Status and Performance Reporting

When it comes to real time reporting for the call center there are two categories of report types: Status Reporting and Performance Reporting. At a glance these two types of reports look very similar, however, there are subtle differences. Knowing what these differences are and selecting the correct reports for your call center will make your reporting successful.

Status Reporting is for the call center that is mature, has agents that perform at a high level and need very little training and coaching. This call center knows what they are doing, knows their SLA's, the agents know their goals and regularly achieve them. This call center will have turnover that is lower than the industry average and have agents that adhere to their schedules.

Reports for real time status will include these KPI's:

• Calls in Queue
• Service Level
• Calls Abandoned
• Oldest Call Waiting
• Average Speed of Answer
• Average Handle Time

There are other KPI's that call center will include which will depend on the call center, the industry, the agent performance and other factors. The KPI's shown above are the critical metrics a call center that is performing at a high level should see.

Performance Reporting is for the call center that needs encouragement to reach their goals, has turnover that is higher than industry averages, does a lot of training and coaching and still misses their SLA's. This call center, large or small, seems to be on a roller coaster - some days the agents do very well other days not so well. This type of call center needs performance statistics that show how they are performing and what needs to be done.

Reports for real time perfomance will include these KPI's:

• Calls in Queue
• Oldest Call Waiting
• Average Speed of Answer
• Calls Abandoned Rate (Percent)
• Agent (Schedule) Adherence Rate
• Agents Available

These metrics help the agents with awareness which is typically lacking in an underperforming call center. To help the underperforming call center improve agent performance reporting is the best alternative.

Breaking down these reporting types further into more granular types there are Agent Status and Performance reports, Team Leader Status and Performance reports, and Call Center (Manager) Status and Performance reports. These reports become more targeted and granular and further help the call center improve.

For call center reporting to be successful and help the content in the report must be appropriate. providing the information can be de-motivating. To select the right type of reporting the manager must take a hard look at the call center and determine if they are a successful or an underperforming call center. Once the manager realizes what type of call center they have steps can be taken to offer the right information to the agents, team leaders, and manager.

Third Party Call Center Reporting

Third party contact center reporting enhances the ACD's reporting capabilities and provides the contact center a solution to integrate application data into summary reports.  The raw data from the ACD on many different metrics and application data from sources such as CRM and WFM are easily integrated using 3rd party reporting.  However, the ACD has limitations which prevent the customer from seeing the data in the form and format required.  It is these limitations that makes third party reporting important to the Contact Center.

Spectrum reporting enhances the contact center reporting by capturing raw data and staging it in a separate SQL database.  The four advantages of Third Party Reporting include:

1. Create custom KPI's and Metric's the ACD cannot create;
2. Capture data from sources besides the ACD WFM or CRM for example;
3. Relieves the pressure on the ACD;
4. Data can be output to a variety of devices.

Custom KPI's and Metric's:
The ACD is limited in what it can do for the contact center.  Medium to enterprise contact centers have tremendous volumes of data that need to be consolidated, manipulated and summarized into real time integrated reports.  The ACD data is captured in its rawest form and staged in a separate SQL database.  From this database using standard SQL syntax the Spectrum reporting solution builds reports for the contact center that meets their unique needs.

An Avaya example: An enterprise multinational contact center with multiple CMS's and ACD's  requires reporting showing the summary data from certain split skills from all of the CMS's and ACD's. By utilizing Spectrum reporting the data is captured and summarized outside of the CMS's and built into reports that meets the customer's requirements.

Contact centers calculate metrics differently than what the standard report provides. Average handle time, occupancy, service level are just a few examples of metrics and KPI's that a contact center might calculate differently from the method the ACD uses.  By utilizing a third party reporting solution the contact center is able to see the metrics and KPI's the way they preferred.

Disparate Data Sources:
Reporting for a contact center is rarely limited to the ACD.  Agents, Managers, Team Leaders and Senior Management need to see summary reports from multiple sources and not just the ACD.  Third party reporting provides this functionality while ACD reporting does not.  The most requested external data sources include WFM, CRM, Multi Channel content (Email, Chat) and custom in house databases built by the customer.

Over 80% of Spectrum customers have data from another source consolidated, integrated and summarized with their ACD data.  Having Spectrum do the reporting saves the company considerable time and money.

Third party reporting also allows the customer to seamlessly migrate from one ACD platform to another without losing the reporting the call center is used to seeing.  Possibly the contact center is migrating from one ACD vendor to another. During the transition the center has two ACD's in use but needs to see the data as a total or summary.  Third party reporting makes this possible.  In some cases the data that the contact center is used to seeing is no longer available with the new ACD.  Using the third party solution these KPI's can be recreated.

