IN-DEPTH REALITY CHECK

Performance benchmarking of mission-critical company processes, i.e., accounting, manufacturing, shipping, etc., has been around for years. The process is well documented and is a popular way to answer the question "How good is good enough" when it comes to the performance of a department, or process, within an organization. As is clear from the definition, benchmarking is always a structured gap analysis of performance metrics as compared to organizations that have similar characteristics, i.e., it is logical to compare banks with banks, insurance companies with insurance companies, and the like.

By contrast, call center benchmarking is relatively new and was first initiated at Purdue University by Dr. Jon Anton in 1995 with a grant from IBM. After six years of research, the Purdue database of almost one terabyte of performance metrics is constantly being enhanced by new participants, and is now outsourced for data management, maintenance, and information distribution to BenchmarkPortal, LLC (Web site at BenchmarkPortal.com).

The primary reasons to benchmark a call center are as follows:

1. Comparisons help to reduce the typical barriers to change. For instance, if you know you are 50 pounds overweight as compared to your human peer group, i.e., people with the same age, gender, and ethnicity, it is more likely that you will take some action to lose weight.
2. Secondly, you can further magnify performance gaps by calculating the dollar value of poor performance. For instance, it is much less likely that you will get management's attention if you publish a performance gap in average talk time of 1.5 minutes per call. It is much more likely that you will get immediate management attention if you instead show that a performance gap of 1.5 minutes for each call compared to your peer group adds up to over a million dollars of excess cost each year.
3. And finally, the main purpose of benchmarking is to help you select the one initiative that commits a minimum of company resources to achieve the best performance goals and objectives. Said in the modern vernacular, benchmarking helps you select the "low hanging fruit."

The In-Depth RealityCheck (IDRC) benchmarking survey report is the de facto standard for call center benchmarking. The IDRC survey:

• Is an extended format of RealityCheck that covers over 60 data points
• Compares participant data to industry averages
• Enables managers to target areas of opportunity within the center
• Brings awareness to transform a Cost Center into a Profit Center;
• Identifies the efficiency and effectiveness of your Call Center performance, and
• Helps to establish your Call Center as a Company Asset