How has this year been in your healthcare call center? I suspect you’re ready for it to end. Though you may feel that way every year, the magnitude may be more pronounced this year.
All the rapid changes and stressors in the healthcare industry pile on additional burdens on the call centers that support them. Practitioners expect you to do more, and patients want you to do it better.
You’re stuck in the middle. In addition, there are staffing issues, employee compensation expectations, and budget constraints.
In situations like these the tenancy is often to merely hold on for the rest of the year and enjoy whatever holiday respite you can squeeze out. You won’t think about—or worry about—next year until the time comes.
But I encourage you to do just the opposite.
Strive to finish this year strong. Though you may feel like coasting, don’t. Continue the momentum you have behind you to make the most of this year’s remaining days. This will best set you up for success next year. Doesn’t everyone want that?
Here are some ideas to help you finish this year strong:
Enjoy This Season
Though your work is important, it’s not everything. At least it shouldn’t be. Take time to enjoy this holiday season in your nonwork moments. And whenever you have the opportunity, enjoy the holidays at work too.
Remember the adage about all work and no play. Don’t be that person.
Thank Your Staff
Just because Thanksgiving in the United States has passed, doesn’t mean the time of being thankful is behind us. Take the time to thank your staff. Be intentional.
In a job that is short on appreciation and too often focused on criticism, a heartfelt thank you can go a long way to let your staff know you care.
Smile whenever you can. Do this even when you don’t feel like it—especially if you don’t feel like it. Smiles are contagious. Never forget that. Let your countenance communicate your thankfulness throughout the day, even when you don’t say the words.
Celebrate Your Stakeholders
Remember why you do the work you do. It’s to help others in better addressing their healthcare needs and making their life better. Without them you wouldn’t have a job. Don’t forget to celebrate them.
The patients and callers who contact you every day are your biggest group of stakeholders.
Yes, they may be crabby at times and occasionally critical. But use this as a reminder to know how important the services you provide are to them and their lives. After all, if what you did for them didn’t matter, they wouldn’t care how you did it.
Your stakeholders also include your boss, your employer, and your organization—be it a for profit business or a nonprofit entity. These are all stakeholders in your call center operation. Celebrate them, all of them.
Wrap Up What You Can
As you go about these initiatives, look at your project list. Surely you won’t be able to finish them all this year but resist the urge to let them all carry forward to next.
Each thing you can knock off this year is one less thing on your plate for next. And won’t that be a relief knowing that it won’t be hanging over your head in the coming twelve months?
Conclusion
To finish this year strong, remember to first enjoy the season. As you do, thank your staff, and celebrate your stakeholders. Last wrap up whatever pending projects you can so that they don’t dog you into next year.
When you take these steps, you’ll be poised to finish this year strong, paving the way for success next year.
Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of AnswerStat and Medical Call Center News covering the healthcare call center industry. Read his latest book, Sticky Customer Service.
Technology May Save Money but Human Agents Make the Difference
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.
We’ve been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence (AI), and we’re going to hear a lot more about it. Some claim AI is the future of the call center industry, saving money and retaining business.
Others fear it’s the end of customer service as we know it. Neither is right, nor are they both wrong.
But AI isn’t the only technology in our call centers. We have digital assistants to help our agents and automated bots to help our customers. Before that we had interactive voice response (IVR) and auto-attendant solutions.
Regardless of the technology or the era it comes from, each innovation brought with it the inherent promise to speed resolutions and reduce labor expenses. To some degree, they accomplished this. Yet they also fell short of meeting expectations.
In most cases, however, the implementation of technology has brought with it a corresponding ire of the customers it’s supposed to help.
In some cases, technology—especially AI—can make a real mess of things. When this happens, human intervention is the only way to correct the problem. This assumes, of course, that people are available to intercede to fix technology’s error.
Here are some things human agents can do that technology can’t do or can’t do well:
Correct Miscommunication
Technology struggles to correct its mistakes. When it determines what path to take, it persists on that course even if it’s the wrong one.
Often, miscommunication devolves into such a quagmire that the simplest approach—sometimes the only one—is to terminate communication and start over later.
Yet this is an ideal time for human intervention to clarify the customer’s concern and redirect action toward the right solution. This means that human agents need to have the ability to override technology. They also need to have both the training and confidence to know when to do so.
Calm Frustrated Customers
Technology isn’t good at realizing when customers are upset and responding in a truly comforting way.
