Workforce Management an old call center managers view

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Workforce Management an old call center
managers view

• Ian Moustaka
• October 3 2007

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Agenda

• Introductions
• A few definitions
• 4 best practice themes
• Specific examples of best practices
• Hard learned lessons
• Where to find more information

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Whos here?

• Work in a call center/others
• For those in call centers
• Size (lt50 agents, 50-200, gt200)
• Already use a workforce management tool
• For profit versus non-profit
• Management/workforce management/others
• 5/6/7 days per week
• Sales part of agents annual evaluation

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Definitions

• Call center management The art of having the
  right number of properly skilled people and
  supporting resources in place at the right times
  to handle an accurately forecasted workload at
  service level with quality. (Brad Cleveland)
• Schedule adherence (aka compliance) The
  percentage of scheduled time that an agent is
  logged on to the phone. Total logged on mins
  in accordance with schedule/Total scheduled mins
  (less authorized exceptions) x 100/1
• Schedule conformance Total logged on mins/Total
  scheduled mins (less authorized exceptions) x
  100/1

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Four best practice themes

• Get everyone on side
• Get your objectives and measurements right
• Get best use from tools empower the agent
• Learn from others

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1. Get everyone on side

• Education (From Day 1 - power of one agent,
  impact of quickly answering the phone on customer
  satisfaction, culture of everyone doing their
  fair share, share results)
• Positive incentives (2 hours on self education
  for monthly schedule conformance gt 97)
• Involvement (in creating measures/schedules)
• Recognition (1-1 feedback, team meetings, Town
  Halls)
• Supervisor development and motivation critical
  (1.5 hours per month solely on supervisor
  development)

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2. Get your objectives/measures right

• Agent scorecard need right balance between
  quality, productivity, contribution beyond phone.
• Comprehensive approach to productivity measures
  (e.g. Call Center of the Year not all on
  scorecard but all managed)
• Daily focus from management and supervisors
  required (intraday reports by half hour)
• Continuous improvement of scorecard, rating
  levels (involve all levels, monitor scores)
• Focus on schedule conformance consistently
  achieved a minimum of 5 productivity improvement

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3. Get best use from tools

• Tools available for small and large centers
  some tools cost very little
• Must start with right number of staff and a
  robust contingency plan for peaks managers
  business case vital
• Agents love empowerment (e.g. ability to swap
  schedules) and visible consistent processes (e.g.
  for granting vacation, schedules)
• The tools are mostly great spend money on
  ongoing training
• Try and maintain human element coaching skills
  training important (how you give feedback vital)

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4. Learning from others

• Books (e.g. Brad Cleveland, Call Center
  Management on Fast Forward, 2nd ed, 2006)
• Call center visits (ask questions)
• Conferences/seminars/webinars (e.g. ICMI,
  www.incoming.com )
• Society of Workforce Planning Professionals
  (www.swpp.org )
• Magazines (e.g. Customer Management Insight)
• Vendors (especially vendor networks)
• Call center certification (www.ciac-cert.org )

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Hard learned lessons

• Dont try and do it on your own
• Dont let go of scheduling function (e.g. all new
  hires have split days off)
• Challenges of 7x24, value of 4x10
• Large queues must also focus on occupancy rate

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Thank you?

• Ian Moustaka
• InTelegy Consulting
• imoustaka_at_intelegy.com
• 916 893 8500