ACD workload:  
Many ACD's are pushed very hard by the customer.  Customers request many reports from their ACD and each report requested and run alters the performance of the ACD.  In some cases if the queue of reports requested gets to be too large the ACD will stop all requests, clear the requests and restart the processes.  When this happens the ACD is being worked very hard possibly too hard.  By off loading some of the reporting to a third party reporting system the ACD workload can be reduced.


Visual Displays:  
Spectrum can provide unique reports built specifically for agents, team leads, managers, and senior managers.  Then these reports can be send to a variety of devices.  Spectrum can provide reporting on:

 LCD screens, Desktops, Dashboards, Web Based Reports, Email, Wallboards and smart phones.
Some ACD's provide LCD screen output or dashboards or desktops.  However these tools are limited to the data that they capture which is strictly ACD data.  Third party reporting integrates data from multiple sources creating customer specific reporting.  



Third party reporting is a justifiable solution for call centers because it provides a solution that is not available from the ACD, it reduces the workload on the ACD allowing the ACD to perform at a higher level, custom KPI's and Metrics can be created and many visual display options are available for the contact center.

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about third party reporting solutions.

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Dan Boehm
VP Sales and Marketing
Spectrum
dan@specorp.com
+1 713 986 8839

Bartender for the Call Center Manager

Sometimes I feel like I am a bartender or a hair stylist for Call Center and IT Managers. I ahve heard stories from these managers about their switch or WFM or service provider that I probably should not be hearing. I guess being a vendor with no horse in that race the manager feels it's ok to tell me about their experiences and why they are pulling out a vendor in favor of another.

This got me thinking about why these call centers are moving to another vendor at what will be an extremely costly change. No one in their right mind wants to spend that amount of time and money to change vendors for the heck of it.

1. The vendor has over promised and under delivered. There are times when a vendor and customer are not on the same page which can lead to this occurring. There are times when the vendor is not able to hold up their end of the project. Rereading the SOW and its fine print are a quick way to find missing or misleading vendor tasks.

2. Total cost of ownership. Customers must read the details of the solution coverage and ask lots of what if questions when it comes to warranty, maintenance, licensing and support. Digging deep to understand what is really covered and assuming that something is covered are two different things.

3. Misstated, misapplied or misused ROI calculations. The adage of too good to be true applies to ROI calculations. I have heard ROI calculations for million dollar plus projects of 5 - 6 months. If you vendor has invented time travel then this might be possible. If not then the ROI calculations are probably off. One quick ROI check is to look for improved efficiencies. No product is used 100% of the time so a multiplier that is applied 100% of the time is not appropriate. For example a new phone might make the agent more efficient but only when they are actually using the phone not when they are idle or simply talking and not using the phones features.

4. Not staying current. The vendor has not made any product changes, added new features, done any development on the product since the purchase. If this is accurate then there is cause for concern. Any vendor with long term plans for a product will continue to develop the solution and try to make it better. Ask the vendor for a list of product updates made in the last 3 - 5 years and then ask about future development on the product.

5. Arrogance and attitude. If the arrogance and attitude of the vendor have gotten in the way of the vendors ability to provide a solution that works then it is time to move on. It is one thing to be sure of your solution it is another thing to ignore the customer or as a vendor to believe the customer cannot go anywhere else. As a customer it is not wise to cut off your nose to spite your face. It is possible to request new representation from the vendor and talk frankly with the vendor management about the attitude and arrogance coming from the vendor.

There are other reasons why customers leave vendors but these came to mind quickly. As a vendor to the call center industry being vigilant and not falling into the rut of any of these issues listed above is a key part of being a responsible vendor.

Reporting Types

When it comes to real time reporting for the call center there are two categories of report types and they are: Status Reporting and Performance Reporting. At a glance these two types of reports look very similar, however, when examining them further there are subtle differences.  Knowing what these differences are and selecting the correct reports for your call center will make your reporting successful.

The call center manager needs to know what type of reporting to choose for the call center or be seen as wasting time and money on reporting that has not done anything for the business.  To be able to choose the manager must take a hard look at their call center, agents and team leaders.  Is the call center performing well and meeting its goals? Or do you want to step in frequently to remind everyone why they are there and the job they are suppose to be doing?

Status Reporting is for the call center that is mature, has agents that perform at a high level and need very little training and coaching. This call center knows what they are doing, knows their SLA's, the agents know their goals and regularly achieves them.  This call center will have turnover that is lower than the industry averages and have agents that adhere to their schedules. 

Reports for real time status will include these KPI's:
    * Calls in Queue
    * Service Level
    * Calls Abandoned
    * Oldest Call Waiting
    * Average Speed of Answer
    * Average Handle Time
There are other KPI's that call centers will include which will depend on the call center, the industry, the agent performance and other factors.  But the KPI's shown above are the critical metrics a call center that is performing at a high level should see.
    

