The Contact Center Operations Audit - Part #3/3

A Blueprint Guide toBenchmark, Enhance Service Delivery & Realize Cost Savings All At Once.

This is the final segment of a three-part series. The first part described the objectives of the Call Centre Operations Audit value of the output. This second part addressed the steps required for conducting an Audit and the things to look for. This final segment focuses on results by industry, benchmarking and outcomes.

The Call Centre Operations Audit 

 The Key to Operational Excellence - Recap

In the first segment, we introduced the concept of the Audit. We addressed the purpose, scope, it’s value and the method for executing.

We identified that the Audit process was like taking a picture of your operations. It requires that an immense amount of information is captured and then organized such that nothing is missed; including the various inter-dependencies, redundancies or synergies.

Diverse Results…

It is designed to produce results in the following 3 ways:

1.  Isolated Focus - Benchmarking

At a macro level, the Audit  deliberately provides a “balanced” picture of all aspects of the operations including over 30 Key Business Drivers (KBD);

• Understanding the Strategic Direction of the organization                            

• Workflow & Procedures

• Communications & Work Types

• Volumes

• Peaks & Troughs & Key Drivers

• Fulfillment

• Training

• Human Resources

• Service Metrics

• Telephony

• Systems & Technology

• Software Applications

• Workforce Management & Forecasting

• Shifts and Operating hours

• Quality Assurance

• Real-Time Monitoring

• Marketing

• Complaints

• Blockage

• Reporting

• Facility

• Benchmarking

• Financial

When organizations look at results, there is a tendency to isolate specific areas and focus solely on those rather than the balanced picture. This causes some significant issues when making decisions based on these results.

Firstly, opportunities that are identified within isolated functional areas could easily create redundant work in other places thus creating short-lived gains and longer term costs. It follows therefore that other opportunities for revenue enhancement or new efficiencies could be missed entirely simply by limiting the focus to one or two areas.

Secondly, the inter-dependencies and support activity between functional areas are completely ignored with this approach making seemingly positive results much less than they may appear. This leads to significant ambiguity when benchmarking results or building a business case.

Benchmarking call centres is problematic at best and should be taken as only a rough guide because it misses the macro perspective for revenue, efficiency or service gains.

A call centre with impressive metrics could very easily

be disguising an inefficient operation...

Of those companies included in a benchmarking study, systems could be programmed differently, metrics defined in unique ways….all to create an illusion of service excellence.

A few more examples of what to watch for when comparing results include:

• IVR could virtually eliminate abandoned calls

• IVR could virtually eliminate the opportunity for incremental sales

• Counting calls abandoned after callers hear the greeting is dramatically different than counting it from the time the call is answered by the system. Companies often exclude abandoned calls before a 20 second threshold.

• Call Handle Time is sometimes measured with wrap-time in and sometimes without.

• Counting an abandoned percentage as a percentage of calls offered will be significantly different if it is calculated as a percentage of calls answered.

• Inadequate trunking will artificially boost service performance

• CDN’s, selective queuing based on IVR will skew results and ASA because the IVR will answer instantaneously.

• Cost per call & call minute must be based on identical call types and formula’s

• The number of rings the phone system is programmed for

• Caller demographics

• Caller tolerances

• Trunk and network configurations

• Blockage is sometimes reported as % of time trunks are busy as opposed to the number of actual # of uncompleted calls.

• Hours of operation

• Mix of part and full-time agents

2.  Balanced Approach

This refers to the macro perspective which takes all aspects of the operations (including over 30 Key Business Drivers (KBD)) into consideration. This is the intended approach of the Audit because by looking at everything together (and not isolating specific areas), important inter-dependencies and synergies emerge.

This approach is highly powerful because it can accurately assign quantifiable measures and costs to each and every customer contact (ie.  phone, fax, email etc.). Now that this information is available, one can actually manage and/or improve the business.

3. Leverage Approach

Call Center management must understand the financial impact of operating decisions they make each and every day. While there is traditionally a strong emphasis on customer impact analysis, financial concerns are often side-stepped. What some organizations are beginning to understand is that careful financial analysis as applied to their operations will not only provide a basis for

quantifying customer impact, but will bring clarity to even the most complex business decisions they might face.  

Existing inter-dependencies and the nature of the linkages between functional areas will quickly reveal opportunities for both efficiency gains and possibly incremental revenue. These opportunities will begin to take a very detailed and tactical form such that a measurable gain can be identified in terms of service, time and cost particularly when the  overall impact on the cost per contact is illustrated. Each opportunity therefore, can be easily cost justified in a way that cannot be disputed in any way.

Applying financial principles to operating decisions is necessary for companies to grow and compete effectively. For Call Center management, this approach supports financial justification because one can easily demonstrate a Return on Investment and Payback Period. The logical conclusion therefore, is that by assessing a call center operation with a model that incorporates a financial analysis the better able one will be at managing

Profitability.

Comparative Results - Observations

Benchmarking companies (even in the same industry) can be misleading at the best of times. One must be sure that they are truly comparing “apples-to-apples” in terms of the definitions, calculations, contact type, contact reasons etc. However, from the countless number of Audits performed across multiple industries we are able to make the following observations; See Figure A below.

1. Industries that tend to be burdened by large volumes of paper report higher percentages of time spent off of the phones and therefore more significant opportunities for cost savings. This also tends to be evident within industries requiring highly skilled agents, such as insurance or computer organizations.

2. In the vast majority of the time, the greatest savings are found in redundant or inefficient workflow. Agents hired to interact with customers are spending far too much time off of the phones working through inefficient workflow.

3. The next largest source for savings is found in companies reporting above average service metrics but have not employed efficient scheduling and are therefore over-staffed.

4. The third largest source for savings is found in companies that employ licensed or highly specialized (skilled) front-line personnel. In these situations agents typically perform many functions, most of which do not usually require the specialized knowledge they are paid to have.

5. The results presented above only address short-term opportunities for efficiency gains and do not address the countless opportunities for revenue improvement.

As a rule of thumb, internal operations should function at approximately 10% below what an external agency would charge them to perform the same function. In almost all of the contact centers audited however, most operated with significantly higher costs. Given that the largest efficiency gains come from one or two common areas (ie. workflow), it wouldn’t take much to realize the short-term gains noted above.

The initial time and investment to embrace an audit process is nominal when compared to the substantial gains that could be generated.

Eric Young
President
Tele-Centre Assist Inc.
www.telecentreassist.com

Figure A