Contact Centres have always been known for intense measures and the need to tightly manage the operations. This need has always been motivated by a need to deliver a consistent level of customer service at a managed cost. This need has been the catalyst for justifying significant investment in technology.
In most call centres however, agents have always been involved in "back office" activities that may/may not relate to a customer contact. This back office activity is never tracked (and therefore can't be managed), and can consume as much as 60% of an agent's day.
Despite this alarming statistic and the need to balance the cost of service, the contact centre industry has never taken the most important and fundamental first step needed to manage this; Adopt a straightforward metric that can quickly;
- Identify where agents spend their time
- Highlight a need to optimize the operations
- Benchmark how agent time is utilized as a benchmark against competitors
- A "Red Flag" Metric to Identify Potential In-Efficiency
For 30 years and more than 150 completed contact centre and Lean assessments, our practice needed to measure the extent of the opportunity in order to justify changes and therefore created the following two very straight-forward measures as an important first step.
1. Contact Centre Dedication (CCD) % = AHT + Queue Availability/Man Hrs (net of vacation, breaks, training etc.)
2. Pure Contact Centre Dedication (PCCD) % = AHT/Man Hrs (net of vacation, breaks, training etc.)
Isn't This What Occupancy Is?
No, this is different. Occupancy measures agent utilization as a percentage of the time they are available for queued contacts. CCD & PCCD measures the percentage of time agents are focused on the contact centre vs. executing other work such as related back office activities.
A Powerful Benchmark
The sole intent behind this simple measure is to act as a "red flag" for potential optimization opportunities and cost savings. For industries that are heavily regulated or have complex after call and back office work, measures like this can become an integral part of an operational performance plan.
After learning about the sometimes astoundingly high CCD metric, we frequently we see companies that just resign themselves to accepting the status quo because of the complexity of their operations. Benchmarking this statistic against industry competitors can therefore further justify the need and also provide evidence that the realization of the opportunity is obtainable. Companies are eager therefore to learn about how they compare to others.
Benchmark Your Organization
With Our Compliments
Tele-Centre Assist Inc. has accumulated relevant information for most industry verticals and can benchmark your results against the norm at no cost.
If you would like to benchmark how your agents are utilized against the norm please email a request to:
- info@telecentreassist.com
- Subject: CCD Benchmark Request
- Please include a way we can contact you
We will respond with a simple excel template for you to input some data. The template will be programmed to make the calculation. Because of the sensitivity of the information, respondents can choose to either return the completed template to us or respond with just the two numbers (CCD & PCCD). We will respond with benchmark percentages.
Thank you.