Term Project – Call Center Operations

1
Term Project Call Center Operations

• SOM 686, Fall 2006
• Darren Mitchell
• Hayden Gilbert
• Serge Suprun

2
Agenda

• Overview
• Call Center Statistics (October), Definitions
  Forecast
• Process View of the Call Center
• Call Center Competencies, Architecture, Three Key
  Measures Littles Law
• Call Center Flow, Delays, Queues Process
  Attributes
• Flow Rate-related Measures of Call Center
  Capacity
• Flow Time-related Measures of Customer Delay
• Inventory-related Measures of Customer Queues
• Performance Improvements Managing Capacity

3
Overview

• Time Warner Cable Los Angeles
• Bought Adelphia
• Exchanged properties with Comcast
• Now provides cable, internet telephone services
  to over 2 million customers.
• Time Warner Advanced support is local
• Teamed up with outsourced partner to provide
  basic support for all three products.
• Basic support includes billing, basic repair,
  changes to the accounts general questions.
• Outsourced partner provides basic support from 3
  call center locations USA, Canada Argentina.

4
Overview

• Call Center in Argentina supports English
  Spanish-speaking customers.
• There are 36 agents employed in the center
• 12 are Spanish only
• 24 are bilingual
• On average, the call center handles 40,000 calls
  per month.
• However, over last 2 months handled calls were
  36.5 over forecast.
• Service level suffered over past 2 months too
• In October, only 32.4 of calls were answered
  within appropriate time limit.

5
Call Center Statistics (October) and Definitions

• NCO number of calls offered
• ABA number of calls abandoned ABA -
  percentage of calls abandoned
• SVL service level
• ASA average speed of answer
• Hand average handle time

6
Forecast

• Past 2 months, Argentina used naïve forecast
• (Based on the last year historical data)
• Forecast didnt take into the account recent
  product changes integration projects
• As a result ? October call volume was 32.4 over
  forecast.
• We are suggesting to use Moving average forecast.
• Ex
• MA103 (A10 A9 A8)/3, using last months data
  is (54,49456,22150,221)/353,636
• Therefore, F1153,636. November forecast should
  be for 53,636 calls. This would allow Argentina
  to staff appropriately.

7
Process View of the Call Center
Process
Inputs
Outputs

• Inputs/Outputs customers calling for
  service/customers completed the call
• Flow Units customers
• Network of Activities and Buffers answering
  customers calls
• Resources customer service agents (CSA), phone
  automated system (PAS), etc.
• Information Structure account management
  system, reference materials, etc.

8
Call Center Competencies and Architecture

• 4 Dimensions for measuring the competence of the
  call center
• Process Cost
• Process Flow Time
• Process Flexibility
• Process Quality.
• Argentina call center focuses on the low cost.
• Call center provides high-quality Spanish
  support.
• Argentina call center process architecture is
  defined by the types of resources (CSA, PAS,
  etc).
• Call center falls somewhere along the spectrum
  between two extremes (flow shop and job shop).
• Flow shop fits better, as call center uses
  specialized resources that perform limited tasks
  produce large volumes with high precision and
  speed.

9
Three Key Call Center Measures

• Flow Time Time Customer spends
• In automated phone system
• Waiting in the queue for an agent
• Talking to an agent.
• Ex October Average PAS time is 46, Queue average
  waiting time is 32 handle time is 462 seconds.
• T540 seconds
• Flow Rate Number of customers that flow through
  a specific point in the call center process per
  unit of time.
• Inventory Total number of customers present
  within call center boundaries.
• Ex Argentina call center is 24/7 call patterns
  are very different.
• Therefore, to simplify calculations we will use
  I27 customers

10
Littles Law

• Throughput Average number of customers that
  flow through the call center per unit of time.
• Littles Law - Average inventory () Throughput
  (x) Average flow time.
• I R x T
• Ex
• We identified
• T 540 seconds (9 min)
• I 27 customers.
• Therefore, R I/T
• R 27/9
• R 3 customers/minute

