Unified Reporting for the Contact Center

Unified Reporting for the contact center goes beyond summarizing an ACD report for the team leaders or managers. True unified reporting is a multi-tiered process.

1. Identify the data and the sources where that data is stored;
2. Capture the data from disparate data silos;
3. Build the reports based on specific needs of the users;
4. Create alarms and alerts for the reports so key metrics that are in variance are highlighted;
5. Publish the reports to each level of the Contact Center from the agent to senior management.

Contact Centers store a tremendous amount of data and most never do anything with that information. Unified reporting provides the contact center the opportunity to increase agent and team leader efficiencies with real time reports showing their current status. Unified reporting also aides the manager and senior management with historical reporting and real time drill down to assess the contact centers productivity.

Call Center Scorecards

Call Center Scorecards, Balanced Scorecard or simply scorecard exist to enable call center managers to review overall call center performance.  The scorecards also assist top management in their quest to understand the value and performance of the call center.  Too often top management views the call center as a cost center and does not understand the value that the call center brings to the organization.  In addition, when a call center manager has to explain how well the call center is performing numerous statistics, charts, graphs and reports are provided which end up confusing top managers.

A balanced scorecard provides a single easy to read and understand Excel file that focuses on a few key performance indicators rather than 100’s of statistics.  Furthermore these KPI’s are weighted and compared against either the company goals or industry benchmarks.

Each industry has its own set of KPI’s that should be used to create a scorecard. However, just using the industry standards may not be enough for your business. Each call center needs to review their needs and adjust the scorecard so that it is most effective for the business. Below is a list of KPI’s that call centers have used to create a scorecard. 　　　
Daily revenue
Cost per contact
Abandon Rate (consider using a total abandon rate including IVR, Email, Chat)
ASA
FCR
CSAT
Agent Utilization
Service Level
Ticket close ratio
Call Quality
Adherence
Average Handle Time
Agent Turnover
Agent Training
IVR Completion Rate
Agent punctuality
Absenteeism

An agent’s desktop scorecard can look and have a different set of data compared to a manager or supervisors scorecard.

Showing the days goals followed by the target and the threshold conditions can change an agent’s performance.

Industry Scorecard KPI’s will differ by industry.  What one industry would focus on is not the same as what another industry might focus on. Here are some examples of KPI’s by Industry. Your contact center may want to focus on some different KPI’s, but this can be used as a start.

 Within each call center these scorecard KPI’s could change. For example, an insurance based call center that has a group that takes calls for policy cancellation calls and another group that handles new policies may not have the same goals on abandon rate and ASA. The KPI goal and benchmark may differ for each group and it would be inappropriate to use the same for each group. The Call Center Manager needs to review what is important to each business unit and what will affect performance when deciding on which KPI’s to score.

Using 3 to 8 KPI’s is ideal for the balanced scorecard. Fewer than 3 KPI’s and any change to a single KPI changes the overall scorecard value quickly. A significant change to a KPI is not seen in the total score when there are more than 8 KPI’s are evaluated. The weighted value of each KPI needs to be considered as well. Too much weight on a single KPI will affect the outcome of the scorecard quickly. Determining the weight to put on each KPI is up to the call center and its purpose. There are industry standards for each KPI but each call center is unique and these standards may not apply. In most cases Customer Satisfaction, First Call Resolution and Cost / Call are more heavily weighed than Service Level, ASA and Agent Training.

There are many types of scorecards for a contact center to consider and use.

• Agent Scorecard: A select group of metrics showing how an agent is performing 
• Team Scorecard: A scorecard for the skill group. Because skill groups have different goals it is not beneficial to use the same goals for each skill group. 
• Summary Scorecard: An accumulation of team scorecards or agent scorecards. 
• Weekly, Monthly, Yearly Summary report: This is a summary scorecard for each type of scorecard. For example a weekly scorecard report for the Contact Center Scorecard. 
• Contact Center Scorecard: A select group of metrics showing how the entire contact center is performing.

