ICMI's Customer Management Insight - December 2007 - (Page 46) EXPERT’S ANGLE Second, performance objectives and standards must take random call arrival into account. For example, a standard of “N widgets per day” may make sense in a traditional assembly line setting, but it doesn’t work in an environment where the workload comes in randomly and must be handled when it arrives. Unless the queue is always backed up and service to callers is lousy, agents will spend a portion of their time waiting for calls to arrive. 2. There’s a Direct Link Between Resources and Results The principle of service level is at the heart of incoming call center management. Without a service level objective, the answers to many important questions would be left to chance. How accessible is the call center? How much staff do you need? How do you compare to the competition? Are you prepared to handle the response to marketing campaigns? How busy are your agents going to be? Service level is defined as “X percent of calls answered in Y seconds,” such as 90 percent answer in 20 seconds. It ties the resources you need to the results you want to achieve. It measures the degree to which you are getting the transactions “in the front door” and to an agent, and is a stable target for planning and budgeting. Look at the relationship between agents and service level, in the table on this page. In this scenario, 30 agents will provide a service level of 24 percent answer in 20 seconds, unacceptably low. With just one more agent, service level jumps to 45 percent answer, a quantum improvement. Adding an additional person yields another big improvement. In fact, adding only four or five people takes servicmi’s insight ice level from the depths of poor service to results that are respectable, and acceptable to callers. Each person has a significant and positive impact when service level is low. However, keep adding agents, and the improvements become incrementally less significant. Economists would call this the “law of diminishing returns.” Call centers that struggle with a low service level will like this reality. It often doesn’t take a lot of resources to improve conditions dramatically. On the other hand, organizations that want to be the “best of the best” in terms of service level find that it takes a real commitment in the staffing budget. The relationship between staff and service level should be demonstrated in the budgeting process. The best call centers first decide on the objectives they want to achieve. They then allocate the resources necessary to support those objectives, through careful calculations and planning. Effective call center managers constantly reinforce the fact that a certain level of resources are required to achieve a specified objective. 3. Service Level and Quality Work Hand In Hand On the surface, it appears that service level and quality are at odds. After all, you can have an excellent service level, but your agents can still: > Misunderstand callers’ requests > Enter the wrong information > Relay the wrong information to callers > Make callers mad > Fail to accomplish the primary purpose (sell or service) > Unnecessarily cause repeat calls > Miss opportunities to capture valuable feedback However, it’s important to put service level in context. A good service level is an enabler — it means that calls are getting in and answered, so your agents and your callers can get on with things. A poor service level will rob the call center of productivity. As service deteriorates, more and more callers are likely to verbalize their criticisms when their calls are finally answered. Agents will spend valuable time apologizing to callers. When service level initially starts Avg. Talk Time: 180 sec; Avg. Work Time: 30 sec; Calls: 250 Agents 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 SL% in 20 Sec. 24% 45% 61% 73% 82% 88% 92% 95% 97% 98% 99% 99% 100% ASA 208.7 74.7 37.6 21.3 12.7 7.8 4.9 3.1 1.9 1.2 0.7 0.5 0.3 Occupancy 97% 94% 91% 88% 86% 83% 81% 79% 77% 75% 73% 71% 69% | Trunk Load (in hours) 54.0 35.4 30.2 28.0 26.8 26.1 25.7 25.4 25.3 25.2 25.1 25.1 25.0 www.icmi.com DECEMBER 2007 46 http://www.icmi.com
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