Though through algorithms, AI can detect anger or frustration, customers will likely discern any attempt to diffuse their concerns as disingenuous. This will escalate their tension, not defuse it.
A successful outcome requires a real person, someone who will listen, comprehend, and offer sympathy. Though no human agent can accomplish this all the time, their chance of success is much higher than that of a machine,
Respond to Complex Issues
Convoluted problems can escape the ability of AI to accurately comprehend and successfully navigate. This is especially true when a situation is unique, something AI has not yet encountered and never will again. Yet human ingenuity shines in these situations.
Offer Empathy
Sometimes customers feel a need to vent. Ironically, this is often over the failure of technological solutions to appropriately address their concern. Though AI can determine the need to give an apology and mimic the right words to say, can it do so with empathy?
Will the customer feel they were heard? Will the response come across as sincere?
A person has a much better chance of doing this successfully than a computer.
Conclusion
Though AI technology will continue to improve, causing fewer problems and producing more satisfyingly complete solutions, don’t plan on replacing your staff. Though you will not need as many, you will need some.
And the skill set of these super agents will carry higher requirements than current ones.
Being able to offer the human touch will distinguish contact centers from their technology-only counterparts.
In an era when technology surrounds us and threatens to overwhelm, a human customer service agent stands as a core distinction between offering solutions that are close versus ones that are comprehensive and complete.
Don’t forget to offer the personal touch of a human agent to best serve customers whenever needed.
How to Survive When Receiving Twice the Calls or Having Half the Staff or Both
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
Running a call center is
hard, at least doing it right. Even under normal conditions, managers struggle
to balance traffic and staffing levels while maintaining high quality and
minimizing complaints.
But what happens when
conditions aren’t normal? If you’re slammed with calls for an extended period,
how will you fare? What happens if several agents can’t make it into work? What
if the remote access portion of your system goes down, leaving your local staff
to deal with everything?
One solution is to ignore the risk and hope nothing abnormal happens. But eventually, something abnormal will occur. It might be a weather event, a natural disaster, or a manmade crisis.
Use your imagination—it’s easy to see that any number of things that could cause call traffic to spike or your staffing levels to drop. In fact, these both could happen at the same time. How well could your call center manage trying to handle twice the number of calls with half the staff?
Here are some ideas:
Multilocation
If the source of the problem that moves you from normal to not normal is local, having a multilocation call center is one easy solution—provided that the other call centers are far enough away to not have the same scenario affect them.
Of course, this strains the other call centers in the network, but more locations and more agents to share the load reduces the negative impact.
Remote Workforce
Many call centers use some work-at-home agents, whereas others prefer all staff to work from one centralized location to allow for better management. Regardless, allowing staff to work from a remote location during a crisis is a key way to minimize the impact.
This could provide options for staff unable to make it into the office, as well as make it easier for staff not scheduled to login and help.
Strategic Partners
Having multiple locations and allowing staff to work remotely are key solutions to deal with abnormal call center scenarios. However, these tactics only go so far. To supplement these two approaches, form strategic partnerships with other call centers that can help during an emergency.
But select a call center partner geographically distant from you. If you’re on the coast, work with one who is inland. If you’re in the north part of the country, find one in the south. If you’re east, go west.
Vendor Solutions
Check with your vendor
to see what disaster mitigation solutions they offer. They may be able to help
you better handle a not-normal call center situation. They could also recommend
strategic partners for you to work with.
Outsourcing
If you’re a corporate
call center, you may want to arrange with an outsourcing call center to help
during a crisis. And if you’re an outsourcing call center, you know how this
functions, so work with another outsourcing call center to help you.
Automate
Regardless of your paradigm
to provide people to help people, sometimes automating portions of your call
response will serve callers better than by not answering their phone calls at
all or making them wait in queue a long time for the next available agent.
Plan Now
The key to make any of this work is planning. When things are going along normally for you and your call center, it’s the ideal time to come up with solutions for when normal goes away. Don’t wait for a crisis to hit and then scramble for answers.
Preparation today will help achieve success for tomorrow, even under less-than-ideal situations. When disaster strikes, you’ll be glad you have a plan to deal with it.
I enjoy the simplicity of companies that email me my invoices and statements. This saves paper and time. What frustrates me is the companies that merely notify me when an invoice or statement is available. I then need to log into their secure website and download the needed file.