Should the scorecard use company goals or industry benchmarks to determine the performance? Both are valid methods for determining performance. A company new to scorecarding may want to look at its own company goals first to become acquainted with using the scorecard. This “trial” period will also help determine if the KPI’s that are being used in the scorecard are appropriate. Once the company is comfortable with the scorecard looking to industry benchmarks can provide insight into where the company is in relation to the industry average.

A properly built scorecard is a very effective tool for the call center manager. With a single report the manager is able to determine how well the contact center has functioned that day. By trending these reports a manager is able to show how performance is improving within the call center. The scorecard will also assist the manager in finding the areas where performance is weakest and needs the most improvement.

For more information about Call Center Scorecards contact Spectrum or visit our website.

Follow Spectrum Corporation:

• SlideShare 
• LinkedIn 
• Blog 

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

Messaging in the Call Center

Recently I was visiting one of our customers and was asking me about what types of messages he should be sending his agents desktops.  What I recommend is five different types of messages: Personal, Threshold, Variance, Voluntary time off and Voluntary over time messages.  Each is explained and an example is given below.

Personal Messages:  These are the non business related messages.  Messages such as Happy Anniversary, birthday announcements, congratulations, group announcements, award messages, etc.  These messages are not to be taken lightly. One of the issues that many call centers face is poor overall morale.  These simple messages can do wonders to improve an agent’s day.  It has been shown when the environment in the call center is positive agents perform better and this increases customer retention and helps acquire new business.

Threshold Messages: When an agent or team leader has exceeded a statistical level that is important to the overall call center goal.  Typically these are KPI values for calls in queue, service level, oldest call waiting, etc.  These messages help keep the agent on track to meet daily performance goals.  Messages of this type are automatically triggered by the Spectrum software.

Variance Messages: These messages are more critical to the agent and call center.  Messages of this type are triggered when a performance metrics goals has been missed or exceeded.  For example KPI Values for Abandon Rate, Average Speed of Answer, FCR and CSat are all performance metrics and would trigger a variance message to automatically be sent out.

Voluntary time off (VTO): Occasionally the WFM software is inaccurate and you have a call center that has many idle agents.  When this occurs a message can be sent to agents that have previously agreed to leave early for the day.  Tremendous cost savings occur using this automatic message requested those agents who have agreed to leave early when they are idle.  Managers are notified by a similar message telling them agents will be leaving early because of the low call volume and high idle time.

Voluntary time off (VTO): Occasionally the WFM software is inaccurate and you have a call center that has many idle agents.  When this occurs a message can be sent to agents that have previously agreed to leave early for the day.  Tremendous cost savings occur using this automatic message requested those agents who have agreed to leave early when they are idle.  Managers are notified by a similar message telling them agents will be leaving early because of the low call volume and high idle time.

Messaging in the call center is not just personal messages directed at specific agents.  Messaging can also be used to change behavior (Threshold and Variance Messages) and to cut costs and increase revenue (VTO and VOT messages).  Contact Spectrum to learn how desktop solutions can help improve your call center’s performance.

Follow Spectrum Corporation:

• SlideShare
• LinkedIn
• Blog

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

Call Center Statistics or Call Center Performance Metrics

There is a difference between statistics and performance metrics.  Both are very helpful to the call center but are used in two different ways.  Statistics are used to show what the current status of the agent or group and performance metrics show how well the agent or group is performing.

Statistics can provide a view of what is happening in the call center right now, for the interval or for the day.  These statistics are helpful when the agents, team leaders and managers want to know the current status of the call center. Good statistics that show the status of the call center are:

Average Handle Time (AHT) or Average Call Handle Time (ACHT)
        Calculation: Total talk time + wrap time (After call works)/total  calls

Service Level (SL%)
        Calculation: The percentage of calls answered with a certain amount of time.
For example if 80 out of 100 calls were answered within 30 seconds then the service level is 80%. Some call centers have a shorter time frame such as 20 seconds or even 10 seconds. 

