Service Level Balance Across Multi Sites

[MHJ Indy]

I work in a company that spreads inbound call volume accross 4 call center sites around the globe. I am told my our Telecom group that it is not possible to balance ASA (average speed to answer) across those sites because of blind spots and timing delays in our routing system. A blind spot would be calls that are still in the IVR. Our routing software sees an available agent - sends the call - and by the time the call arrives a call drops out of the IVR making the agent unavailable. Thus, the call it sent holds. Frankly, I understand the issue but refuse to believe a solution does not exist for this problem. I'm sure we have some good ideas and comments out there. Our service balance accross our sites is terrible. And in my opion, should not exist with our level of automation.

[beejay]

Not sure what is meant by "balance ASA" as a concept. ASA is a reported, historical number based upon the length of time that a call, once presented to the agent queue, waits before it is answered by an agent.

What switch/IVR/software are you using because the way you descibe the call flow seems incorrect. While the tech guys rarely admit there can be delays in the flow that negatively impact the stats, they do exist but I don't understand your "balance" concept nor do I think the flow works exactly as you've been told it does.

[MHJ Indy]

The concept is to balance the service accross the sites. As an example... We currently see ASA's below.

Center 1 - ASA 65 secs
Center 2 - ASA 30 secs
Center 3 - ASA 40 secs
Center 4 - ASA 22 secs

This is service on the same inbound call mix for the same customer base. The point is, just becase the call routing sent a call to Site 1 rather than site 4. it should be balanced to the point that the ASA's should be consistant when you get to the end of the day. In my opion, the system is sending a disproportionate number of calls to center 1 based on its staffing. To me this is not acceptable. However the answer from the tech group is as I stated above. I refuse to believe the ASA can't balance. My question is, how do other multi-site companies balance ASA and address the "blind spots" that have been described to me by our telecom group. I'm sure there is a solution to this problem.

[kathleen75]

You are attempting to balance the ASA over 4 different call sites, if I have read that correctly. Have you looked at other factors that may be affecting the ASA at the different sites? Are equal volumes going to all four sites, based on staffing etc.? And if so, is agent adherence being monitored at all of these sites and is it being monitored equally? For example, at site one, you may get 85 calls during a 1/2 hour interval, with a scheduled agent number of 15. Your ASA, lets say was 25 seconds. At site 2, you received 87 calls in 1/2 interval, with 15 agents scheduled. Joe, Tom, and MARY however took a 15 min coffeee break that wasn't scheduled. Therefore, the ASA was 40 seconds. If adherence isn't monitored effectively, it will affect the ASA. Also, do you have overflow, where if the call isn't answered at one site in a certain amount of time it automatically redirects to another call site?

[MHJ Indy]

Hi Kathleen, You have touched on one of our operational issues. The schedule adherance is not actually monitored on a regular basis. Yes I would agree, that is a huge mistake. It is a long story as to why we don't. But, the requirements of the business (me) are pushing the operations group to begin to report it. But, regardless of staff on site available to take calls. For any given half hour across the system, the ASA should be somewhat balanced on the lines that can be routed to all the sites. Our telecom group says it can't be done technically per the reasons noted. I was looking for ideas around a technical solution to the call routing. To my knowledge we do not overflow. But I will find out. To give you an idea of size, we are offered about 10 million calls a year with a handle time of about 340 seconds. We have a Lucent ACD.

[Frank A. Engle]

MHA-

In my opinion, one of the only ways to truly balance ASA across call centers is to manage your calls as close to the source of the calls as possible which means via the telephone network providers routing solution. There are a couple ways to do it and it would take too much time for me to explain it in detail via this forum. A short explanation is to find a network level tool that is able to "ping" each switch to check for availability of agents and/or then hold the line for immediate call transfer.

Feel free to contact me for a more detailed explanation.

[JoelDup]

Only a true networked environment would help balance service. Intelligent call routing with networked CTI would be one way to achieve this. The CTI would monitor the status of CSRs in each site and send the call appropriately depending on the rules you have specified.

It could also be done at the telco level but this is not a common solution and it can become very complicated depending on your setup and business requirements. Most carriers have placed TCP/IP links into the SS7 network which would allow them to interface with a telephony server or the switch directly (it depends on the switch) to identify agent status and/or route callers as per data given by ANI or a database dip. Because you recieve many calls a year some type of pre-call routing might be applicable in your situation. I do not know your operational and technical architecture to speculate any further.

Load/service balancing is very difficult especially if the sites in question are not operating as a synchronous unit. A more accurate term would be load/service management for the type of 'balance' you are attempting.

[kathleen75]

We are implementing "BSR" in our call center. This is best service routing. Basically, what it does is looks at the skill the call is coming into. If there is an estimated wait time (EWT) on that skill, it will search for a backup skill (whatever skill its programed to look at next). If that skill has a lower EWT + (whatever kind of buffer you may want to put in) the call will go to that skill. What this does is evens out the service level % (which I believe is a better factor than ASA) but should, as well even out ASA. I don't know what type of system your currently using and whether or not BSR is even available. We are using Lucent's Avaya CentreVu Supervisor. It's all new to me so I'm learning the system as we go along..I'll keep you posted as to how BSR works for us. Finally rid of Meridian Max!!!!!

[nina4514]

We have used both BSR (Best Services Routing) in Avaya as well as Cisco ICM for call routing. Both work very well in balancing ASA. You either have to have Tie lines between sites to send calls to the other site, or use the network. We do a preroute in the network to make our best guess of which site the call should go and send it there. Since things may have changed by the time the call comes out of the IVR , we then do a post route and will send to a different location if it shows the call will be answered quicker there. We handicap the call so it doesn't transfer it unless we gain at least 10 seconds by doing the transfer, but you don't have to do that if you don't want to. We just don't want to tie up a lot of lines.

[MHJ Indy]

Thanks Nina, I like the "post route" idea with the handicapping. That is the best idea I have heard solving that issue. We seem to stop with our pre-route process. I'm not a telecom expert. I just know what makes logical sense and what does not. We route about 30,000 inbound calls per day accross 4 centers of variying size in four different countries. I just know the ASA accross those sites should not be for example. (70, 50, 17, and 30 seconds). That tells me we have something wrong in our routing. It sounds like you would agree...?

[nina4514]

Yes, you definitely do sound like you have something wrong. Even if you have adherence problems, routing is based on what is happening now, so it should still be evenly distributing the volumes. You just may have a higher ASA if you have missing reps, but it should still be equal between sites. My email address is nsl@americancentury.com if you want to contact me with additional questions.

[Earl]

MHJ Indy,

My name is Earl and I have dealt with this same issue for years. I too, worked in a multi site call center that serviced mutliple portfolios but with the largets portfolio being serviced by 4 call centers. I started call routing using Geotel and found the same problems as you are now. Your ASA's across sites were reminiscent of what I was running into. There were a lot of issues that contributed to the disparity such as adherence and a few training issues but for the most part I was able to get the ASAs more close in line by reviewing my IVR historical data from each site by time of day and began including the historical drop rates into my scripting logic. It is my opinion that you will never get the balance perfect but you could gain efficiencies better than what you have. If you have more questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

770-974-1820 phone or via this website

[JoelDup]

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