I realize this is often because the document contains information that shouldn’t be sent via email, yet this knowledge does little to assuage my frustration. This method, although warranted, is not simple and can be time-consuming.
This week I received one such notice. When I went to retrieve my statement, the document wasn’t available. The past twenty-four statements were, but not the one their email said was awaiting me, not the one I needed. Since I access this information through their software and bypass their website, I wondered if that was the problem. So I found the link in my bookmarks (I don’t generally click on links in emails) and attempted to log in. I was unsuccessful. The password I used last time (which was likely more than a year ago) didn’t work. I needed to go through the “I forgot my password” routine. After waiting several minutes to receive the temporary password via email, I successfully logged in, but to my dismay, the sought-after document wasn’t there, either.
At the bottom of the page was a link to email them with questions. Having invested half an hour at this point and being no closer to viewing my statement, I was frustrated. I concisely shared the situation and clicked “send.”
To my surprise, I received a response; it came within minutes. The agent wrote that someone sent the email notice prematurely, before my statement was posted. “The problem has been corrected and your statement is now available for download.”
Excited by the progress, I returned to my program to access my statement, but the document was still not available. Then I tried their website – again. It wasn’t there, either. This time I spotted a toll-free number for customer support.
I dialed the number. The recording said to expect an eighteen-minute wait. I selected the option to receive a call back when it was my turn. Eleven minutes later, the phone rang. Elated, I expected to talk to a rep, but instead I heard a recording, followed by music on hold. I guess I was going to have to wait the full eighteen minutes after all. When the agent eventually answered, I explained the situation, making little effort to hide my frustration.
After doing some checking and consulting with someone else, the agent confirmed the initial email went out in error, the rep who handled my follow-up email gave me incorrect information, and my statement still wasn’t online.
“When will it be available?”
“I don’t know, but legally we have six more days before it has to be posted. Just keep checking.”
Fuming, I checked periodically, and on the fourth try, my statement was available, having now invested about an hour in total to accomplish the task.
Along the way, they sent me a brief customer service survey. My snarky comment was, “Don’t email me to download my statement before it’s actually available.” I’m still waiting for a response.
So, this company sent an email in error, which resulted in me contacting their customer support center and causing them one needless activity. To compound the situation, the rep who handled my email actually mishandled it by providing me with more wrong information. This caused the company a second needless activity. And assuming someone actually looks at my customer service survey, this will cause a third needless activity.
To make matters worse, I doubt I was the only client to get the errant email message. How many others also received it? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Perhaps more? If only 1 percent complained to the contact center, how many more needless activities took place?
I’m sure the contact center agents had a difficult, stressful day. But it all could have been avoided if their company hadn’t sent a mass email message prematurely. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies – and the contact center often pays for it.
Last September in my column, “Let’s Play,” I discussed gamification and questioned if it was mostly hype or offered merit. I wondered then – and still do – if gamification has any application in the contact center.
Those who talk about gamification mostly do so from a theoretical perspective, lacking tangible real-world examples. In my article, I shared my experience with gamification from a customer perspective: It motivated a change in my behavior but left me frustrated, so I gave up.
Now I’ll share my gamification experience from an employee perspective. My story goes back a few decades, long before the word came into being.
My first full-time job was repairing copy machines. I didn’t necessarily like the work, but I liked having work. I viewed my employment as temporary, something to pay the bills until I could move into my preferred career.
Not only did I grab the first job offered, I also failed to verify the compensation, assuming that what my school’s placement department told me was correct. It was not – the company paid about half of what I expected.
Nevertheless, I poured myself into my new job, striving to do my best at fixing copy machines. I soon became quite good at it. Imagine my dismay, then, when I saw the first ranking of technicians: I was near the bottom. Something was wrong.
I asked the dispatcher, who calculated the results for our boss, what criteria she tracked. She told me, and I listened carefully. To my surprise, the metrics had little to do with repairing machines quickly or cost-effectively.
Most measurements addressed other factors – such as how much time was spent driving, the number of hours worked, or how many leads I passed to the sales department. I was doing everything wrong.
Taking this information and working backwards, I established a new way of doing my job – not focused on serving customers or saving money but on maximizing my rating. My incentive pay was tied to the results, and I desperately needed to earn a sizable bonus to offset my lower-than-expected base salary.
With my newfound focus, the next ranking came out with me near the top for the month; my year-to-date number had now moved to the upper half of the list. My paycheck, however, was my real reward.
