CALL CENTRE MANAGEMENT BASICSThe Planning and Management Process of Call

Centers

Key Topics:

• Call Center Management

• The Planning and Management Process of Call Centers

• How incoming call centers behave

• Service Level

• Service Level and Quality

• Forecasting

• Scheduling

• Immutable Laws of Call Center Management

• Real time Management

Call

Cent

er m

anag

emen

tWhat is Call Center Management?

Is defined as the art of having the right number of skilled people and supporting resources in place at the right times to handle an accurately forecasted workload, at service level and with quality.

Call

Cent

er m

anag

emen

tWhat makes call centers unique ?

• Externally Generated Work

• Random Call Arrival

• Invisible World

• Service Benchmarking

• Main Customer Touchpoint

Random Call ArrivalW

hat

mak

es c

all c

ente

rs u

niqu

e?

Occupancy VS Agent Productivity

• Occupancy = time on calls ---------------------------------- x 100 time on calls + time on avail

• Agent Productivity = time on calls + time on avail ------------------------------------- x

100 staffed time

Visible Queue- Bank, Ticket Office, etc.

Invisible Queue- Majority of Call Centers (not all)

- Some call centers have the technology to makethe invisible queue visible to the caller

Wha

t m

akes

cal

l cen

ters

uni

que?

Invisible World

1. Degree of Motivation

2. Availability of Substitutes

3. Competition’s Service Level

4. Level of Expectations

5. Time Available

6. Who’s Paying for the Call

7. Human Behavior

Invisible World: 7 Factors of Caller ToleranceW

hat

mak

es c

all c

ente

rs u

niqu

e?

8.Calculate

Costs

1. Choose a

Service Level Objective

The Planning and Management Process of Call Centers

4.Calculate Base Staff

9.Repeat for a Higher and Lower Level of Service

2.Collect Data

5.Calculate Trunk and

related system

resources

7.Organize Schedules (Schedule

Inflex)

3. Forecast Call

Load

6.Calculate for

Shrinkage

The

Plan

ning

and

Man

agem

ent

Proc

ess

of C

all

Cent

ers

SERVICE LEVEL – THE CORE VALUE

• What is Service Level ?

• What is the difference between SL and Response Time

SERV

ICE

LEV

EL

When Quality is Lacking:

• Escalation of calls and complaints to higher management

• Repeated calls from customers

• Callbacks to customers for missing or unclear information

• Unnecessary service calls

• Diversion of agents to activities that should be unnecessary

• Agents taking the blame for errors made by others

SERV

ICE

LEV

EL a

nd Q

UAL

ITY

FORE

CAST

ING

ForecastingData Gathering Sources

• Historical ACD data (including call volume, handle times, arrival patterns)

• Business Drivers - Internal: * Marketing activities * Mergers and Acquisitions * Network capacity/deployment * Product launch/ product defects

- External: * Weather disasters/ flooding/fire * Market fluctuations * World and local news events * Industry rumors

FORE

CAST

ING Data Gathering: CALL WORK

LOAD

• Definition of Call Work Load = Call volume x AHT

VS

Call volume only

Forecasting MeetingsFO

RECA

STIN

G• Assemble the right players

• Assign responsibilities

• Establish recurring meetings

• Assess progress

• Adjust the process

Calculate Base Staff St

aff R

equi

red

How is it done? Erlang C

• Base Staff – the number of agents required to be on the phones for a given period to handle a particularcall load.

Shri

nkag

e Calculating Shrinkage

VACATION LEAVESVACATION LEAVES 15 days 5.77%5.77%SICK LEAVESSICK LEAVES 6 days 2.30%2.30%BREAKSBREAKS Two 15-minute breaks per day 6.25%6.25%COACHINGCOACHING 0.5 hour per week 1.25%1.25%TRAININGS/MEETINGTRAININGS/MEETING 1 hour per week 2.50%2.50%NON-SCHEDULED BREAKSNON-SCHEDULED BREAKS 3 minutes per available hour 0.08%0.08%TOTALTOTAL 18.15%18.15%

Assumptions: 52 weeks a year; 260 days; 2080 hours; 124,800 minutes. Based on 8-hour days.

Shri

nkag

e

Schedule Requirement = Base staff Requirement ----------------------------- 1 – Shrinkage Factor

Calculating Schedule Requirement

Sche

dule

Infle

xOrganize Schedules

• Schedules are fundamentally inefficient.

• The more flexible your workforce is, the more efficient your schedule can be.

• Factors in managing schedules.

-Shrinkage-Coverage-Length of shifts-Days off-Break Definitions-Start and stop times-Other work rules

Immutable Laws of Call Center MgtIm

mut

able

Law

s1. When Service Level goes up, Occupancy goes down (at a given call load)

2. With more staff, ASA goes down

3. With more staff, trunkload goes down

4. Law of diminishing returns

5. Powerful Pooling Principle

6. Larger answering groups have higher occupancy at a given Service Level

Real Time ManagementRe

al T

ime

• is about ensuring that all agents are doing “what theyare supposed to be doing” in order to:

- give us the best chance to meet the service level objectives (Power of One principle)

- maintain phone occupancy at acceptable levels to prevent agent burn-out

- lost hours on a $ perspective