Changing Performance Standards

[Kiwi]

Our organisation opertes a nationwide 0800 number (free phone) for it's clients. The calls are distributed and answered at a number of sites around the country - ranging in size from appx 8 agents to appx 60 agents.

Our target both as individual sites and nationally is to acheive a Telephone Performance Standard (TSF) of 70% or better on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. (answering 70% of calls in an average of 30 seconds or less)

Recently - a variation to this standard has been suggested and adopted.

Now on days where it is likely that we will receive in excess of a certain number of calls - the TSF will not be the measure but instead we will have to achieve an Average Speed To Answer (ASA) of 3 minutes or less.

I'm concerned that this is merely "waving the white flag" in terms of saying we are uanble to achieve our TSF if we get to busy - rather than striving to achieve the standrard by looking at ways of improving the delivery of service.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone that has had a similar experience and what issues (+/-) arose.

Thanks.

[JoeB]

I think that your basic attitude is correct. WhatÂ’s the point in setting performance standards if you have built-in excuses not to meet them? Also, this approach leaves much room for interpretation, such as how do you set the threshold over which you are allowed to miss the service level? And by how much?

The service level target needs to be set to a level that in essence is a compromise between customer-facing metrics, such as ASA and abandonment, and resource availability. This is an absolute (not average) metric. In other words, resource must be allocated so that no less than 70% of the calls are answered in 30 seconds or faster (not in average of 30 sec.).

Without having the call statistics of your situation (volume, AHT, etc.) or more information about your all centers (e.g. how the load is distributed nationally?), it is impossible to determine if the service level is set correctly and if it can be improved without increasing headcount. But my experience is that there are often hidden opportunities that can be leveraged at a very low investment after a basic analysis of the situation.

If you are challenged with a very unstable call volume, then, by definition, staffing for the peaks will cause low utilization during slow times. However, in most cases, analysis of long-term history will reveal a pattern of call volume, so you can staff accordingly, by time of day, season, etc. Additionally, as you suggest, you can find methods to improve service delivery so that the existing staff can be more effective and able to support the peaks in call volume.

Joe Barkai
www.DiagnosticStrategies.com
jbarkai@DiagnosticStrategies.com