Overview
My firm was recently contracted to analyze the current effectiveness of a national insurance agency, particularly its call center. Within the original proposed contract, I will address several key issues. It is my intent that this practice will address and limit unpredictable behaviors, as well as unproductive commissions, especially with new clients.
Some changes are conducted to enhance organizational effectiveness, all within the context of the values and strategic framework in place. Incremental changes are a constant. These incremental changes include, but are not limited to, some organizational restructuring, new technology, or new personnel practices.
Working on personnel issues allows positive and lasting low cost
Consequently, the Chinese queue became long and some calls overflowed to the English-speaking group.
Since English was not the callers' preferred language, average handling time in the English group escalated. Eventually, English calls overflowed to the French-speaking group.
The point: Even calls you get few of can significantly impact costs and productivity in the form of longer queues, higher telecommunications bills, fewer contacts handled and degradation of service.
In the context of your customer access strategy, explore options for handling or deferring contacts without bogging down secondary and tertiary agent groups (e.g., by pulling in specialized assistance from other departments).
Optimize staffing and schedules by increment.
Service level, defined as "X percent of calls answered in Y seconds," ties resources to desired results.
As illustrated in Figure 2, 30 agents will provide a service level of about 24 percent of calls answered in 20 seconds. With one more agent, service level jumps to 45 percent answer -- a quantum improvement. Adding an additional person yields another big gain. But keep adding, and additional agents bring proportionally decreasing benefit -- the law of diminishing returns. This principle underscores the importance of getting the "right people in the right places at the right times" -- each increment (typically, half hour) of the day.
Being even slightly understaffed can yield low service levels, high agent