Managerial communication. Its rationalization and its effects on contact center agents

For three decades, contact centers have been the most efficient means of managing direct communications between companies and customers. This communication is not a mere transmission of messages, but implies the constitution of certain commitments of Contact Center agents (visible in their ways of doing and being), which are key to customer management. We asked ourselves what elements characterize this communication, what processes make it possible, and what are its effects? Based on research which included the analysis of interviews and documents, we argue that communication is rationalized in Contact Centers, forming a device crossed by technological systems and work management techniques that optimize it. Managerial communication, as we call it, imposes certain rational uses of the body, language and emotions, which we describe here on the basis of various agent-client contacts. Towards the end, we present a crisis situation of managerial communication around the home office telework of virtual agents: when the rationality of behavior cannot be put into practice, discomfort is experienced.