Performance Optimisation
As the major cost item in any customer service operation, the consistency and work rate of agents is the key to leveraging overall investment. Outside the issue of ensuring equitable distribution of customer calls through intelligent routing, there remain many opportunities to enhance productivity.
For instance, anything greater than 10% agent attrition should be targeted as a wasted expense and developing a coaching culture to support competency development should form part of the strategic response to this problem. Similarly if the performance delta between best performing and worst performing within call centres is askew, great opportunities exist to boost overall productivity by using a combination of management information, quality monitoring and coaching to identify and spread best practice.
Finally, average call durations, 1st time resolution rates and sales conversion ratios can be significantly improved when desktop and associated workflows are simplified and relevant information becomes visually prioritised for the agent’s attention.
These opportunities are explored in greater detail below.
Managing multiple shifts and accommodating the right skills mix to match routing patterns is becoming even tougher for those multi site call centre estates that are now virtualised.
The introduction of quality monitoring is one part technology and three parts operational change management, yet few organisations recognise this commitment sufficiently early.
Today’s call centre desktops are typically cluttered with access points to multiple legacy applications required to complete a customer service routine. This impacts system performance as much as agent performance and their ability to concentrate on the customer experience.
A whole generation of team leaders have become seconded to the administrative task of compiling data and generating reports. In the real time world of customer management, this prevents managers from getting to grips with the real priorities.