For the third month, I was number one; year-to-date, I was in the top quarter. Six months later both my monthly and annual results were number one; my bonus almost equaled my base pay. By playing their game, I’d nearly doubled my compensation.
Though I was still a good copy machine repairman (yes, we were all guys), I no longer put the customer first; I put me first. I didn’t prioritize customers based on the urgency of their need, I scheduled them in the order designed to minimize my drive time, since part of the bonus was for spending 10 percent or less of my time behind the wheel.
I’d also start and end the day with a stop close to home because driving to my first call and driving home didn’t count in the calculation. I also drove faster, but that’s another story.
Also, I no longer tried to save the company money but focused on increasing my rating instead. For example, if protocol called for cleaning a filter or retrofitting a part, I’d replace it.
Though this cost the company more, it all but eliminated me being called back to redo a job – and be penalized in the process. If one of two parts would fix the problem but only time would tell which one, instead of replacing the cheaper part first and then waiting, I’d replace both and be done with it.
No one ever realized what I was doing. My rating was stellar, so my superiors were pleased and the customers never knew the difference.
After nine months, I quit. A better job beckoned. It still wasn’t my dream job, but it was much closer. The base pay for my new job exceeded the salary and bonuses of my old job. And with my new employer, there were no games to play. All I had to do was focus on the work.
For the past twelve years I’ve worked from an office in my house. The benefits of working at home are many: no commute time or expense, no dress code, no need to pack a lunch or go out to eat (another money saver), and no coworkers dropping by to chat when you need to focus. Working at home enables me to accomplish much in a shorter time. I love it – mostly.
Working at home also presents some challenges: distractions abound, no one’s present to hold you accountable, food is readily available when a craving hits, and if you want to take a nap – you can. I’ve even heard of some skipping their shower and working in their pajamas (for the record, I never have). Another issue is that it’s impossible to leave work and go home, since you’re already home.
Successfully working at home requires self-control. You need discipline to work when you’re supposed to (and to not work when you’re not supposed to), to approach each day with the same degree of professionalism you would in an office environment, and to consistently say “no” to distractions. Of course, for me, I pay a price if my focus waivers: The work must still be done, and I’m the one who must do it. I think this is called “mandatory overtime.”
When our children were younger, I set a firm rule: Between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Daddy’s working, so don’t go into his office. At times, they would stand mute just outside my door, looking pathetic. So I amended my decree: Between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., don’t let Daddy see you. That didn’t work either. “I know you’re out there; I can hear you breathing.” Eventually we arrived at a workable arrangement, but they did watch the clock. Often they’d scamper downstairs and bound into my office at exactly 5:00 p.m. Their mother, however, claimed immunity to my expectations; we never did resolve that.
After awhile I made one adjustment: I began taking an afternoon break to coincide with our kids’ homecoming from school. They’d share their day with me, often with excitement, sometimes in despair. Eight hours of highlights spewed forth in a matter of seconds. Then they’d finish and head off to do their own thing – and I’d return to work. By the time their mother came home, the school day’s headlines were long forgotten. They’d say hello but say little more. She’d ask how their day was or what had happened, and they’d just shrug.
For the first decade I worked in the basement; my office had no windows. Many a time, I’d break for lunch or dinner, surprised at how the weather had changed. Now my office resides in a vacated bedroom, complete with a view. This vista sometimes provides a distraction. Once I watched four bunnies frolicking in my backyard – and then took time to write a blog post celebrating their exuberance. Another time, while on the phone, my caller asked if she heard birds in the background. My window was open – who would have guessed? I had tuned out their happy songs, but my headset’s microphone could not.
While some can work at home, others should not. Considerations abound: the worker’s motivation and degree of self-discipline, the home office environment, the presence of family, and the technological infrastructure.
Today, I’m not in my home office. We lost power a few hours ago, and I sought an alternate location to work. (Though this happens infrequently, it’s the second time in two days.) Thanks to my laptop and a place with power, this column will be completed on time, though other jobs will languish. It looks like I’ll be working late tonight or into the weekend. These things happen when you work at home – and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
A while back, the Connections Magazine sales line was slammed with a phone call— for another company. The calls were from irate individuals trying to call a removal line of the fax service bureau that had sent them faxes. It seems that they had received an unwanted fax solicitation on behalf of a travel company.
