Call Centers
Content
CONDUCTING STUDIES, CALL CENTERS
Abstract
Telephone call centers are an integral part of many businesses, and their economic role is significant and growing. They are also fascinating socio-technical systems in which the behavior of customers and employees is closely intertwined with physical performance measures. In these environments traditional operational models are of great value – and at the same time fundamentally limited – in their ability to characterize system performance.
MEANING
Call center shift allotment system is proposed for the call centers using which they can computerize their shifts organized, work distribution and employee performances. Call centers are basically the work centers, which provide 24 hours customer care via telephones and Internets etc. Now a day every large or small company has, their call centers situated at different locations. Besides supporting customers via a team of customer care executives, call centers has one more team that of technical peoples responsible for allocating, maintaining, updating and allotment company’s communication network.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES •
Call centers emphasizes on value creation by achieving a positive outcome from customers and efficient service delivery by minimal queuing and transfers. Call center mainly focuses on abandon rate or average speed of answer (ASA) as the primary measures of call success.
•
Call Centre aims at creating comprehensive list of objectives to measure, a sample mock-up report or graph, actions that could be taken proactively to manage each measurement, and a few techniques that can help motivate employees with respect to each metric.
1) Service Level
In Call Centers service provided to customers is calculated in terms of time taken to provide resolution e.g. service level of, say, answering 80 percent of calls in 20 seconds, you are ignoring the business impact of the 20 percent who have to wait longer than 20 seconds. The proposed solution was to have two standards: the first, to answer 80 percent of calls in 20 seconds; and the second, to answer the remaining 20 percent within 50 seconds. Only one problem: 100/50 is a very different service level than 80/20! You can no more hit both than you can adjust the pull of gravity. Choose an objective that is appropriate, then concentrate your energies on hitting it consistently.
2)
Average Speed of Answer.
A similar problem stems from establishing objectives for both service level (SL) and average speed of answer (ASA), e.g., "our service level objective is to answer 90 percent of calls in 20 seconds, and our ASA objective is 15 seconds." Although SL and ASA calculations are based on the same set of data, they
are very different reports. Choose one or the other, but don't have objectives for both. (Of the two, SL tends to be more stable and accurate, and less prone to misinterpretation.)
3) Calls Handled Per Agent versus Queue Behavior.
Many of the variables that impact calls handled per agent are out of the agent's control (e.g., call arrival rate, call types, callers' knowledge, callers' communication abilities, the accuracy of the forecast and schedule, and the adherence to schedule of other agents in the group). As with occupancy, calls handled per agent looks better when service level and schedule adherence deteriorate (see table). Solution: Eliminate this objective and instead focus on schedule adherence and quality. Calls handled will take care of itself within the context of your processes and the nature of queues.
4) Cost Per Call versus Process Improvement.
There are various ways to calculate cost per call, but the basic formula is to divide total costs by total calls for a given period of time. Conventional wisdom states that the lower the cost per call, the better. However, a climbing cost per call can be a good sign, depending on the variables driving it up. For example, better coordination with other departments may help reduce the number of times a customer has to contact your center. As a result, the fixed costs (in the numerator) get spread over fewer calls (in the denominator), driving cost per call up. But total costs will go down over time because eliminating waste and rework will drive down the variable costs. Similarly, cost per call usually goes down during the busy times of the year and up during the slower times of year. The solution? Don't focus on cost per call without also looking at the specific variables at work.
5) Resources versus Mission.
Probably the most common and recurring case of incompatible objectives is between resources and mission. For example, be it too many or too few people, what you have and what you're asked to accomplish may be very different things. This issue goes to the heart of call center management and the ongoing challenge of matching resources to the workload. A characteristic of a well-managed call center is the ability to sort through and address any incompatibilities between available resources and desired results, on an ongoing basis.
IMPACT OF CALL CENTER POSITIVE POINTS
1) Call Center provides HUGE SALARY, thereby attracting more people towards it. 2) It provides QUICK OPPORTUNITY for fresher to get jobs. 3) Even a person with LESS EDUCATION i.e. under graduates can also get jobs in call center with good pay. 4) Even WOMEN can get job quickly in call center. 5) It provides good OPPORTUNITY to work overseas.
NEGATIVE POINTS
1) Large number of working hours, stress and frustration. 2) Sexual abusement and harassment to women. 3) It has ODD working hours. 4) People working in Call centers often have many SOCIAL ISSUES/ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION/SEX ISSUES. 5) Other disadvantages which have been raised recently include Loss of direct managerial control, security and confidentiality, legal costs and unfavorable contract lengths.
CONCLUSION
Telephone call centers are an economically important new form of operation. They employ a growing fraction of the work force and mediate a significant volume of trade in developed economies. Furthermore, a number of new opportunities also exist for extending call center capabilities. Skills-based routing, networking, and speech-recognition are examples of promising technologies for which an understanding is just beginning to be developed. A broad range of multi-disciplinary work is needed to help them fully realize their potential.
