SLA's

[lwoods]

If you have a target answer speed (SLA), do calls abandoning before this target count as a sucess in terms of your answer speed service level? - Or should abandoned calls be counted as a failure even if they abandon before your target answer speed? i.e.

No. of calls handled within a target threshold (e.g. 10 seconds) =

a) No. of calls ans'd and abandoned within the threshold / Total no. of calls answered and abandoned?

or

b) No. of calls ans'd within the threshold / Total no. of calls answered?

The 2nd definition makes alot of sense to me, but then is it right that you are in effect marking yourself down if a call abandons before you're expecting to answer it anyway (before the target answer speed)???? Help!

[hallbj2]

I would say that an adandoned call is an abandoned call. It wouldn't matter (at least to me as a manager) with the ASA was set at.
Now, consider if you have a high abandon rate - check peak level staffing and change your ASA accordingly.

Hall & Associates
Beverly Hall

[JoeB]

There is no standard for factoring abandoned calls in SL calculations, partially because, there are different opinions about the meaning of abandoned calls and the lost business opportunity or unhappy customers they represnet.

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 window, 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

[Seymour]

This entire discussion is about symptoms. Let's talk about causes.

Before we worry about abandoned calls, has there been any discussion, thought or research to determine and explain WHY the calls were abandoned?

In most inbound call centers, the caller usually spends considerably more time waiting to talk with a CSR than he acutally spends talking. Often, a caller will wait for several minutes to spend less than a minute in acutal conversation.

During this "wait," what does the caller experience? He ususally has to endure a poorly planned, boring, repetitive and annoying program. This annoyance usually starts with voice prompts, beginning with the 'gateway announcement,' that were done 'by somebody in the center.'

The caller is put into a hold queue containing messages interspersed with music. Often, this program hasn't been updated since the 'third grade picnic.' Usually, this program did not involve the marketing department, but was the sole stepchild of the IS department, which has nothing to do with advertising, public relations or 'branding.'

Then, this hold queue program, which includes information about products and/or services AND "please hold" conciliatory phrases IS INTERUPTERD by by the voice of somebody in the PBX room saying,"Your call is important, and will be answered in the order received."

Talk about uncoordinated and unprofessional! Would YOU stay on the line for that?

My question is: Does 'somebody who works in the call center' do the voice overs for your radio or TV ads, or your training videos? Does your IS department write your press releases and advertising? Do hardworking, industrious, loyal telephone installation technicians determine your corporate image?

NO! Your marketing, advertising, public relations and branding people do that. Until the right people get involved with what your callers hear, it's too early to think about abandonment.

G.K. Breakwell
Advertel, Inc.
Pittsburgh
888-238-3783
gkbreak@advertel.com

[beejay]

ASA is the number of seconds that elapse once the call enters the queue and is then answered by an agent.

Your formulas are really calculations of Service Level and "b" is a good clean way to figure service level.

Depending upon the nature of your center's business, you may not want to include abandoned calls in the service level calculation nor in the ASA calculation. Abandoned calls are a symptom all to themselves and there are many reasons why these could be happening. Your % of abandon on NCO will tell you of the problem and there may be multiple solutions for it (i.e. IVR content or routing, call array & volume, staffing, etc.)

You did not mention what your SLA for ASA is but your should be expecting single digit seconds on that metric, again depending upon your center's business and function. Hope this helps.