The Search for "Industry Standards"

[mikael]

One afternoon, many years ago, an "industry analyst" asked the VP of a tech support contact center "what percentage of your company's yearly gross revenues are spent on support?" The VP off-handedly replied: "About 6%." The analyst then went back and used that number as a ballpark figure for what companies should be spending on support. The result was a new "benchmark" or "industry standard," for other analysts and journalists and convention presenters picked it up and repeated it -- and their audiences Believed in the revealed Truth.

However... I'd actually done a review of that particular company's support program, and the offhand figure for overall expenditures was *very* inaccurate. They weren't counting half of their true costs, and the revenues were not being accurately stated either. But an Analyst had Spoken, and the word was made fact.

In another company, the CEO had heard that an acceptable Abandon level was 5%, and so decreed that henceforth and forevermore, the maximum permissable abandon rate for his company's contact center was to be 5%. The hiring freeze currently in effect could not be relaxed, no additional staff were available -- but the abandon rate nevertheless *must* be 5% or less.

Can you guess how the center manager *immediately* got the center into full compliance with the new industry standard? And I do mean "immediately," for compliance was achieved in less than 60 seconds.

What do you consider to be an "industry standard?" How do you use such things in your contact center?

[Harrigan]

After that lead in, I doubt anyone will be sucker enough to take that bait.

Obviously industry standards are for "ballpark" estimates only and can be misused by people that don't understand that.

Good try though!

[mikael]

Okay, maybe I did stack the deck against "industry standards."

But did anybody figure out how the call center manager made his abandon rate instantly less than 5%?

[daveste]

I am sure there are a few different ways, however these are the ones that come to my mind:

1. Flow the calls out of the initial queue, that is being reported, whereas no calls are abandoned in the first queue.

2. Begin reporting on the IVR queue as the abandon rate would be low or non exsistent.

3. If no technology was available, increase hold time by having agents gated for multiple calls.

4. You could also institute a group of agents to answer the calls and then transfer the call to another queue.

As you said this was addressed in sixty seconds, I would have to believe that calls were flowed out of the inital queue to another queue that was not reported.

As a Manager use to tell me, reports don't give you the answer, they just show you where to look!

[mikael]

Dave,

Nice stuff! All of those options are much more clever than what was actually done. And you've added some questions to my operational review procedure for future engagements -- thanks!

The manager in question simply went in and changed the definition of "abandon" in the ACD reporting table such that in order to be counted as an Abandon, the customer must wait on-hold for 48 hours and *then* hang up. Voila! No more abandons.

Anybody have any other examples of how to "cook the books" they'd like to share?

[daveste]

Changing the definition was probably the easiest way to go. I spent a long time educating a Center Manager that if you are comparing two centers, you need to ensure that all of the report fields are defined the same.

Thank you for remind us that figures are not always what they appear.