Abandon Rate (ABN%)
        Calculation: Total Abandoned calls / Total incoming calls
Some customers are now adding abandon calls from the IVR and Chat sessions to this calculation.

Average Speed Answer (ASA)
        Calculation: The average number of seconds (minutes) it takes to answer a call.
If it takes an average of 30 seconds to answer a call then the ASA is 30 seconds. This statistics should be measured by interval and for the day. This statistics can change throughout the day depending on the type of call center. 

Longest Wait Time (LWT) and Average Wait Time (AWT)
 Calculation: The Longest Wait Time is the longest a caller has to wait before the call is answered. Average Wait time is the average time a caller has to wait before the call is answered.

Calls in Queue (CIQ)
        Calculation: The total number of calls in the queue waiting to be handled by the agents.
Some call centers are now adding email and chat queues to the total Calls in Queue.  Some call centers track these statistics separately.

ACD Time (ACDT)
        Calculation: The total talk time by and agent or group (split/skill) spent talking to customers.
 Some call centers view the average talk time to understand the amount of time, on average, that the agent spends on each call.
   
The calculations for each statistic are the industry standard, however, your call center may want or need to measure these statistics in another manner. 

There are many more statistics that are available and each Call Center manager needs to determine what is best for their call center. These statistics and more are available from your ACD. For a complete list of statistics that are available for your call center contact Spectrum

Spectrum supports Call Centers by capturing call centers statistics and providing a unique view for the individual agents, group view for the team leaders and call center view for the managers.  Reports can be generated and displayed on LCD screens, web based reports, desktops dashboards, traditional LED Wallboards, smartphones and email. 

Agents can improve their efficiencies by knowing how well they are doing compared to their goals and targets. But, is that enough?

Performance metrics provide a different picture of the call center. While statistics show us what is going on for our call center from our point of view performance metrics will show you what your customers think of your agents and call center. The team leader or call center manager may be aware of the call center status (statistics) but not aware of what the customers think of the call center or how well we are doing compared to our goals (performance metrics). 

Performance metrics are used to manage the call center and drive sales, improve efficiencies, and increase overall customer satisfaction.  When the call center performance metrics improve the state of the business will improve. Some performance statistics that are useful to the call center manager are:

First Call Resolution (FCR%)
        Calculation: The percentage of customer issues or tickets that are resolved on the first call.
Sometimes this is a survey that the customer takes immediately after the call or given by the agent.
This is a metric that can be difficult to measure however it is an important metric as it gives the call center a clearer picture of the quality of the call center. 

Customer Satisfaction (CSat%)
        Calculation: Satisfied customers / Total calls
This calculation is typically taken from secondary survey results.  When an agent asks if the customer is satisfied they may not receive a valid answer. To assume that the customers transaction is complete and therefore the customer is satisfied is incorrect as well.  Secondary surveys are the most accurate method of calculating CSat ratings.

Agent Utilization Rate (AUR%)also known as Occupancy (OCC)
        Calculation: Total talk time + After call work + Idle Time (in hours or minutes) / total paid hours worked (both in hours or minutes).  The total talk time, idle time, after call work, hours worked must all be for the same length of time (days, hours or minutes). If you capture the total talk time and after call work for the week, then the total hours worked must be for the week as well.
Example: Talk time = 18 hours, After call work = 10 hours, Idle time = 2 hours, Number of hours worked = 38. 18 +10 + 2 =30, 30/38 = 79% agent utilization rate.  Industry best practices suggest that an agent utilization rate should fall between 70 -85%.  To low and the agent is bored, too high and the agent is stressed.  Either condition will result in a high attrition rate among the agents.

