Service Level - Based On Calls Offered or Calls Handled?

[Carrigman]

I had understood that Service Level - the percentage of calls answered within a specific time period e.g. 20 seconds - should be based on calls offered. However, I believe some call centers base the figure on calls answered and the SL relates solely to the calls that came through to agents and excludes those abandoned. So, on that basis, one would have a better SL figure overall than if one were factoring in all calls offered. It strikes me that that methodology smacks of twisting the stats to give as rosy as possible a picture and the it defeats the ultimate purpose of SL which is to give an indication of the customer experience overall. Which is the correct approach - basing it on calls offered or calls handled?

[jeryjay]

Service Level has many factrors affecting it. These are the Call Center standards of those factors:

1. Calls Offered
2. Calls Abandoned after threshold
3. Calls Abandoned before threshold
4. Calls Answered after threshold
5. Calls Answered before threshold

Now, don't be confused between Calls Offered and Calls Handled. Calls Offered are calls that actually recieved by your PABX, and some went thru the agents and some don't(abandoned). While Calls Handled are calls that are actually recieved by your agents and depends on how fast(threshold) your agent answered each call.

I hope this info could clear things up for you. Now don't base your Service Level on just Calls Offered or Handled, consider other factors so that you can maintain the credibility and quality of your reports.

[thetuan]

Hi,

Service level can only be calculated with calls answered. Service level measures how effective your call center answers a percentage of all answered calls within a certain ASA level. Now Carrigman has a legitimate concern because if you set the wrong threshold for service level, you will get excellent "service level" for the % of calls that you are measuring but the overall customer experience is bad if you are running a high abandonment rate.

So the task is to set the service level threshold at a level that will measure the true overall customer service experience of your product/service offering(s). Firstly, you need to identify the ASA level that is acceptable to your calling population. Most ACD softwares will have an abandonment report that will show you the percentage of calls that abandon at a certain ASA. You will see very clearly the ASA level where a majority of the calls will star to abandon. You should set your service level 5 to 10 seconds below this mark. For inbound customer service, the ASA should be around 20 sec to 30 sec.

Good luck

[Shirazsa]

Well. As a standard the formula for calculating the service level is:

S/L(%) = (Total Calls Offered - (Calls answered after threshold + Calls Abandoned afterThreshold) / Total Calls Offered) *100

For Example

If total calls offered were 26902 out of which Call answered after Threshold were 7953 and calls abandoned after Threshold were 10688 then S/L would be calculated as follows

S/L (%) = (26902 - (7953+10688))*100) = 30.71%

[Shirazsa]

Well. As a standard the formula for calculating the service level is:

S/L(%) = (Total Calls Offered - (Calls answered after threshold + Calls Abandoned afterThreshold) / Total Calls Offered) *100

For Example

If total calls offered were 26902 out of which Call answered after Threshold were 7953 and calls abandoned after Threshold were 10688 then S/L would be calculated as follows

S/L (%) = (26902 - (7953+10688)/26902)*100 = 30.71%

[thetuan]

Hi,

There are a few ways to calculate service levels. You must be careful in selecting the one that will reflect accurately what your call center is delivering to your customer. The problem with the formula that Shirazsa shared is that the calls abandoned before threshold will artificially increase the service level. If you abandoned all your calls before your threshold, this formula will still gives you 100% service level. Obviously, if you abandon all your calls, then your service level should be 0.

Another way to measure service level is the one that I described previously. The formula is as follows :

Service Level = {(calls answered before threshold) / (total calls answered + total calls abandoned)} x 100

This formula will increase service level only if you answered your calls within the ASA threshold and it will decrease service level if you answer calls outside your threshold or if you abandon any calls at all. My opinion is that this is the only way to accurately measure how you are servicing your customers.

Good luck

[lvopsprincess]

Service level can be calculated both ways. Neither is wrong but most call centers calculate Service level based from number of calls handled within a certain time frame i.e. you must answer 75% to 85% of the calls within 30 seconds of them entering your queue. IF your Service level is based from handled calls you will also have a key performance indicated established for abandoned calls. i.e. abandonment rate of 5% or less. Some clients only care about the percent of total calls offered so then the abandoment rate is usually calculated into the SL and there is typically no threshold (ASA) set.

I have worked for several different clients who have differing opinions on how long they feel a customer can wait in queue before it starts affecting their opinion of the level of customer service offered. Different products - different standards. I would suggest that if you are in an outsource call center, you should find out the details of the KPIs in your contract or statement of work with your client to determine what exactly they are looking for. It is usually spelled out quite clearly in this document. Hope this helped. :-)

[Gina]

My formula would be the same as what Shirazsa provided. In most cases you "want" to abandon a certain percentage of calls - if we didn't our SLA's would be 100%, wouldn't they :)

[AnthonyOKC]

Ok, so I am in a very small call center with roughly 5 agents and 100 calls a day. What is the better measurement Answered Service level or Total Service Level. What would be the benefit to either? Pros - Cons??