These metrics help the high performing agents do an even better job. This call center knows what needs to be done when the AHT is slipping or when there is a drop in the service level.  They want to know when there is a call in the queue or how long that call has been waiting.  These agents are well trained and will react properly to these statistics.

Performance reporting is for the call center that needs encouragement to reach their goals, has turnover that is higher than industry averages, does a lot of training and coaching and still misses the mark.  This call center, large or small, seems to be on a roller coaster - some days the agents do very well other days not so well.  This type of call center needs performance statistics that show how they are performing and what needs to be done. 

Report for real time performance will include these KPI's:
    * Calls in Queue
    * Oldest Call Waiting
    * Average Speed of Answer
    * Calls Abandoned Rate (Percent)
    * Agent (Schedule) Adherence Rate
    * Agents Available
These metrics help the agents with awareness which is typically lacking in an underperforming call center.  For example, calls in queue and agents available are listed because too often the underperforming call center sees calls in queue and just assumes no one is available to take the calls.  To help the underperforming call center improve agent performance reporting is the best alternative.

       

Taking the status and performance reporting a step further we become more granular and break down the reporting to the following:
    Agent Status
    Agent Performance

    Team Leader Status
    Team Leader Performance

    Call Center (Manager) Status
    Call Center (Manager) Performance

By becoming more granular the reports can be more detailed and specific to each level of the call center.  Status and performance information for the call center is good but by adding more detail and providing that to the agent or supervisor we can further drive improvement in the call center.  For the manager who has nine very good agents and one underperforming agent a different approach is needed.  The single agent needs performance information while the rest need status information. 

Agent status and performance information is delivered to the agents desktop showing the statistics for the agent and not the group.  This type of information drives the agent to maintain or improve their performance. A highly effective agent needs only status information while the underperforming agent needs their individual performance information at their desktop. Couple that with group status information on a wallboard and you have an effective tool to help your agents improve their performance.
    Agent Status                         Agent Performance
    * Service Level                     * Calls in Queue
    * Average Handle Time         * Oldest Call Waiting
    * Agent Occupancy              * Average Speed of Answer
    * Calls Abandoned Rate       * Service Level

Team Leader status and performance reports will show group information.  The team leader (supervisor) is able to see where coaching and training are needed and direct their efforts accordingly.  A leader managing a sophisticated performing group will want to see status information to the desktop or dashboard.  This content will be for the group with some drill down capabilities for specific agent information.  While the supervisor of an underperforming group will need to see performance information so coaching and training can be applied. 
    Group Status                               Group Performance
    * Group Occupancy                      * Calls in Queue
    * Group Service Level                  * Oldest Call Waiting
    * Group Average Handle Time      * Average Speed of Answer
    * Group Calls Abandoned Rate    * Group Service Level
                                                        * Agents Available

Call center status and performance reports should show the details for the enter call center with drill down to the groups and specific agents if necessary.  In a successful call center overall status information with drill down to the group and agent level will provide the manager with a level of satisfaction and comfort.  This manager knows that all of the agents are performing but when something is out of alignment the manager can still drill down to see the cause of the variance. 

In a call center that is struggling the manager will want to see overall performance information.  This type of information will assist the manager in directing coaching and training efforts.  Sometimes it is not the group that is underperforming but rather an agent.  Drill down to agent information offers the manager the tools to find the source of the problem and make corrections. 

    Call Center Status                    Call Center Performance
    *Total Occupancy                       *Total Calls in Queue
    * Total Adherence                      * Max Oldest Call Waiting
    * Total Service Level                  * Agents Available
    * Total Abandonment Rate         * Total Service Level
    * Total ACD Calls for the day    * Total Abandonment Rate (Number)
    * Total Average Handle Time      * Total Agents Staffed

For those that are reading this article and disagree with Average Handle Time as a meaningful metric, I agree, to a certain extent.  An underperforming agent, group or call center should not focus on AHT.  However, a successful agent, group or call center sees the AHT and knows how to improve that number.

For call center reporting to be successful and help the content must be appropriate.  Providing the wrong information can be wrong or de-motivating.  To select the right type of reporting the manager must take a hard look at the call center and determine if they are a successful or an underperforming call center.  Once the manager realizes what type of call center they have steps can be taken to offer the right information to the agents, team leaders and manager. 

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about status and performance reporting solutions.

