Change in Service Level

[yooo]

Recently, my company changed the Service Level
FROM: 80% of calls taken in 80 secs;
TO: 80% of calls taken in 180 seconds.
Please let me know what does this signify.

[JoeB]

Not much, really. Assuming that the call center is stuffed adequately and was able to meet the previous service level of 80/80, the new target will only improve service level adherence. The new SL has no impact on any of the customer-facing metrics such as ASA and abandonment rate (assuming, of course, that the call volume and head count remain the same).

You can use a resource planning calculator (e.g. www.DiagnosticStrategies.com/EasyErlang.html) to see the impact of changing service level target using your call centerÂ’s call volume and staff.

[yooo]

Now, 80% of the calls have to be taken in 180 seconds instead of 80 secs with call volume and head count remaining more of less contant. Don't you think, atleast the abandonment rate will improve as it was done primarily to improve the abandonement rate as well as the Service Level and ASA?

[JoeB]

Not at all, with one caveat. SL is a target performance level and has no impact on actual performance. Since the call volume and headcount remain constant, the average hold time will remain the same. Caller abandon after their “internal” threshold has exceeded (see http://www.diagnosticstrategies.com/abandonment.htm), and since changing the service level hasn’t change any of these factors, abandonment should not change.

Now for the caveat. My research has shown that when the callers know the target level, they tend to wait that long before hanging up. So if you publish your target response time as 180 seconds, callers are more likely to wait that long, assuming (incorrectly) that they WILL be answered within 180 seconds. But this is a subjective behavior and will be observed only if the other factors driving abandonment that are listed in the article have not been violated.

[NeilM]

You need to ask your self why your company is changing its SL!

If it just for the pupose of improving SL adherence then this is wrong!
If you extend your % time by 120 seconds then you must reduce headcount otherwise Agent occupancy will drop sharply resulting in serious in-efficiencies!

What quantative data has been used to set an extended % time threshold??
Do you have Customer Survey/Feedback data that indicates that your customers are prepared to wait up to 3 minutes for their call to be answered!

In this situation you may improve your SL adherence but your C. Sat may be adversely affected!

[remy]

with NeilM.

If a call center changes its servicelevel target it's bound to change something. Let's say that the current situation in the call center is such you can get your servicelevel up till the point where you answer 80% of the calls within 80 seconds. this means you are fulfilling your targets. However increasing the pick up time to 180 seconds will have great consequences for your call center. If you continu the way you do the company is sure to tell you that, even though you're way above target (probably 99% of the call will be answered in 180 seconds), the call center has become inefficient... i.e. You're spilling money since the goal of answering your clients within 80 seconds has increased to 180. This means you can decrease the number of agents and will still be able to keep on to your targets with less costs. If the call center wasn't able to make the current targets you would have to research how much would the servicelevel would have been in the new case (with 180 seconds). If this is above 80% you will have no problem and can even decrease the number again. If that's not the case then the call center wasn't doing such a good job in the beginning and changing the level will only help you improve the way things look on paper.

[JoeB]

This is a good background for a discussion about how SL goals should be set. My research shows that in many call centers performance goals are set and changed without understanding how they tie to customer satisfaction, abandonment and the overall business goals. Often, call centers have inherited their SL goals and never question them. Call centers should understand service level elasticity and experiment with it to understand the impact of changing SL on their business. See http://www.diagnosticstrategies.com/SL_elasticity.htm