Bibliography http://www.wikipedia.org/ http://www.icmi.com/Resources/Articles/1998/September/Avoid-Conflicting-Call-Center-Objectives.aspx
Abstract
Telephone call centers are an integral part of many businesses, and their economic role is significant and growing. They are also fascinating socio-technical systems in which the behavior of customers and employees is closely intertwined with physical performance measures. In these environments traditional operational models are of great value – and at the same time fundamentally limited – in their ability to characterize system performance.
MEANING
Call center shift allotment system is proposed for the call centers using which they can computerize their shifts organized, work distribution and employee performances. Call centers are basically the work centers, which provide 24 hours customer care via telephones and Internets etc. Now a day every large or small company has, their call centers situated at different locations. Besides supporting customers via a team of customer care executives, call centers has one more team that of technical peoples responsible for allocating, maintaining, updating and allotment company’s communication network.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES •
Call centers emphasizes on value creation by achieving a positive outcome from customers and efficient service delivery by minimal queuing and transfers. Call center mainly focuses on abandon rate or average speed of answer (ASA) as the primary measures of call success.
•
Call Centre aims at creating comprehensive list of objectives to measure, a sample mock-up report or graph, actions that could be taken proactively to manage each measurement, and a few techniques that can help motivate employees with respect to each metric.
1) Service Level
In Call Centers service provided to customers is calculated in terms of time taken to provide resolution e.g. service level of, say, answering 80 percent of calls in 20 seconds, you are ignoring the business impact of the 20 percent who have to wait longer than 20 seconds. The proposed solution was to have two standards: the first, to answer 80 percent of calls in 20 seconds; and the second, to answer the remaining 20 percent within 50 seconds. Only one problem: 100/50 is a very different service level than 80/20! You can no more hit both than you can adjust the pull of gravity. Choose an objective that is appropriate, then concentrate your energies on hitting it consistently.
2)
Average Speed of Answer.
A similar problem stems from establishing objectives for both service level (SL) and average speed of answer (ASA), e.g., "our service level objective is to answer 90 percent of calls in 20 seconds, and our ASA objective is 15 seconds." Although SL and ASA calculations are based on the same set of data, they
are very different reports. Choose one or the other, but don't have objectives for both. (Of the two, SL tends to be more stable and accurate, and less prone to misinterpretation.)
3) Calls Handled Per Agent versus Queue Behavior.
Many of the variables that impact calls handled per agent are out of the agent's control (e.g., call arrival rate, call types, callers' knowledge, callers' communication abilities, the accuracy of the forecast and schedule, and the adherence to schedule of other agents in the group). As with occupancy, calls handled per agent looks better when service level and schedule adherence deteriorate (see table). Solution: Eliminate this objective and instead focus on schedule adherence and quality. Calls handled will take care of itself within the context of your processes and the nature of queues.
4) Cost Per Call versus Process Improvement.
There are various ways to calculate cost per call, but the basic formula is to divide total costs by total calls for a given period of time. Conventional wisdom states that the lower the cost per call, the better. However, a climbing cost per call can be a good sign, depending on the variables driving it up. For example, better coordination with other departments may help reduce the number of times a customer has to contact your center. As a result, the fixed costs (in the numerator) get spread over fewer calls (in the denominator), driving cost per call up. But total costs will go down over time because eliminating waste and rework will drive down the variable costs. Similarly, cost per call usually goes down during the busy times of the year and up during the slower times of year. The solution? Don't focus on cost per call without also looking at the specific variables at work.
5) Resources versus Mission.
Probably the most common and recurring case of incompatible objectives is between resources and mission. For example, be it too many or too few people, what you have and what you're asked to accomplish may be very different things. This issue goes to the heart of call center management and the ongoing challenge of matching resources to the workload. A characteristic of a well-managed call center is the ability to sort through and address any incompatibilities between available resources and desired results, on an ongoing basis.
IMPACT OF CALL CENTER POSITIVE POINTS
1) Call Center provides HUGE SALARY, thereby attracting more people towards it. 2) It provides QUICK OPPORTUNITY for fresher to get jobs. 3) Even a person with LESS EDUCATION i.e. under graduates can also get jobs in call center with good pay. 4) Even WOMEN can get job quickly in call center. 5) It provides good OPPORTUNITY to work overseas.
NEGATIVE POINTS
1) Large number of working hours, stress and frustration. 2) Sexual abusement and harassment to women. 3) It has ODD working hours. 4) People working in Call centers often have many SOCIAL ISSUES/ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION/SEX ISSUES. 5) Other disadvantages which have been raised recently include Loss of direct managerial control, security and confidentiality, legal costs and unfavorable contract lengths.
CONCLUSION
Telephone call centers are an economically important new form of operation. They employ a growing fraction of the work force and mediate a significant volume of trade in developed economies. Furthermore, a number of new opportunities also exist for extending call center capabilities. Skills-based routing, networking, and speech-recognition are examples of promising technologies for which an understanding is just beginning to be developed. A broad range of multi-disciplinary work is needed to help them fully realize their potential.
Bibliography http://www.wikipedia.org/ http://www.icmi.com/Resources/Articles/1998/September/Avoid-Conflicting-Call-Center-Objectives.aspx