Cost per Contact (CoC)
        Calculation: ACD Calls per hour / Agents hourly rate
If you contact center has multiple agents with varying hourly rates then this calculation should be taken across the entire call center or for each group, depending on how your call center is set up.  In this case total ACD calls for the group / total agents hourly rate. IVR cost per call is calculated by determining the amortization schedule of the IVR, breaking that cost down to a monthly amount and then dividing the number of calls handled by the IVR for the month / amortized IVR cost for the month.  Only calls that are fully handled by the IVR can be used in this calculation. 
 
Average Speed Answer (ASA)
        Calculation: On average how long it takes an agent to answer a call.
Standards vary depending on the industry. For example: Financials such as mutual fund companies strive for a less than 10 second ASA.  Software support desks for non maintenance customers can exceed 1 hour. Contact Spectrum to learn more about your industries best practices for ASA. 

Abandonment Rate (ABN%)
        Calculation: Number of calls abandoned / total calls
Call abandoned should be after the first 8-10 seconds.  Most calls abandoned during this time are false abandons, wrong numbers, caller was interrupted, caller was not ready, etc. Some call centers are including IVR abandons as well but only when they are certain their IVR is functioning properly.
       
The calculations for each metric are the industry standard, however, your call center may want or need to measure these metrics in another manner.  You will also notice that Abandonment Rate and ASA are shown as a useful statistic and a useful performance metric.  These two KPI’s can and should be used for both call center status and call center performance.

These metrics will provide a true picture of performance in the call center, identify strengths and weaknesses, and help establish goals for the call center and agents.  Used properly these same metrics can be used to provide an aggregate call center performance number (A single weighted number that shows how well the call center is performing, today)

To truly support the effort to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the agents in the call center reporting must include call center statistics and performance metrics. Statistics tell us how we are doing right now but do not tell us how we are performing against our goals.  Performance Metrics show us how well we are performing but do not tell us how we are doing right now.  By utilizing both statistics and performance metrics a call center manager can improve the call center.

Implementing call center statistics and performance metrics in the call center can be done by having unique reporting at the agent, team leader and manager level. 

• Agents can utilize a desktop solution that rotates through their statistics and performance.  They see how they are performing and then see what they are doing right now. As they improve on the immediate issues (calls waiting, handle time, problem solution, etc) they will see their performance improve) Agents will also benefit from seeing group statistics and performance metrics on a LCD screen for their group. 
• Team Leaders follow the agents and the group through a web report as well as the LCD screen.  When the group level performance falls they are able to drill down on the web report to determine which agent(s) are falling behind and can coach them. 
• Managers utilize web based reports and smart phones to keep tabs on the call center.  They are able to determine how the center is doing against goal with the performance metrics and can drill down on the call center statistics to see which group/agent need improvement and coaching.  Staying connected while mobile with a smart phone gives the manager flexibility to continue to do the job while attending staff and managerial meetings.
• Managers also are able to report to the business with a single report showing the score of the call center with a weighted scorecard approach.  By selecting key performance indicators attaching a weight to those KPI’s and comparing against the goals the manager can now show that improvement and trend of the call center over time.  Contact Spectrum for specifics on weighted scorecards.

As a call center manager deciding on a solution to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your call center consider what is more important to your success statistics, performance metrics or both. Statistics will show you and the agents how they are doing right now and performance metrics tell you what your customers think of you and how well the center is performing against goals and targets.

Spectrum is a leading provider of Unified Contact Center Reporting.  Contact Spectrum today to learn more about real time reporting for your contact center. 

Follow Spectrum Corporation:

• SlideShare
• LinkedIn
• Blog

Dan Boehm
VP Sales and Marketing
Spectrum
dan@specorp.com
+1713 986 8839    

At-Home Call Center Agents

Envision your contact center with fewer agents in the office yet customers are receiving the same if not better support and service. Imagine a contact center where agents can have flexible hours, but you still have full coverage 24 hours a day. With an at-home agent program your call center could realize these benefits and much more. Some of the benefits of an at-home agent program include:

• Larger pool of talented individuals to pull from
• Better educated
• More responsible and reliable
• More productive agents
• Flexible scheduling
• Costs savings
• Lower attrition rates

Spectrum supports at-home agents with dashboards to allow real time reporting and messaging to a users desktop. Aside from the technical challenges of setting up at-home agents the agent themselves will experience personal challenges.  Agents want:

• To know how they are performing
• To know how they compare against other agents
• How well their group is doing
• To have contact with the corporate call center
• To feel like they are a valuable part of a team

Utilizing Spectrum desktop reporting agents receive detail statistics on how well they are doing, how they are performing against their goals, how their group is doing and they are aware if they need to log into other groups to provide further support.