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Dan Boehm
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Spectrum
dboehm@specorp.com
+1 713 986 8839

Cross Selling in the Call Center

I was surprised when I heard the Call Center Manager explain to me that they do not ask the agents to cross sell because it does not work. The manager went on to say that his agents are not trained to sell and asking them to do something they are not trained to do would be a waste of time. His metrics would also be adversely be affected by having his agents cross sell. I suggested the agents did not need to sell but rather just bring up the idea of another product or service.

When was the last time you were so surprised that you were almost speechless? This is what happened to me when I was talking to this manager for a major insurance company. His entire argument about cross selling does not work because of training is ridiculous. I am in sales and I no without a doubt that cross selling works. In fact it worked on me the other day.

"Yes, I am calling to receive a copy of my mortgage interest statement for 2010." "Ok, please give me your account number...." After the main purpose of the call was done the agent asked me if I was interested in learning about the current interest rates for refinancing my home loan. "Sure" I said and I was quickly transferred to another agent that did some routine questions with me then I was transferred to a loan officer. Within 15 minutes I was ready to make a decision.

Cross selling works. Call Centers and Call Center Managers that do not cross sell are missing a tremendous opportunity. I suspect the insurance company CC manager was afraid that cross selling might negatively affect his metrics and scorecard. This manager is missing the big picture.

For those that want to employ cross selling there are some very basic rules to follow:

1. Train the agent to mention only a single product or service;

2. Make the cross selling statement simple and quick. The statement should take no more than 5 seconds to ask;

3. Remind agents to cross sell using your call center reporting tools such as wallboards, desktop messaging and weekly meetings;

4. Everyone should be cross selling, everyone;

5. Reward the agents that cross sell, especially the successful cross sellers;

6. Track your efforts.

Cross selling works and more call centers should employ this technique to boost review. By the way the question, "Is there anything else I can help you with?" is not cross selling.

Top Call Center Metrics

Earlier in the month I wrote a blog about metrics for a help desk service center.  Soon after I received a request to provide the top metrics for a call center.  This is a larger subject than will fit in a traditional blog so I am including it in my monthly email message.

To be clear there is no single metric or statistic that is the panacea for the call center manager.  However, there seems to be a trend where certain metrics have favor over other metrics.  Back in the late 90's I recall Service Level as being the most important metric for the call center.  More recently it has been metrics such as FCR (First Call Resolution), CSat (Customer Satisfaction)  and AHT (Average Handle Time).  Now AHT has lost its luster and some managers are wondering whether CSat is a valid metric.

If there isn't a single metric that everyone should use then there might several metrics that managers use.  So I tallied the metric requests from 100 random Spectrum customers from the last 12 months.  This table shows the top ten metric requests from Spectrum customers.  These metrics are for ACD's only and do not include other data sources such as WFM, CRM, IVR, FCR or CSat.    These metrics are for the Skill (group) level and do not include agent metrics.



To read this table - 65% of Spectrum customers selected Calls in Queue as one of their metrics to be reported on, 58% selected Oldest Call Waiting as one of their metrics, and so on.

I wanted to know more about why these metrics for the skill (group) were selected by the call center managers. So I called on a few Contact Center Managers and asked for some feedback.

An on line retailer suggested that the calls in queue, number of abandoned calls and oldest call waiting were extremely important to her call center.  "With the economy the way it is we cannot afford to miss one call or keep people waiting. They [the customers] might hang up and never call back and we do not want to lose that revenue. We also know from experience how long the average customer is willing to wait before abandoning the call so we keep the oldest call waiting up on the wallboards.  Our agents know when that call is getting up to 25 seconds old they may lose that call."

Some call centers do not see calls in queue or oldest call waiting as an important metric.  A manager of a free technical support hotline explained it this way. "We have a free technical support line and we have a Gold Support line [that customers pay for support]. For the free technical support lines the number of calls in queue and the wait time are not important to me. For those [free support] calls I am more concerned about the total number of calls received and the [number of] agents staffed."

If a single call center metric is not something that can be agreed on then possibly the use of a balanced scorecard is the solution.  To create a balanced scorecard select 5 -6 metrics based on your company goals and determine your current status for these metrics. Next provide a weight (level of importance) to each of these metrics and compare your status against industry benchmarks for these metrics. You can also use your own company benchmarks instead of industry benchmarks.  A scorecard takes multiple metrics to create a status single number for your call center.  Over time a manager is able to see how the call center has performed.

There are challenges with scorecards that have prevented wide spread acceptance.
    * Industry benchmarks that do not have a large enough sampling;
    * Benchmarks that are not specific enough for the call center;
    * Lack of information from the call center making the scorecard incomplete;
    * The managers reluctance to find out how well the contact center is performing.

