Improving SLA

[cheltboy78]

Hello

I am working in a B2B inbound contact centre and our service leves are currently lower than the SLA.

I am relativley inexperienced so can anyone summarize what they regard as firstly the things to review and secondly steps you can take to improve performance?

Thanks

[rdaley1971]

I have a couple ideas for you.

1. Check your forecasts, and if you do not forecast, look at ways do do this. What is the busiest day of the week? What is the busiest time of day? Is call flow consistent week to week, or is it affected by customer billing cycles, seasonality, or other factors? The first step in anticipating how many people will call you, and when they will call.

2. Schedule according to forecast. To meet your SLA, you need the right people on the phone at the right time. Overstaff and you crush your SLA< but your labor costs will be too high. Understaff and you miss the SLA, and your customers will not be happy. There are different ways to calculate your staffing needs based on call volume, AHT, and service level goals. The most common is ErlangC. Vistually all workforce management software has this as an option, and most have other algorithms for more advanced multi-skill staffing calculations. And remember step 1...if you do not have a good forecast, your staffing calculations will be off. If you are staffed to handle 1,000 calls a day, but you are actually offered 2,000 calls a day, you're in trouble.

3. Validate your SLA. If it is client contracted, there may not be much you can do. If it is internally set, look at your SLA compared to your abandonment rate. A missed SLA but a low abandonment rate may not be a bad thing. Hitting your SLA but still having high abandonment usually is a bad thing. These two key performance indicators (KPI) need to be calibrated to each other and the goals of your business.

4. Try to get a consistent AHT. Not necessarily low AHT, but consistent. Fluctuations in AHT (average handling time, talk+hold+after call work) can be as detrimental to SLA as fluctuations in call volume. If it takes longer than you expected to finish a call, the callers in queue have to wait longer until their call is answered.

rick.daley@invisionwfm.com