|
Joe,
From your previous reply:
"The reason Service Level and Answer Rate, as defined above, coincide is not a mere coincidence. Experienced call center planners set their Service Level targets in accordance with actual traffic and avaialble resources, so that under most operation conditions they meet the Service Level target. Consequently, their Answer Rate will always be only slightly better than the Service Level, accounting for a relatively small number of calls answered outside the target service level less abandoned calls."
I hate to disagree with you here, but Answer Rate does have very little DIRECT correlation to your service level statistic. Yes, there is a general trend relationship, however there is not a direct numeric one. This is an issue that I have been dealing with for some time. Speaking from an antecedent level, the amount of time your customer will hold has a direct correlative relationship to the amount of time they have to hold and or the severity of their issue. For example, if I have a bill payment issue that is messing up my credit rating I will hold and hold and hold until you answer the call. From a stats view point I reviewed 5 years worth of AR / SL data to show that in a 98 - 99.99% answer rate window (i.e. standard deviation of .0052) the ASA data yielded a standard deviation of 14.53 - hardly a close relationship.
In my conversations with other call center professionals the answer rate vs service level debate is one of the most contentious. Often times, those with scorecards directly related to service quality champion the use of an answer rate statistic / target over that of service level. The reason is obvious as they can deliver a wider range of (unacceptable?) service levels while present a "good face" to senior mgmt - i.e. we are making our answer rate goals. (Which, by the way, say nothing about the quality of the customer experience.)
Best Regards,
Rick
|