IT help desks are offshored, according to a report into the outsourcing produced by industry analyst Gartner.

Offshore delivery of IT-focused customer service can yield savings as high as 40 per cent, but Gartner warns that doing so can lead to ‘significant customer dissatisfaction’. Read more at www.callcentre.co.uk...

Lifestyle problems for staff in Indian call centres - April 26th 2008

Indians may have taken over three-quarters of the world's call-center jobs, but they've also taken on the stresses of those jobs: weight gain, depression, boredom and, often, relationship troubles. The combined effect of sleep deprivation, alcohol, cigarettes, junk food and a sedentary lifestyle at the keyboard "is killing people," said Vamsi, who has since left his job as a call-center worker for an American computer firm in Hyderabad. Read more at www.crmbuyer.com...

Google does voice recognition

When Google gets in on the act, you know it's serious.

Call Centre Operators Suffer Too - March 4th 2007

We all know how frustrating it can be having to contact a call centre. But have you ever given a thought for the person on the other end of the line? Regular complaints and the anger of frustrated members of the public can leave call centre staff emotionally drained and less able to respond appropriately to customer calls.

A study by Dr Gail Kinman, a senior lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire, found that emotional labour - the extent to which employees fake and suppress their emotions - creates stress that can extend into the home. Read more...

Hanging on the Telephone - BBC - The One Show - October 2007

Call centres seems to be a topic that divides the nation, and which can provoke extreme reactions from people – not just those serviced by call centres, but from the staff working in them too.

They are stressful environments to work in - abuse is a regular part of the job, and a study undertaken for the Health and Safety Executive shows the risk of mental health problems is higher for people working in this industry.

Job satisfaction is low for call centre workers and it seems customers don’t like the whole experience much either. Read more on the BBC web site...

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