A single universal metric that all call centers must use to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of the call center does not exist.  Each call center manager must decide for themselves what are the best metrics to use and track for their call center.  A balanced scorecard may help the manager be able to trend how the contact center is doing against other centers and over time. However, complete information and trust in the benchmark numbers must exist for the scorecard to be accepted and used.

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about Top Call Center Metrics.

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Dan Boehm
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Spectrum
dan@specorp.com
713 986 8839

Help Desk Metrics

Last week I was speaking with a Director of Operations in charge of a Help Desk Customer Service Center. This director was interested in metrics he should be using for his operation. One issue that he mentioned at the beginning of the conversation was that he did not want typical call center statistics.

Our conversation explored his customer service center and what his goals were for the center. It is interesting the differences between inhouse and outsourced customer service centers. I have found that inhouse centers focus on the number of tickets opened and closed while outsourced centers fixate on SLA's. Perhaps given their respective reporting responsibilities it maks sense.

For this outsourced service center I suggested the following metrics to report and track. These metrics are not in any order or priority.
Total Number of Tickets Logged per Product - real time and for the day
Total Time Worked per Ticket and per Product
Average Number of Tickets per Product
Average Time Worked per Ticket per Product
Tickets Opened per Product real time and for the day (this differs from Tickets logged)
Tickets opened per Product for the Day
Service Level real time for the day per Product / All Product / Group
Tickets Closed pre Product real time / day
Average Handle Time per Ticket per Product (Can be a misleading metric)
Max Handle Time per Ticket per Product
Max Handle Time all Tickets / Products
First Call Resolution per Product
Tickets resolved in X hours since Logged per Product
Tickets resolved in 8 hours since Logged per Product
Tickets resolved in 24 hours since Logged per Product
Tickets unresolved for the day / week per Product
Tickets escalated per Product for the day
Customer Satisfaction Rate per Product / Total
Ticket Closure Ratio per Product / Total
Average Time to Close VS SLA's
Average Response Time per Product

All of these metrics should be run by group and by agent as well. This level of detail can show which groups are performing well and which CSR needs training. There are many idiosyncrasies with help desk metrics that can be misleading and should be analyzed prior to using the data in performance reviews.

Managing your call center reporting solution

Reaching and exceeding your call center targets can be achieved. Maintaining this status year after year is not easy to do. Successful managers are able to do this by managing the data they receive on their real time reports.

Unified Contact Center Reporting summarizes critical data from multiple data sources (this is also known as a mash up report) and presents that data to the manager.  The manager acts upon that data because the information and alerts are proactive and real time.  However, the successful manager takes this process one step further and performs an annual assessment of the data that she sees on her reports.

The successful managers have:

• Created a baseline on how the agents and groups have been performing. This baseline can be used 6 months or a year later to gauge performance improvements;
• Trend the data for 6 months to a year and determined if the goals are properly set and if they need to be reset. It is advisable to set goals that are realistic and obtainable through hard work.  So if the goal is to improve by 50% doing this in two stages makes the goal more realistic and obtainable;
• Seen that the team is performing quite well in some areas but now needs to improve in other areas.

1. After a year of work the manager has been able to reduce the AHT and now can focus on adherence.
2. The successful manager can remove the AHT from the wallboards and web reports and add the data from WFM to work on agent adherence.

• A plan to expand the reporting to solution.

1. What data they need to capture next;
2. How the data is administered to be displayed correctly;
3. Have a goal on how the data will improve the call center.

The most important element that a successful manager has in place is the implementation and improvement plan for the call center data. This is a plan to properly implement and use the solution.

Manage your wallboard data with a plan on how it can be used to help your call center succeed.  Starting slow and building up the solution is an effective way to ensure the solution is being used properly. Finally have goals and review the actual performance against these goals to determine how well the solution is working for your call center.

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about managing your call center reporting solution.

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Dan Boehm
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Spectrum
dboehm@specorp.com
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Agent Desktops and Wallboards: A Synergistic Solution

There is a synergistic relationship between LCD screens and agent desktops that report call center KPI’s to agents and call center floor. Most often this relationship is ignored and because of that call centers miss an opportunity to improve their efficiencies.  By utilizing both LCD screens and agent desktops to present real time data to the agents call center managers create a more effective and efficient call center environment.

 As a manager have you ever stopped and looked at the LCD screen showing you have calls in queue and agents available? Have you also stopped and yelled will someone please answer the phone (Or at least wanted to yell that out).  This real scenario plays out in many call centers around the world and the reason it happens so often is no one takes responsibility for the metrics on the LCD screen accept the manager.

An LCD screen displays group (split skill) KPI’s to the entire call center. Typical call center statistics that are displayed are:

•     Calls in Queue
•     Tickets in Queue
•     Adherence             
• 　 Oldest Call Waiting
•     Agents Available
•     Abandon %
•     Service Level

In addition, thresholds are assigned to the KPI’s to trigger an alert and notify the call center that something needs attention.  LCD screens are a tremendous tool when needing to alert the group. However, the group does not take responsibility.