In addition, at-home agents have the advantage of communicating through messages to and from the office.  These messages can be threshold messages, personal messages offering encouragement, scheduled messages reminding the agents to log in/out and the messages can be generated by the agent if needed.

Spectrum supports user rights and roles and therefore only those agents that have the proper rights will be able to initiate a message.  If the agent does not have the proper rights they will be limited to read only or read/reply access.  All messages sent to the agents can be stored indefinitely to meet corporate or regulatory compliance.

As call centers continue to evolve the look for ways to reduce costs yet retain the same level of service they have always had.  Companies can benefit from at-home agents when the agents have the right tools to do the job and feel like part of the team.  

Spectrum desktop reporting and messaging (XorceView) is available to help your work-at-home agents with real time information to assist the agent.  Contact Spectrum today and learn more about at-home agent reporting.

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

Getting Agents to respond to KPI's

Recently, while visiting a 1000 seat call center the Call Center Manager asked me how she can get her agents to read the LCD Screens and then take the appropriate actions.  These screens were showing the group information and highlights critical KPI’s that are in threshold.  Yet, according to this manager, the agents were not paying attention to the screens and were not taking action. This is not an isolated incident this happens in many call centers worldwide.

The way that managers can get the agents to read and take action on what they read is to make the agents part of the real time reporting process from the beginning.  This is not to say that agents should make the decisions on the goals, thresholds, or appropriate action but they should be part of the process so they buy into the process.
A real time reporting process includes:

• Which KPI’s to report
• Group, team leader and agent goals
• What the thresholds shall be
• How often the data is updated
• How to present the KPI’s (LCD screens, desktops, wallboards, etc.)
• Measure, review and recalibration process

 While deciding on these critical steps the agents in smaller call center and team leaders in a larger call center should be part of the process. 

The type of call center you have will determine what information should be displayed.  For example, compare these two call center types.
Financial call center should be displaying:               Customer Service/Sales call center:

1. Wait time                                                    1. Calls in queue
2. Service level                                               2. Average wait time
3. Calls in queue                                             3. Tickets open
4. CSat rating                                                 4. Abandon rate
5. Abandon rate                                             5. Adherence
6. Adherence                                                 6. Average handle time

The data is similar but there are important differences.  It is important that agents understand what each KPI is and why they are being reporting and displayed on the screens. 

1. Explain what KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) will be reported on and why.  If you are unsure which KPI’s to report on contact Spectrum for more details.   Be sure to explain each KPI and what they mean to the agent and the call center.  In a survey conducted by Spectrum over 25% of the agents did not know what some of the KPI’s were or what the abbreviation meant.
2. When selecting goals for each KPI make the goals obtainable and not something that would be consider ideal.  When thresholds are constantly exceeded agents will not bother to respond to the LCD screens showing threshold violations. 
3. The layout of your call center will greatly affect the type of display device that you should use for alerting agents to the statistics and thresholds.  LCD Screens work best with a low cubicle wall center and Desktops work best for a high cubicle wall call center.  The type of display used can affect the agent performance and their ability to read and react to the displays.  Getting the agents involved in this decision making process can positively affect agent ownership of the KPI’s and thresholds.
4. At a minimum your call center goals should be reviewed annually. 