They angrily called the fax removal number listed in the fine print to stop the unwelcome intrusions. Unfortunately, between too small print and the low quality of faxes, the number looked a lot like ours.
With voicemail now screening the calls, I set towards averting a future reoccurrence of this fiasco. I called the number in the ad.
My call was abruptly answered by someone who cared little about professionalism or customer service. There was a cacophony of talking in the background. I had reached a call center boiler room!
Once the agent realized I was not interested in her spiel about vacation cruises, she became even less interested. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, I was disconnected. I called again.
After more futility, I demanded to speak with a manager. I was placed on hold for several minutes—and eventually heard the dial tone. Calling the actual fax removal number, left me trapped in an automated loop with no escape.
At the risk of stating the obvious, permit me to make some recommendations.
For the fax service bureau:
Make sure the removal number is easily readable.
Provide a way out (press zero for operator or at least let them leave a message).
Offer an alternative means of contact, such as email or snail mail.
Don’t illegally fax ads.
Don’t provide services to unscrupulous clients.
For the call center:
Train your staff to be polite and professional. Retrain or terminate those who don’t capitulate.
Don’t hang up on callers.
Allow calls to be escalated when requested.
Have a website; make it easy for people to contact you.
Don’t use “bait and switch” tactics.
Remember that if you don’t police your agents and compensate only for sales, expect nothing else from them.
Most of the people reading this are not the ones who need to hear it, but perhaps this post will find itself in the hands of a call center manager who needs to reform their company’s wayward practices.
In retail, the term “shrinkage” euphemistically refers to stock which “disappears” before it can be sold. It is product that the retailer bought, but can’t sell because it is has been stolen or lost.
In the call center, the inventory is labor and shrinkage is agents who are being paid but not working. This occurs when agents are not at their stations, not logged in, not “in rotation,” or employ some trick to block calls. Three metrics help track, explain, and understand agent shrinkage:
Adherence measures the time agents are scheduled compared to the time they actually work (logged in time divided by scheduled time). Since schedules are developed to match traffic projections, when the schedule is not fully followed, the result is understaffing.
Ideally, staff should adhere 100% to their schedules; in reality, this is not the case. Most call center managers are shocked to discover their adherence rates. It can represent a huge unnecessary cost, as well as contribute to lower service levels.
Several factors account for low adherence levels. The first is scheduled breaks, lunches, and training. This is the only acceptable contributor to adherence discrepancy. Depending on the length of breaks, the best resulting adherence will be around 90%.
The second consideration is absences, late arrivals, and early departures. The third area is unscheduled breaks or distractions that cause agents to leave their positions. It is not uncommon for call centers to have adherence rates around 75%, although well-run operations will be in the low 90s.
Availability measures how much of that time agents are ready, or “available,” to answer calls. It is calculated by dividing time available (also called “on time,” “in rotation,” or “ready”) by logged in time.
Agent availability is strictly within the control of agents, determined by their willingness to be ready to answer calls. Although the ideal goa lof 100% availability is achievable, 98% to 99% is more realistic.
Occupancy
Occupancy is the percentage of time agents spend talking to callers compared to the time they are turned on or available (talk-time plus wrap-up time divided by agent “on” time).
One hundred percent occupancy means agents are talking to callers the entire time they are logged in. To achieve this, calls must continuously be in queue.
The resulting efficiency is great, but caller wait time can be lengthy. Therefore, 100% occupancy does not produce quality service, plus leads to agent burnout and fatigue.
Interestingly, ideal occupancy rates vary greatly with the size of the call center. Smaller centers can only achieve a low occupancy rate (perhaps around 25%) while maintaining an acceptable service level.
Conversely, large call centers can realize a much higher occupancy rate (90%and higher) and reach that same service level.
Call centers with poor adherence, availability, and occupancy rates can literally spend twice as much in labor to produce the same service level as a comparably sized well-run call center. Calculate your center’s adherence, availability, and occupancy numbers– and then take steps to improve them.
Don’t let agent shrinkage lead to profitability shrinkage!
The TV special, Bombay Calling, provides a compelling exposé of an India-based outsourcing call center and the people who work there. In documentary style, it shows both the good and the bad in offshore call centers.
Just as proponents of offshoring would find plenty to celebrate, opponents would likewise be encouraged. I was both mesmerized and saddened by what I saw.
Through the eye of the camera, I was pleasantly surprised to see many of the same call center conventions repeated in this overseas operation (with only a few adaptations to accommodate culture).
