SMH - September 25, 2007 - 2:33PM

What could you do in 12 seconds?

For staff at a Melbourne call centre for internet service provider Netspace, one-fifth of a minute is allegedly considered time enough for a rest break between calls.

Staff have also allegedly been told they are now only to leave their desks four times a day - during set breaks - in an effort to increase the number of calls handled.

A former employee said some technical support staff were now too scared to go to the toilet during their shifts.

Netspace did not respond to questions about their treatment of staff. Instead the company issued a statement saying it had "mutual respect" for its call centre employees.

A call centre expert has said that running a call centre using only statistics "burns staff out".

The information about the way call centre staff are treated at Netspace was brought to the attention of smh.com.au by Tom Oliveri, 16, of Victoria.

Tom, who was working as a member of the technical support staff at the company, is best known for fooling technology blog site Gizmodo into believing he was a senior executive at Google and publishing a fake Apple rumour he wrote.

Tom, who was on an Australian Workplace Agreement, was fired by Netspace on Friday. The teenager said he was dismissed after he revealed he was going to write a letter of complaint to the company.

An email from Netspace to Tom, supplied to smh.com.au by the teenager, states that he had been fired during his six months' probation period due to "performance reasons".

"The workplace is a bit like a morgue now," he said.

"Because we weren't able to go into 'not ready' [mode], it meant we weren't able to leave our desks. So people just wouldn't go. And because we couldn't log out of the phone, I know people who would skip one of their breaks if they logged out."

Tom said he did not want to return to the company.

"My motive at the end of the day is to make a better workplace for my friends," he said.

The teenager said that staff at the call centre were now too scared to go to the toilet after Netspace allegedly sent out an email castigating their performance.

A copy of the email was obtained from Tom.

The email, sent to staff on August 30, read: "[The company has] spent the last couple of days reviewing the key statistics and key performance indicators for the department and [is] quite troubled by what [we] have seen.

"Fundametaly [sic] it boils down to this, we are not answering our customers calls quickly enough.

"Whilst there are a number of reasons for this ... the biggest single problem is that people within the department are not available to take calls for enough of their shift. Be this becouse [sic] they are logged off of the phones, in a not ready state or any number of other reasons.

"This must cease, and must cease now."

In the lengthy email, staff were told they were to log out of their phones only four times a day.

"[Y]ou will log into the phone at the commencement of your shift, log out at your first 15 minute break, log back in when you return from this break, log out for your lunch break, log back in when you return from you lunch break, log out for your second 15 minute break, log back in when you return and stay logged in until the end of your shift," the email stated.

"If you are unavailable to take calls for any other reason, you will put your phone in not ready, you will not under any circumstance log out. In the event that you have more than four logins and outs over your shift, you will be expected to explain why this has happened."

Later on in the email, the 12 second programmed delay between calls is discussed.

"This time is intended to be used for composing yourself for the next call and selecting the screens you will need to assist the customer," the email stated.

"This should be all the time that you require, I do not expect to see agents going into a not ready state after each call so that you can complete tasks related to it. You need to be completing these tasks (such as filling in RT, client info etc) whilst on the call with the customer. I can appreciate that this level of multitasking may be difficult for someone new to the department as they learn, however it should become a matter of course within a week or two. Any agents who are seen to be doing this will be asked to explain why they are unable to work in this fashion."

In a written statement to smh.com.au, Netspace co-founder Richard Preen said: "Netspace is committed to good customer service and good staff relations based on mutual respect. It does not encourage email pranks, either by speculating, or engaging in protracted correspondence, about them."

Call centre expert Niels Kjellerup said call centres should not be run through the use of statistics.

"When you start using statistics that shows that you are a call factory rather than a customer satisfaction producer," Mr Kjellerup, senior partner at consultancy Resource International, said.

"It burns staff out, it takes away their pride, it takes away their ability to provide good customer service."

He said this sort of management happened when the centres were "hard pressed to make calls with fewer people".

"The only way you can do it is look at where do the seconds go. It demotivates, it makes for bad treatment of customers and whoever they're doing it for is not getting their money's worth. They're not producing happy customers."