Call Center Research

[Gerry Miller]

What questions need answers? I am both a student and active member of the industry trying to find a topic for my Masters in Telecom Thesis. I have my own ideas but was interested as to what the members of this forum saw as the burning issues that need answers in our industry. If I use anyones question as a research topic I promise to send them a copy of the final research results.

[tlavin]

Time Clock vs. Phone: There seems to be a trend in call centers to move away from time clock usage and on to paying from the ACD. The well placed thought is that this decreases slippage and lost money (time lost from clock to phone via coffee breaks and good morning salutations, etc). However, it can also create dissatisfaction and a perception of unfairness among the agent ranks. Also, it makes it difficult for the supervisors to manage - how do you reasonably ensure that the agent is at his desk, logged in and ready to go exactly at his start time? Do you just not pay him for the time it takes to log into his computer, etc? Is it legal to do so? Or, do you allot a certain amount of time for agents to prep for the beginning of their shift, and if so, how much time? Does it get abused (what if they are coming in mid-day and their computer is already "hot"?). Do you increase their schedule span to accommodate this prep time? Do you have the legal right to expand someone's shift to, say, 8 hours and 15 minutes?

Is anyone successfully doing this? Please share if so!

[deadriaw]

Time Clock vs. Phone
I have recently had this same issue. My first coarse of action was to find a workforce management product that had a payroll interface with the ability to monitor agent's real-time schedule adherence. I have not found a program that would "automate" the process of editing employee work schedule with exceptions when they were late, unexcused, MIA, and etc.
We did take several steps to correct the issue of agents taking excessive amounts of time to log in to their phone's after clocking in. The first step was to make the 15 minute adjustment to their work schedules as you mentioned, however we did not add 15 minutes to an 8 hour day. Our agent's schedules ended 15 minutes earlier. Labor laws change from state to state and some state simply limit the total number of hours per day to 12 hours, so a 15 minute addition would work, however I suggest you check your labor laws. You may not have a problem with that.
Our biggest step toward "paying by log time" was going to a "Schedule Adherence" policy. With this policy, agents were required to maintain a 98% schedule adherence. We used their actual phone log time with their actual work schedule to calculate this information. Supervisor's monitored agent's sign on and sign off records for employees that fell below the 98%.
All of the major three workforce software programs, Blue Pumpkin, Aspect's eWorkforce Management (formally TCS), and IEX, all have built in schedule adherence reports. Our employee's actually liked this policy much better than their old "point system".
You should not allot additional time for agents to "setup" before work. Agents schedule be ready to work and logged on at the beginning of their work schedule. Real-time Adherence applications, such as Aspect's RTA, will allow your supervisors to monitor agents late log ins.
I agree this is a hot issue, and I have presented it to Aspect, Blue Pumpkin, and IEX which all claim they are working on an automated payroll interface that would solve the time clock vs. phone issue.

DeAdria Wright
NE Area Scheduling Supervisor
united060901@aol.com

[tlavin]

DeAdria,

Thanks for taking the time to post such a good response! I sent you an e-mail detailing the following questions. After I sent it, I thought I would post them here so the others could see them. If anyone else is wrestling with this challenge, please join in.

1. When you say that you have not found a program that would "automate" editing employee work schedules, are you saying that, for example, if the employee logged on to the ACD 4 minutes prior to their actual start time, that the software would change that start time from, say, 8:00 AM to 7:56 AM? If so, would you expect it to enter an exception and then, later, a human would validate the exception?

2. Could you expand more on your idea of removing 15 minutes from the back of the schedule?

3. Your adherence goal of 98% is a great idea. By my calculations, that would leave 9.6 minutes (2% of 480 minutes or 8 hours) that the employee would be graced with. What occurs during that 9.6 minutes? Is it discretionary time (bathroom, etc), or is that the time that they should use to log in, etc?

4. Could you expand on your "old points system"?

5. How have you built a culture that gets employees to their desks, logged in and ready to take calls right at the start of their shift? How do they get logged in, etc?

[deadriaw]

Tim, I'm sure many companies have consulted this issue in an effort to promote productivity and conserve company resources. I hope someone out there can assist us with this issue.