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Call Center Flow, Delays and Queues
Capacity Rp c/Tp
Arrival Rate
Throughput
Customer
Customer
Ri
R Min (Ri, Rp)
Ii Ip I Ti
Tp T Queue Service Process
Number Time In
12
Call Center Process Attributes

• Inflow Rate Ri Average rate of customer
  arrivals per unit time.
• In the Argentinean call center, Ri 5
  customers/minute
• Processing Time Tp Average time required by
  agent to process the customer.
• Tp 462 (agent) 46 (PAS) 508 seconds
• c Number of agents in the resource pool
• c 36 agents in Argentina
• Process capacity (Rp) Total processing rate at
  which customers are processed by agents in the
  resource pool.
• Rp c/Tp or Rp 36/8.47 4.25
  customers/minute
• Buffer capacity (K) Maximum number of customers
  that can wait in queue.
• K 120 (there are 10 lines that can hold 12 each
  at any given time)

13
Flow Rate-related Measures of Call Center Capacity

• Throughput rate (R) Average rate at which
  customers flow through the call center process
• R min (Ri, Rp)
• In our case, Rp is smaller, so R Rp 4.25
• Capacity utilization (?) Average fraction of
  the resource pool capacity that is occupied in
  processing customers
• ? R/Rp
• In our case, R Rp and ? 1
• Our resource pool is constantly busy processing
  customers.
• Safety capacity (Rs) Excess processing capacity
  available to handle the customers inflows.
• Rs Rp Ri
• In our case, Rs 4.25 5 -0.75
• All the available capacity is busy processing
  arrivals.

14
Flow Time-related Measures of Customer Delay

• Average waiting time (Ti) Time that a customer
  spends in queue.
• Ti 32 seconds.
• Average theoretical time Average processing
  time of a customer.
• Tp 462 seconds 46 seconds (automated system)
  508 seconds
• Average flow time in the process (T) Average
  time that a customer spends waiting in queue
  being served
• T Ti Tp or T
• 508 32 540 seconds or 9 minutes
• Flow time efficiency Proportion of time that a
  customer spends being served rather than waiting
  in queue
• Tp / T .94

15
Inventory-related Measures of Customer Queues

• Average queue length Average number of
  customers waiting for service
• Ii R x Ti
• Ii 4.25 x 0.53 2.25 customers waiting for
  service
• Average number of customers in service Average
  in-process inventory
• Ip R x Tp
• Ip 4.25 x 8.47 35.99 customers in service
• Average total number of customers in the process
• I Ii Ip
• I 2.25 35.99 38.24 customers in the process

16
Call Center Flow, Delays and Queues
Capacity Rp c/Tp
Arrival Rate
Throughput
Customer
Customer
5 customers/min
4.25 customers/min
2.25 35.99 38.24 508
32 540 seconds Queue Service
Process
Number Time In
17
Performance Improvements

• The following levers improved process
  performance
• Decrease variability in customer interarrival
  processing times.
• Decrease capacity utilization (or increase safety
  capacity) either by
• Decreasing the arrival rate or increasing the
  unit processing rate
• Increasing the number of servers
• Synchronize the available capacity with demand.

18
Managing Capacity

• Capacity utilization (? Ri/Rp ) can be reduced
  by increasing average processing rate (Rp)
• In order to increase processing rate (Rp c/Tp)
  we recommended decreasing average processing time
  (Tp)
• To achieve a decrease in processing time
• Identified that billing escalated calls took
  longer to handle in this call center vs. similar
  centers.
• Thus recommended implemented 2 separate hour
  training segments
• Billing prorates explanation
• How to handle escalated calls

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Call Center Statistics (November)

• Processing time decreased to 410 seconds
• Tp 41046 456 seconds or 7.6 minutes
• Process capacity Rp c/Tp or Rp 36/456 4.74
  customers/minute
• Result Capacity Utilization ? Ri/Rp or 5/4.74
  1.06

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