service level question.

[imran94]

If we are offered 1000 calls in a day and we answer 850 calls in total and 750 calls are answered in 2 minutes, what is our SL?

In our call center, we have service level definition as "80% of calls taken in 90 seconds". Keeping that in mind, what would be our service level to the above question. Thanks.

[beejay]

Something approaching 77% I would think, based upon an average standard distribution within the 2 minutes. Of the 750 calls, how many were answered in 90 seconds? Then you would be able to calculate the service level according to your SLA

[imran94]

Thanks. Please let me know how you came up with the figure of service level of 77%. Thank you.

[beejay]

I made a standard distribution assumption. So many calls are answered in the first 10 seconds, 2nd 10 seconds, etc. intervals. Normally 85% to 87% of your calls were probably answered in the 90 second time frame. Again, this is based upon experience and just an assumption.

So, (750 calls*.87)/850 calls = 77%. However, to figure your precise service level, you need to determine how many calls were actually answered within your 90 second parameter.

Hope this helps.

[Mark Brannan]

Of course, some call centers also count abandoned calls as missed service level opportunities. In that scenario, your service level would be lower, because you would divide by 1000, rather than the 850 you picked up.

During certification process for my center last year, I asked that exact question - Is the industry standard to count abandons, not count abandons, or only count abandons that abandoned after your goal in seconds (meaning don't count abandons at 10 or 20 seconds if your goal is 30 seconds).

The answer I got was that there is not an industry standard. So I count all abandons in the absence of a differing view. I would like to not count them to make my service level higher, but in some ways you could consider that cheating - and technically if you keep your abandon percentage low (ours is less than 5%) then it shouldn't have much of an impact on your overall service level. I'm not saying it is wrong, just wrong for us.

What is most important for you it seems is a way to track how many calls you picked up in 90 seconds - not 120 seconds since your goal is 90. Either find a way, or change the goal if possible. Otherwise you will not accurately be able to calculate your service level.

[beejay]

Respectfully disagree, Mark.

Abandons should not be counted in the service level calculation. That's a double hit and does not give you a true picture of your service level. Of all the calls you answered, you want to know what % you answered within the time interval expectations. Counting abandons skews that assessment.

As you indicated you calculate the abandon %, that's a separate measure and if it rises above expectations, it would be addressed in a variety of ways.

[Mark Brannan]

Ah, a good debate!

I certainly agree with you, and disagree - how's that for contradiction? The argument can be made that an abandoned call is one you didn't answer within your service level target, and thus should be counted against you. Technically speaking, an abandon after your target answer time (like an abandon at 70 seconds if your goal is 60) should be counted against you, since you had every chance to answer it and didn't.

Here's the crux though - I picked this definition off the ICMI website:

"Service Level. Also called Telephone Service Factor, or TSF. The percentage of incoming calls that are answered within a specified threshold: 'X% of calls answered in Y seconds.'"

This definition is vague in terms of whether or not you only count calls you answered, or count all calls - "percentage of incoming calls that are answered" does not specifically say don't count the ones that hung up - it simply says measure the amount you did pick up.

So anyway - I have found that there is not an industry standard, which would be nice for both of us. I don't disagree with your perspective, just don't see that there is conclusive evidence one way or the other. Can you find other call center associations that have a more specific stance on it?

Mark

[beejay]

Agreed, Mark, it is open to interpretation.

A couple of observations on your approach: "The argument can be made that an abandoned call is one you didn't answer within your service level target, and thus should be counted against you." Depending upon the nature of the business and even the actual inbound number (may be close to another popular one), I have experienced as high as 85% of the abandoned calls happening within the first 5 seconds. This says the caller could be calling the wrong number, for example, and to me that is a double hit if you count it in your service level calculation.

You also said that "Technically speaking, an abandon after your target answer time (like an abandon at 70 seconds if your goal is 60) should be counted against you, since you had every chance to answer it and didn't." That abandon % in itself is a measure of your productivity and why you measure areas other than just service level. Again, an abandoned percentage of, say, over 3% already indicates you have some areas to look at (AHT, scheduling, expected call volume and array, etc.) and you should not take the hit in service level.

I have not found a definite or different association definition and so over time have developed this approach with peers in the same industry and similar positons within their companies. My preference is to have a clean a measure as possible as it is one of the most important productivity measures for our performance as well as the teams/agents on the floor.

Just my thoughts.

[MHJ Indy]

I fall on the side of only measuring calls handled to calculate service level.

Abandoned calls are more reflective of abandoned revenue and customer "wow" opportunities in our business. From a financial point of view, the abanondoned call rate standard should be set based on the potential abandoned revenue compared to the incremental expense required to lower ASA. We also have very high customer service standards that many times override the hard economics of running a low ASA. In other words, we will spend the hard cash to gain the intangible benifit. Your abanonded call rate % compared to your ASA will fluctuate depending on your business and possibly the time of year. This comparison is really a behavioral measure of how badly your customers want to do buisness with you. Or, a "loyalty" measure.

From a pure financial standpoint, the longer your customers hold without abandoning, the higher you can run your ASA and thus save costs without abandoning revenue.

So to wrap this up, sevice level and abandoned calls are distincly different in the dynamics that drive them and should not be co-mingled in the measure.

[JoeB]

There is no standard for factoring abandoned calls in SL calculations, partially because, as the discussion shows, there are different opinions about the meaning and (lost) value of abandoned calls.

There are three common approaches to look at abandoned calls: 1. Ignore them; 2. Treat them as a lost opportunity (or a failure to meet SL commitment), decreasing your SL; 3. Assume that you would have answered the calls abandoned within the SL threshold, improving your SL.

Examples
Calls offered: 100
Answered within service level threshold: 70
Abandoned within service level threshold: 10
Abandoned Exceeding threshold: 20

Service Level Calculations
Abandoned calls ignored: 70 / (100 - 10) = 77.7%
Abandoned calls have negative impact: 70 / 100 = 70.0%
Abandoned calls have positive impact: (70 + 10) / 100 = 80.0%

There is no right or wrong, but depending on oneÂ’s business perspective, one may opt to a more customer-driven approach while others may prefer to keep the statistics clean. An important conclusion is that comparing SLs of different call centers without knowing how they calculate SL may be unwiseÂ…

Joe Barkai
DIAGNOSTIC STRATEGIES
http://www.DiagnosticStrategies.com/
Tel. 781-433-0833