I was encouraged with the bright-eyed, enthusiastic workforce, their can-do spirit, and an optimistic outlook.
The show begins by introducing us to Kaz Lalani. Not only does he outsource calls to Bombay, India, but he also “operates call centers in other countries to spread the risk.”
Kaz boasts that his Indian reps have a strong work ethic. There is an air of joyous excitement and capable confidence among the agents.
The call center is filled with hard-working, fun-loving staff who enjoy their co-workers, their jobs, and the work they do. Staff interviews reveal why.
“It’s a great job, for good pay,” states one agent, “even for an undergrad.” Another boasts that he makes more than his girlfriend — even though she has a graduate degree. A third employee dropped out of engineering school for the express purpose of pursuing a call center career.
The average starting pay for a call center agent in Bombay was reported to be more that four times the average Indian income. This is why young people leave rural areas for call center work in Bombay.
This does cause some angst, both for parents — who lament a loss of tradition — and their children — who must adapt to city life without the nearby help of family.
Nevertheless, there is a general acquiescence to the situation. Many agents send money home, pay bills for their parents, or do things to increase the standard of living for their family; all of which is made possible by their call center jobs.
With even more call centers opening in Bombay, these agents are acutely aware of the great demand for their English-speaking skills. They perceive this ability as their unrestricted ticket to opportunity and success.
A humorous aside is that the show’s producers occasionally resort to subtitles for some of their English-speaking interviewees.
Eight months later, the call center is hurriedly expanding. They are calling Australia (first shift) and the U.K. (second shift). Some reps have been promoted to training, supervisory, and QA positions. However, the dark-side of their sharp rise in income is beginning to show.
One rep proudly admits that he has become materialistic; another longs for more time to spend with his wife and child; a third wants to leave the call center, but can’t — he has become accustomed to his new standard of living.
Many of the reps are now complaining about the stress of the job — and they turn to partying and alcohol — every night — to dull their angst.
With the rapid expansion, not all of the new hires are ideal and some do not work out. Sales numbers plummet.
Some reps aren’t concerned. They’ll just go to another center. Others are worried, but at a loss what to do. One once confident rep has lost his swagger—he has gone two days without a sale—and has a shell-shocked glaze.
This call center is no longer producing like it used to—or like the other ones in the network. An ultimatum is given. Some agents are sent to retraining, others are terminated.
The call center is now a somber and dreary place. A pall hangs over the cubicles; the optimism is gone. Eventually the operation is scaled back to 25 agents. Kaz turns his concentration to other call centers.
In Bombay, call center work is truly changing the lives of its agents—for better and for worse.
In retail, the term shrinkage is euphemistically used to reference stock which “disappears” before it can be sold. In essence it is a product that the retailer bought, but can’t sell. To be direct, shrinkage is theft. While some of this occurs in the form of shoplifting, it also results from employees, both through acts of commission and acts of omission.
Regardless of the source or the motives, shrinkage hurts everyone in the form of higher consumer prices and lower company profits. This affects jobs and threatens the business’s future viability. Some retail operations take a surprisingly relaxed position about shrinkage, viewing it as an inevitable cost of doing business; whereas others see it as the theft that it is, taking aggressive steps to eliminate or at least reduce it.
Shrinkage in the retail environment has an analogous application to the call center. True, a call center does not have tangible inventory that can disappear. A call center’s inventory is human capital, that is, the call center schedule. Shrinkage in a call center, therefore, is agents who are “on the clock” but who aren’t processing calls. This could be manifested by agents who are not at their stations when they are supposed to be, not being logged in, not being “in rotation”, or who employ some “trick” to block calls.
Similarly to retail, some call centers take a surprisingly relaxed position about this shrinkage of the schedule, also viewing it as an inevitable cost of doing business. Their response to it is intentional over-staffing. This only serves to cover the problem, not resolve the underlying cause. Other call enters see shrinkage as little more than stealing – stealing time. Like their retail counterparts, they too take aggressive steps to eliminate or at least reduce it. Call center shrinkage likewise hurts everyone: a lower service level offered to the client, reduced profits to the call center, decreased morale, and even less compensation for the call center agents.
There are three factors that help track, explain, and counter call center shrinkage. They are adherence, availability, and occupancy.