Agent desktops provide agent specific information about the group (split skill) the agent is logged into. These statistics might include:

•     Agent Adherence
•     Service Level        
•     Calls in Queue
•     Abandon Rate
•     AHT

To improve agent efficiency a threshold may be attached to some or all of the statistics to alert the agent that their attention is required.  Agent desktops provide specific information to the agent allowing them to react in a proactive manner.   However, many agents believe that their team leaders and managers are not aware of their current status so they do not react as they should.   

If the call center has just an LCD screen displaying KPI’s agents are able to deny responsibility for KPI’s in threshold by claiming they were not aware. Conversely call centers using only desktops run the risk of managers and team leaders not being aware of the status.

Call centers that utilize both LCD screens and agent desktops improve the productivity of the call center.  Team leaders, managers and agents are all aware of the current status of the call center and they are able to take responsibility for the call center metrics.  Or put another way managers no longer have to yell someone please answer the phone.

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about Contact Center Activity Monitoring and Unified Reporting.

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Dan Boehm
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Spectrum
dboehm@specorp.com
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Why your real time reporting solution does not work

If you are manually creating reports you understand the value of data and reporting in the call center.  However, these reports have five problems that prevent them from being effective for the entire call center.

Not automated
To be effective your real time reporting (RTR) solution must be automated.  The reports must be created and delivered to your target audience automatically and on a schedule.  Manually created reports are valuable but have challenges.

• The time needed to create the reports adds up.  Managers can use their time more efficiently than building reports;
• Managers can get too busy to do the reports and so they are not always created;
• Reports that are assigned to someone else may be created wrong or valuable data missed.

The data that you want is not included in the report
Data is left out of the report even though it would be very valuable to have in the reports.

• Managers are aware of valuable data that is not being included in the manual reporting because of the time it would take them to extract and crunch that data.
• Getting access to the data takes time and is complex therefore it is left off of the manual reporting.
• The data access is complex and the manager is unaware of how to get at the data. Getting assistance every day to get at this data is not a viable option for the manager.

The data is not what you need to report on
All too often call centers build reports only on data from the ACD.  The statistics from the ACD are good but do not include some of the most important data.  Data from WFM, CRM, Help Desk, FCR and CSat information should be included in your real time reports. Data from these and other sources provide critical KPI’s to the call center team.

• WFM – Schedule adherence and absenteeism
• CRM – Revenue, quotes, sales details
• Help Desk – Ticketing KPI’s
• FCR – Quality scores
• CSat – Survey results

These are examples of what should be reported on from these data sources. There may be more information that your organization can glean from these reports.

The report(s) is not given to everyone that could benefit from the information
There are reasons why certain reports should not be given to everyone but these same reports can be modified so that each level within the call center can get this valuable real time information.

• Agents – real time information on their status
• Team Leaders – real time and historical information on agent and group status
• Managers – real time and historical information on group status and drill down to agent status
• Senior Management – historical information and daily business critical information with drill down to real time data.

However, creating one report takes time, creating four reports takes considerable time and some of the information that is provided to senior management may be confidential.

The report is not proactive
Manually created reports may be built daily but they do not alert anyone if a threshold is exceeded throughout the day. A manager may review the data at the end of the day but by the time the data is analyzed the event causing the threshold has past.  An automated reporting solution must alert the call center and managers when a KPI has exceeded it threshold.

Real time reporting is much more than showing how many calls are in queue.  An effective reporting solution is proactive, made available to all levels of the call center, captures data that you need and want and is automatically created throughout the day and summarizes at the end of the day.

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about Contact Center Activity Monitoring and Unified Reporting.

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Dan Boehm
VP Sales and Marketing
Spectrum
dboehm@specorp.com
+1 713 986 8839

The Value of data in a call center

Call centers generate and store a tremendous amount of data, real time and historical.  Unfortunately for most call centers this data is vastly underutilized and therefore loses its value to the organization.    A Call center improved its adherence by 6% in 30 days when it started to display, in real time, the agent adherence to schedules.

A contact center has an ACD, CRM, WFM, IVR, email, chat, IM, call recording and call accounting just to name a few of the solutions and products in use.  Each of these solutions generates a lot of data that is stored and reused by the solution.  Each of these solutions is able to produce individual reports for the manager.  However, in most call centers these reports are rarely used because there are so many individual reports to review.  In addition, the time it takes to sort out the valuable data from each report and create a summary report is overwhelming for most managers. 

This is a list of solutions and the data that should be extracted and used for real time and historical reporting.