• Set your goals.  The goals should be realistically set and should be set to industry standards.  Contact Spectrum to learn more about industry standards.
• Measure how you are doing against your goals.  A historical reporting available from Spectrum can assist in measuring how the agents have performed against goals.
• Ask for feedback from your team leaders or top agents.  Are the goals realistic or do some need to change
• Reset your goals to help your agents meet the goals. The objective is to improve so your goals should be getting better and not worse.  If you find yourself reducing the goals then a more detailed analysis of your call center would be appropriate.

In a US based call center the average wait time was over 90 minutes. This call center supported internal customers for network related issues.  The threshold set on the LCD screens, agent desktops and LED wallboards was set for 5 minutes.  Therefore, throughout the day the screens, desktops and wallboards were constantly alerting the agents that they had exceeded the handle time.  When I spoke to the agents about the screens and wallboards they told me they did not pay attention to them because there was no way they could meet the goals the manager had set for them.  When I asked about the desktop screen pops most of the agents said they would just minimize the screen pop when it came up.

Having unrealistic goals will not improve agent performance.

Agents will not respond to unrealistic goals and objectives.  Audio and visual threshold messages will be ignored. Overall call center performance will suffer if the call center manager has not included the agents and team in the real time reporting process.  By changing the process and including the agents or team leaders there is ownership of the process.  When agents own the process they will read the LCD Screens or desktop screen pop and adjust their behavior to meet the call center goals. 

For more assistance with your real time reporting needs contact Spectrum.

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

Performance management in the Call Center

Performance Management or Real Time Reporting

Performance Management (PM) offers a view of the business to C-Level executives and Managers so they have an immediate update on key business drivers.  Most often CRM, ACD, WFM and ticketing system data is captured from information silos and filtered down to a web report or dashboard.  This summary web report or dashboard provides a day/week view with drill down to see more granular level information.

The benefits of a Performance Management Report include:

• Flash Report for immediate and informed business decisions based on real time data;
• Trends are highlighted as variance thresholds prompting action from the manager;
• Consolidated reporting is preconfigured and automated saving time and money;
• Drill down to detailed results to pinpoint areas that require attention.

A consolidated report with two levels of drill down gives the manager a view to the details required to see the variances that are causing negative or positive trends.

Real Time Reporting alerts the call center agents and team leaders when goals are not being met.  Agents and team leaders are aware they have goals they are required to meet.  Yet, when the daily activity level and customer pressure increases these goals are often forgotten or ignored.  Real Time Reporting brings the goals "top of mind" to the agents and team leaders so they are able to adjust their current behavior to strive towards meeting the goals.

The benefits of Real Time Reporting include:

• Desktop displays with critical KPI's behavior helps the agents and team leaders;
• Group level reporting to a LCD screen that motivates and encourages group action;
• Immediate feedback on current status for immediate behavior changes;
• Color coded thresholds which leaves no doubt what needs to be improved.

Desktop Display for an agent or team leader

Performance Management reporting is ideal for Call Center Managers and Senior Management. Information is captured and provided in a summary or consolidated report making it easy for the manager to spot business variances and drill down on the information to determine the cause of the variance.

Real Time reporting is aptly suited for agents and team leaders that need to correct or adjust their behavior immediately to continue to meet company goals for their position.  The information they are seeing is directly related to their position and the work they are doing.

Your call center is in a competitive business and is under pressure to cut costs, improve productivity and obtain high goals.  Performance Management and Real Time Reporting for the call center will help you achieve these goals.

Contact Spectrum to learn more about using Performance Management or Real Time Reporting in your business.

Follow Spectrum Corporation:
SlideShare
LinkedIn
Blog

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

Real time Reporting Increases Call Center Productivity

Real Time Reporting Increases Call Center Productivity   

If you are providing real time information to your call center stakeholders (Agents, Team Leaders, Managers and Senior Management) congratulations you are making your call center more effective and efficient.  On average Spectrum Call Center customers report a 7% increase in productivity by implementing a Real Time Reporting system in their call center.  There is more that can be done to further improve your call centers efficiency and effectiveness and without having to spend any money.