Adherence: Adherence is a measurement of the time agents are scheduled to work compared to the time they actually work. Why is adherence important? Quite simply, it is because the schedule was developed to match the traffic projection and when the schedule is not fully worked, the result is understaffing. In an ideal situation, staff should adhere 100% to their schedules. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Adherence can be best tracked by comparing logged in time to scheduled time. Most call center managers are shocked the first time they look at this. It can represent a huge unnecessary cost to the call center, as well as contribute to lower service levels.
Several factors can account for differences between the schedule and the time worked. The first area is scheduled breaks, lunches, and training. This is the only acceptable contributor to adherence discrepancy. Depending on the length of breaks, the best resulting adherence will be around 90%. Forty-five minutes of breaks in an eight-hour shift will result in an adherence of 90.6 % (7.25 hours / 8 hours). The second consideration is absences, late arrivals, and early departures. Unless these openings are filled, the result is a disparity between the schedule and the fulfillment of that schedule. If this missed work is paid time off, such as paid sick time, then there is both a dollar cost and service impact that results. The third area is unscheduled breaks or any other distraction that causes agents to leave their positions. When factoring all of these items together, it is not uncommon for call centers to have adherence rates around 75%, although well-run centers will be in the low 90s (as determined by their established break schedule.)
Adherence is the first of three related scheduling metrics. The next is availability.
Availability: A second, and related, staffing metric is availability. Availability is a subset of adherence. Of the time that staff is adhering to their schedule, availability measures how much of that time they are ready (that is, available) to answer calls. It can be easily calculated by comparing available time (also called, “on time,” “in rotation,” or “ready”) to logged in time. Specifically, it is the percentage that results from dividing available time by logged in time. Although the ideal goal of 100% availability is achievable (that is, ready to process calls all of the time agents are logged in), 98% to 99% is more realistic.
Agent availability is strictly within the control of agents. It is determined by each agent’s willingness to keep his or her station in a state of readiness to be assigned calls. Simply put, it is whether the agent is available to take calls all of the time.
Availability is the second scheduling related metric. The third is occupancy.
Occupancy: Occupancy is the amount of time agents spend talking to callers compared to the time they are turned on or are available. Although it is possible to have 100% occupancy, the corresponding service level would be poor and generally unacceptable. One hundred percent occupancy means that agents are talking to callers the entire time they are logged in. It also means that there are calls continuously in queue, waiting to be assigned as soon as an agent completes a call. The resulting efficiency is great, but callers can end up waiting in queue for several minutes. Therefore, 100% occupancy does not produce quality service and can lead to agent burnout and fatigue.
Interestingly, ideal occupancy rates vary greatly with the size of the call center. Smaller centers can only achieve a low occupancy rate (perhaps around 25%) while maintaining an acceptable service level. Conversely, large call centers can realize a much higher occupancy rate (90% and higher) and still maintain that same service level. This dynamic relationship between occupancy rates and call center size is the underlying impetus for mergers and acquisitions among outsource call centers; it is a profound example of economies of scale. Call centers in the 10 to 20 seat range typically see occupancy rates around 50%.
To calculate occupancy, divide the total agent time (that is, talk time plus wrap-up time) by agent “on” time. This should be determined for each agent as well as for the entire call center.
Two Case Studies: Now, let’s consider all three of these metrics together and apply them to two call centers. The first, a well run call center and the second, an under-managed one. We will assume that they are the same size and both have a realized occupancy rate of 50%.
Call Center A has an adherence rate of 90% and an availability rate of 95% (along with the aforementioned 50% occupancy rate. For each 8 hour shift there is 3.42 hours of on-line time or actual work (8 hours x 90% x 95% x 50%).
Call Center B has an adherence rate of 75% and an available rate of 65% (with an occupancy rate of 50%). For each 8 hour shift there is only 1.8 hours of on-line time or actual work (8 hours x 75% x 60% x 50%).
Although the results for call center A, a well run operation, may be surprising, the corresponding number for call center B is shocking. In fact, to maintain the same service level, Call Center B would need to schedule almost twice (1.9 times) as many hours as Call Center A. Consider what a significant impact this would have on the bottom line.
Lest you think that these are unrealistic numbers, both are real situations describing call centers I have visited. It takes a concerted and ongoing management effort to be like Call Center A, while all too many operations are more like Call Center B. I challenge you to run your numbers to see how you compare – and then take steps to improve them.
Don’t let call center shrinkage lead to profitability shrinkage.