The top five call center solutions (data sources) that should be tapped for reporting and the advantages for reporting on that data.
  
Multichannel ACD: The data from the ACD gives us a real time and for the day view of how the agents are performing and with respect to the goals set for the call center. This data provided to Managers, Team Leaders and Agents shows where the call center can improve immediately as well as in the future.  Spectrum customers have reported up to 2% improvement in AHT by reporting ACD KPI’s to the agents.
Workforce Management: Real time reporting on WFM metrics benefits everyone. Agents see the adherence, shrinkage and absenteeism KPI’s and are able to adjust their behavior to meet the goals that are set. A Spectrum customer reported a change in schedule adherence problems from 9% to 3% in 30 days by displaying the KPI to the agent desktop.

CRM: Revenue, quotes, and general sales activity creates a competition with the sales agents in the call center. Senior management in most organizations wants to see revenue figures and especially large orders on a daily basis. A customer service call center using real time reporting has been able to increase the revenue of its bottom producers by almost 3% by creating a competition between its agents and displaying the real time status.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys: While FCR might tells us how we think the call center is doing CSat surveys tell us what our customers think of us.  External feedback that is shared provides the reinforcement management needs to encourage the call center team.

In House Data: 40% of Spectrum customers have a custom built in house database(s) that contains some type of valuable data. Typically this data is something that has been generated for years and the call center has come to depend on it for daily operations.  By sharing this data on a real time basis with the entire call center everyone benefits from the data.

Call centers generate and store an enormous amount of data.  This data when used by a real time reporting tool will provide direct benefits to the call center. Knowledge, opportunities and improvements are available and possible from using the data that is created by existing call center solutions.  Spectrum customers report real savings and ROI when using real time reporting tools.

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about Contact Center Activity Monitoring and Unified Reporting.

Dan Boehm
VP Sales and Marketing
Spectrum
dan@specorp.com
+1 713 986 8839

Threshold Analytics

On a daily basis call centers and agents exceed their thresholds and the manager and the agents are made aware of the threshold violations. The call center has too many calls in queue, the agent adherence has dropped or the quality scores are below the team average.  These types of KPI threshold violations occur every day. As a manager you do not have time to explore each KPI threshold violation. However, if you have a summary report of the threshold violations you now have a tool that shows exactly where the call center can improve.

Figure  shows a single line of raw data that is collected by Spectrum Threshold Analytics. From this data dashboards and web based reports can be built with programmed alerts to notify the manager of business variances.
Spectrum threshold analytics is a summary reports that show the call center manager

• Which KPI’s have gone into threshold, throughout the day;
• When they went into threshold during the day;
• How many times they went into threshold for the day;
• The totals for each KPI for the day;
• A weekly/monthly report can also be created. 

The value of this information is in viewing the daily/weekly results of the threshold violations and comparing them against the call center goals. Now the manager can determine how the call center is performing by agent, agent group, group (split skill), groups, and the entire call center.  The results can be used for changing goals, show how the center is improving and sue the statistics for agent reviews.

When a KPI has exceeded a predetermined level this is a threshold violation. For example, Service level has dropped below 55%. These types of threshold violations occur every day in all call centers. When a KPI has repeated threshold violations throughout the day or has stayed in threshold for an extended period of time this is a call center variance. Call center variances cost the call center revenue and customers.

Using Spectrum Threshold Analytics the Call Center Manager is proactively alerted to these variances and can take action during the time they are occurring, determine the problem and resolve the problem.  This proactive work saves the company money, customers and increases revenue.  

Brief Case Study: A retail sales call center was exceeding the number of calls in queue each day. The manager was aware the call center had one or two threshold violations per day. When the Spectrum threshold analytics was installed it was quickly determined the threshold violation would START early in the morning and sometime NEVER come out of threshold. The number of calls was not enough to trigger a change by the WFM so this gap was costing this retail call center revenue throughout the year by calls being abandoned.  The manager added one more agent to this skill group and was able to reduce the abandonment rate from 5.8% to 2.6% and increase revenue by almost $5,000 per month.  The ROI for this customer was approximately 11 months.

Spectrum Threshold Analytics is not limited to the ACD.  Spectrum can run analytics against any data source the customer provides Spectrum access to. Spectrum uses the customer’s threshold goals and then is able to run the Threshold Analytics reports. 

Dashboards and web based reports are most often used by Call Center Managers to review and analyze the threshold analytics. The dashboards are effectively used by managers to see a real time view of ACD, WFM, CRM, etc metrics and statistics.  Web based reports are ideal for the manager and senior manager that are traveling or want a more detailed level of drill down into the statistics. 