Today’s call centers that are using real time reporting have taken a crucial step towards improving the overall performance of the call center.  Agent and group real time KPI’s and statistics for the day are displayed prominently about the call center and on agent desktops. This information helps the agents make better and faster decisions and to stay within reach of their goals.  Of course one challenge that exists for the agents is remembering what the goals were for each of the groups or skills they are logged into.

Thresholds are set by managers to remind agents and team leaders when stated metrics are not being achieved and to assist them with a nudge to meet the stated goals.  But lack of details does not help the team perform better in the long run. Details, such as what the service level, customer satisfaction (CSat) and abandonment rate suppose to be for my group(s)?  Or how much over threshold am I and my group?  Are the thresholds accurate for the time of day and day of week?

Messaging is used very frequently in call centers.  Targeted messages to an agent and to groups of agents are very effective to show appreciation, remind agents to stay on task, and to provide a gentle push in the right direction.  However, messages that are not specific enough or leave the agent wondering about the message are not effective and can even be counterproductive.  Messages need to be clear and concise and easy for a busy agent to quickly understand. Messages that are vague can create an unproductive agent while they try to understand the message behind the message.

Congratulations on exceeding your goals today.

Which goals were exceeded? By how much? What was the goal? How did I do the rest of the week?

Congratulations on exceeding your Customer Satisfaction Rating Goal by 8% today. This is the second time this week you’ve surpassed your goals!

A slightly longer message that might take 5 seconds more to run and answers questions for the agent.

This same type of methodology can be used on group messages that are displayed on LCD screens, wallboards, emails, etc.   A short message may seem like the best way to communicate but it leaves too many questions open for interpretation.  Extend the message with more information and the message becomes more effective.

One of the reasons why Real Time Reporting is successful in a call center is the information presented to the stakeholders allows them to make immediate decisions to change their current behavior and respond to the current business situation.  Too many calls in queue, long handle times, poor schedule adherence, declining CSat and FCR ratings all are improved by using real time reporting.

To further improve efficiencies and effective behavior the real time reporting should be enhanced with information on goals and variances.  With the addition of agent or group goals and variances a scorecard is created which stakeholders can now clearly see how well they are performing against the goals.  To communicate this information to an agent the scorecard could be placed on the desktop and rotate between KPI statistics for the agent and the scorecard.

By displaying goals and variances there is a reinforcement of the stated goals.  If managed properly the agents would already be aware of what their goals are and would have had input into the goal setting.  Then by displaying the goals the information would not be viewed as negative or being ruled by an iron fist.

Real time reporting can be used in other ways to achieve your call center goals.

Smaller steps to long term goals
A Customer Story:
A global product development organization had a current wait time for support exceeding one hour. The line to call on was a free call to the caller but still created a negative image with the customers.  The organization determined they needed to reduce that wait time even though it was free support to less than 15 minutes.  This was to be a long term plan and not something that could be fixed in a short time.  One of the challenges was that the organization could not add additional agents to the free support line.

Agents were brought into the meeting to determine why the long hold times as well as what could be done about it and how could they achieve a goal of less than 15 minutes without adding agents.  Many ideas were mentioned and implemented including the following suggestions:

1. Limit the caller to one problem per call and let the caller know that at the beginning of the call and on during on hold message;
2. Create a series of short term goals that were more achievable. Going from 1 hour to 15 minutes seemed to be too large of a hurdle. So each month the goal for average hold time was reduced by approximately 10 minutes.
3. Continuously run a message on the call center LCD screens with the new goals;
4. Continuously run a message on the agent desktops reminding them of the new goals.

This program was a huge success and within the year the global support on the free support line was less than 15 minutes.

Real time reporting is effective when used properly, the teams are involved in the decision making and obtainable goals are set and monitored.

Communications
Messaging in the call center is the most requested feature of all Spectrum features.  Managers require the ability to send messages to agents and groups of agents to keep them informed, make request of agents, remind agents, team leaders and groups of adherence issues, and in general provide a friendlier atmosphere for the call center.  However most managers do not give the type of message they create and publish much thought.  The following are actual messages sent to agents and displayed on LCD screens in call centers.