In response to your questions:

1. When you say that you have not found a program that would "automate" editing employee work schedules, are you saying that, for example, if the employee logged on to the ACD 4 minutes prior to their actual start time, that the software would change that start time from, say, 8:00 AM to 7:56 AM? If so, would you expect it to enter an exception and then, later, a human would validate the exception?

Well, what I was looking for was a program that would automate the exception process by entering the 4 minute early log on exception. Let's call this exception "Early". Each time the "Early" exception is entered it would add time to an agent's shift. What I was looking for was a program that would report an agent's shift to have 8 hours and 4 minutes of scheduled hours that were to be paid (if you pay over time) if they logged in 4 minutes early. What I did find was that IEX has a payroll interface that is compatible with many time clock payroll systems, however it is a completely manual process. With the IEX interface if an employee logs in 4 minutes early someone, either a supervisor or your workforce management team would have to manually enter the 4 minutes of extra time.
The same works for an employee that signs off their phone and just disappears. With the IEX payroll interface, an exception defined to be a "unpaid" exception would have to be entered manually. A report can then be downloaded into a file compatible to many payroll systems, similar to those from standard time clocks. This is a great feature, however it requires a great deal of manpower to manage.

2. Could you expand more on your idea of removing 15 minutes from the back of the schedule?
Our operating hours began at 8:00am, so we scheduled about 40% of our 8:00am staff to begin at 7:45am. The 7:45am start time would end their shifts at 4:45pm (1 hour lunch). Ideally we lost 15 minutes of actual work time for the day from this group, however it decreased our opening abandoned rate by 60%. Each of these employee knew they were to be logged in and ready to work at 8:00am.

3. Your adherence goal of 98% is a great idea.Â- By my calculations, that would leave 9.6 minutes (2% of 480 minutes or 8 hours) that the employee would be graced with.Â- What occurs during that 9.6 minutes?Â- Is it discretionary time (bathroom, etc), or is that the time that they should use to log in, etc?
That is correct, 9.6 minutes per day in addition to any scheduled breaks and lunches are allowed for tardiness, bathroom breaks, or just to take a personal break. We calculated Schedule Adherence monthly, so the 2% of allowed scheduled hours could have been used for time that could not be made up.
I have experienced call centers that required agents to sign off their phone each time for breaks, meetings, bathroom time, and etc. I have also experienced centers that used an Aspect switch that used the "Idle with Reason Code" report that allows agents to enter a code each time they enter the idle state on their phone. Schedule adherence can be used in both cases.

4. Could you expand on your "old points system"?
The old system was a 10 point attendance policy that issued 1 point if any employee had an unexcused work day, was out sick but had exhausted their sick time, or left work more than 2 hours early. A ½ point was issued for each tardy or leave early 2 hours or less.

5. How have you built a culture that gets employees to their desks, logged in and ready to take calls right at the start of their shift?Â- How do they get logged in, etc.?
Many employees think that they just need to be in the building and clocked in by the start of their shift, however you and I know that is not the case. After observing employees that would jump out of their cars, run into the building, clock in, the stroll back outside to park their cars, I knew I had a problem. It was not an overnight change, however we had to make it very clear that if their schedules started at 8:00am, it was in the best interest of their jobs to be ready to take their first call at 8:00am.
Schedule adherence played a big part in that. 9.6 minutes seems like a lot, but when you are 6 minutes late to work 3 minutes late from lunch, you can't even go to the bathroom if it's not your break time. It may sound terrible, but after you have to terminate about 3 people for not being logged in on time, everyone will get the hint.
Also, Supervisors were held accountable on their performance reviews as well as the agents. Supervisors had a 98% schedule adherence goal for their teams.
To begin the day agents would come into the call center, sign in at the supervisor stations (which I though was a big waist of time), pick up their daily info sheet, then got to their work station, into their phones and into the ordering system to begin work. The entire process may take about 5 minutes. If they came in and a station's computer was not working or something like that it would take longer.

It gets a little deeper than this, but I hope this helps. If you find anything I can use, please let me know. Also, if you have any other questions, feel free to send me an e-mail.

[global crm]

To succesfully manage your reps VIA ACD, you must first include this time in time out policy on your basic new employee training and handbook. Let them know how they are getting paid, how to properly log in and log out, and penalties for abusing the system.

We have been on this system for the past four years and it works out very well for us. It was a big hassle in the beginning, but it is smooth sailing now.