A dashboard showing a summary report of threshold analytics as well as a set of gauges that are highlighting real time data. 

Threshold analytics offers a new view into the KPI thresholds for the call center.  Managers now have the tools to see how the agent, group, groups, and entire call center is performing against the goals.  This information can be used to more accurately determine staffing, agent performance levels, team leader performance and overall call center performance.  

A web report with two layers of drill down to determine the cause of the business variance. 

Utilizing trended data the call center manager now has the tools to show how the call center is improving over time by showing the reduction in threshold violations over time.  These same tools can be used to direct an agent to training, show that call center goals are too lenient or strict, assist with WFM scheduling and reinforce the value of the call center to management. 

Spectrum Threshold Analytics provides the Call Center Manager with the tools to make the call center more effective and efficient by pinpointing the areas that are not meeting company goals.

 
Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about Contact Center Activity Monitoring and Unified Reporting. 

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Dan Boehm
VP Sales and Marketing
Spectrum
dan@specorp.com
+1 713 986 8839

Progression of real time reporting

There are four distinct stages for real time reporting that is used in the contact center space. These stages provide the contact center manager an increasingly more granular look into the data and proactive alerting.  The four stages are: Standard ACD Reports, Customized Contact Center Reports, Drill-Down Reporting, Proactive Reporting and Alerts.

Standard ACD Reporting:  This reporting is the standard reports that are offered by the ACD vendor.  When the ACD vendor is asked if their product includes reporting they are quickly able to say yes. The reporting that is offered allows the vendor to “check the box” on the RFP from the customer.  However, rarely does the reporting that is offered by the ACD vendor sufficient to meet the needs of a progressive contact center.  Standard reports from the ACD are very basic and offer little true value to the customer in today’s contact center.

The standard ACD report provides the customer with statistics about the contact center.  As we know statistics are not very useful when you are trying to improve the performance of the contact center.  Sure the statistics can tell you things such as how many calls are in queue or what the longest wait time is or the average handle time.  But these are not metrics which is what the contact center needs to improve performance in the contact center.

As the Figure shows a call center will become more effective and efficient when adding standard ACD reporting for the managers to review.

Customized Contact Center Reports: These reports are built by the ACD vendor or reseller to help meet the unique needs of the contact center. These reports provide the level of information the center specifically needs to become more effective and efficient. The biggest drawback of working with the ACD Vendors to do these custom ACD reports is they do not include data outside of the ACD.  Contact center reporting needs to have information coming from sources outside of the ACD. 

By working with a qualified reseller or third party vendor that specializes in reporting tools the customized contact center reports can include other data sources. These sources should include: WFM, CRM, ticketing system, IVR and dialers.  Customers should also provide access to data sources that include FCR and CSat ratings.  Extracting data from these sources gives the contact center manager the ability to increase performance.

Figure  changes from the standard ACD reports to customized reporting. These types of reports improve the call center effectiveness and efficiency by reporting on what is important to this particular call center. 

Drill-Down Reporting: Getting to the root cause of the problem should be the goal for the manager when the contact center is not meeting the SLA’s.  One way to solve the mystery of what is causing the problem is to use drill down reporting.  This type of reporting contains a summary report as the first layer.  This summary would show the manager that a metric has exceeded a threshold and requires further action.  By being able to click on that metric the drill down reporting will go to a more granular report showing details about the metric helping the manager pin point the problem.   

By having custom reports that offer drill down the manager can quickly find the cause of the problem in real time and begin working on the problem today rather than tomorrow or next week.  This immediate reactive behavior will improve contact center performance.

Figure  illustrates the cumulative effect of adding drill down reporting and reporting in a proactive manner. 

Proactive Reporting and Notification: The effective call center manager does not wait until the end of the day or when there is time to review the reports.  The effective manager has real time reports that are proactively sent to the manager at a scheduled time or when a call center variance has been exceeded.  By having reports sent to the manager work can begin immediately rather than waiting to build the reports.  In addition, by including preprogrammed notifications a manager will not have to wait until the scheduled report arrives the manager can be alerted when a metric has exceeded a threshold or contact center variance.

Proactive reporting takes customized drill down reports and adds the ability to report on a scheduled basis or an alert basis.  This level of reporting will make any call center more effective and efficient by reducing costs and eliminating waste and inefficient behavior.  If the contact center is a sales / service center revenues can be increased as well by using the proper reporting methods.

The progression of real time reporting goes through four stages with each stage building on the previous stage. By moving to a proactive reporting tool from a standardize report a call center manager is quickly able to improve call center performance by creating an effective and efficient call center.

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about The Progression of Real Time Reporting in the Call Center.

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Dan Boehm
VP Sales and Marketing
Spectrum
dan@specorp.com
713 986 8839