• Come see me immediately (desktop)
• You are not meeting your metrics you need to go to training. (desktop)
• Do not log out for any reason (desktop)
• We have a customer coming through the Call Center tomorrow this screen will be shut off during their visit. (LCD screen)
• All agents must meet their goals this week to be eligible for the quarterly bonuses.  (Wallboard)
• Messages need to be clear and should not leave doubt in an agents mind as to its meaning. Messages should not threaten any one or any group. Messages must state who sent the message and why the message is being sent if it is not clear.

Analytics of data to create coaching and training opportunities
Real Time reporting will also offer the ability to save your daily, weekly, monthly, etc.  as statistics on a spreadsheet to be reviewed again in the future.  If set up properly the daily reporting can be used to automatically notify an agent that they should set a time for training.  The scope of how and when to use analytics is beyond this newsletter, however, some ideas include: Use the reports to determine when coaching is required; use the reports to determine when training is required (coaching and training are two different tasks); use the reports for assistance in scheduling agents to work a difficult skill; use the reports to move agents to another skill group, use the reports to compare against current goals and use the reports for setting future goals.

The value of Real Time Reporting is not limited to showing the current status of a skill group on a display.  The true value of Real Time Reporting comes from a Manager setting the goals for the reporting tools and using them to their fullest capabilities.  Often additional benefit can come from an existing system that is already in place.

Contact Spectrum or log into our Specorp Website for more information on how you can expand your current real time reporting system.

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

Postive Messaging in the Call Center

Positive Messaging in the Call Center                   

As the world economy began slowing down, some call centers began downsizing or putting a freeze on hiring.  However, most call centers did not see a reduction in client contacts.  In fact, many call centers Spectrum works with has seen an increase in contacts.  Many of these contacts are negative ones such as calls to complain or cancel an order.  Call Center managers are tasked with having fewer agents to work with and rising contact volumes.  This challenging situation has created a negative attitude in many call centers.  High call volumes; more difficult clients than the norm; more clients cancelling orders, policies or coverage; lower sales (read commissions and bonuses); and internal pressure from company management to increase sales, improve customer satisfaction and first contact resolution have all led to a more negative overall call center attitude.

Figue 1r:  LCD Screen focusing on the negative KPI's

To help combat the negative attitude and improve call centre morale, call center managers have been doing much more positive messaging than ever before.  This goes beyond the typical generic group message of "Great Job Today".  Today managers are pointing to specific agents that have done an outstanding job and are congratulating them on the LCD screens as well as on their desk tops.  The messages are more detailed such as "Kelly Smith, from our retention group saved two clients today.  Total policy value was over $50,000."  This type of message puts a face with the message, acknowledges the agent and shows the call center the company cares about the agents.

 

Figure 2:  Positive Messaging improves morale in the call center.

Figure 3:  A positive message directed at a specific agent from Senior Management.

Another area where positive messaging is occurring is in the way KPI's and Metrics are being displayed.  Today many KPI's and Metrics point out the negative or the bad statistics such as a low service level number highlighted in bright red for all to see or abandonment rate with high percentages.

Figure 4:  Positive labels

Rather than focus on the negative, companies are focusing on the positive side of KPI's and Metrics.  Abandonment Rate (AR%) is now called Service Rate (SR%).  So instead of showing a 4% AR, companies are showing 96% SR.  Calls in Queue (CIQ) is now Customers on Hold (COH).  Calls for the Day (ACD) is now Satisfied Customers for the Day (SCD).  These few examples are actual contact centre examples.  While these may seem trivial the results at these call centres has been a more positive attitude as well as happier agents.

Positive messaging and changing the KPI's and Metrics have been proven to improve the overall morale and attitude in the call center.  Contact Spectrum today for examples of positive messaging and changing your KPI's and Metrics.

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