[mikael]

One afternoon, many years ago, an "industry analyst" asked the VP of a tech support contact center "what percentage of your company's yearly gross revenues are spent on support?" The VP off-handedly replied: "About 6%." The analyst then went back and used that number as a ballpark figure for what companies should be spending on support. The result was a new "benchmark" or "industry standard," for other analysts and journalists and convention presenters picked it up and repeated it -- and their audiences Believed in the revealed Truth.

However... I'd actually done a review of that particular company's support program, and the offhand figure for overall expenditures was *very* inaccurate. They weren't counting half of their true costs, and the revenues were not being accurately stated either. But an Analyst had Spoken, and the word was made fact.

In another company, the CEO had heard that an acceptable Abandon level was 5%, and so decreed that henceforth and forevermore, the maximum permissable abandon rate for his company's contact center was to be 5%. The hiring freeze currently in effect could not be relaxed, no additional staff were available -- but the abandon rate nevertheless *must* be 5% or less.

Can you guess how the center manager *immediately* got the center into full compliance with the new industry standard? And I do mean "immediately," for compliance was achieved in less than 60 seconds.

What do you consider to be an "industry standard?" How do you use such things in your contact center?