Choose a Category of Questions:

REPORTING

Dear Dr. Jon, Is there an industry standard for email and fax response times? And if so, what would it be? Sincerely, Peter Demaitre

Peter, the answer depends on the industry. If you consider all industries, the answers are as follows:

e-mail response time = 18 hours
FAX response time = 6 hours

-Dr. Jon
Answered: 01/10/05

Does having a centralized reporting and management system impact any call center performance metrics?

Definitely. A number of vendors offer powerful analytics that can convert caller data into executive information quickly and efficiently. A sample of some of the leaders in analytical software for call centers and teleweb centers include E.piphany, Broadbase, Hyperion, Oracle, PeopleSoft/Vantive, Siebel, and Visionyze. With proper reporting feedback and root-cause analysis, these systems can, at a minimum, improve the following metrics: average talk time, after-call work time, adherence to schedule, sales per agent per shift and caller satisfaction.

Does having a centralized reporting and management system impact any call center performance metrics?

Dr. Jon, In determining cost per call, when we use the term "loaded" do we mean salary and benefits only or Salary/Benefits and Operational expenses?

Great question, Cathy.
When calculating “fully loaded” costs, you should include all contact center salary and benefits’ costs plus related operational/administrative expenses. To put it in other terms, the costs you use should be fully burdened so that administrative expenses allocated to all associates/employees are counted. Additionally, be sure to include all costs that are charged to and are under direct management, control, and funding of the contact center. You should also include contractors and/or professional staff that is under the direct control of your contact center. You should not include direct or imputed expenditures by other company departments/resources (i.e., Research and Development, Network Administration, Marketing, Desktop/on-site services, etc. nor any fees paid directly for outsourced support where the results are managed by an outsource vendor.
-Dr. Jon
Answered 12/09/05

Hello Dr. Jon, Do you have metrics or percentages for types of calls? For example, inquiry: asking for an account balance, or, transaction: a purchase or balance transfer. Thank you.

Kathleen, here are some metrics for the above requested calls:
Metric
Call type percentage AHT ACWT FTF

Inquiry 55 3.6 2.2 85

Order taking 20 2.5 1.1 92

Order tracking 5 1.4 0 89

Technical support 10 8.9 3.4 52

Complaint 5 11.6 4.8 23

Routing 5 1.1 0 95

AHT = Average Handle Time
ACWT = Average After Call Work Time
FTF = First Time Final

-Dr. Jon
Answered: 01/10/05

Hi Dr. Jon I have been searching the whole wide world of internet to find answers to my questions on Occupancy; I am working with a BPO in a research department and currently doing a small research on occupancy, but haven’t been able to find any suitable answer to my quest. I have following doubts pertaining to the same. 1: As we know that the Avg. Occupancy of a call center/agent has to be 80 to 85%, however want to know what is the norm across the industry, which means whether a technical call center should aim for lower occupancy rate as the agents get worn out by trouble shooting difficult technical issues or is it that the financial center has higher rate of occupancy, what is the practice and benchmark for the same across the industry handling different type of clients for voice and non-voice based centers. 2: What is the most used formulae to calculate occupancy? 3: There are multiple factors affecting occupancy one of them being team based scheduling, in this type of scheduling model, the whole team which comes in at the low call volume intervals, has very low occupancy, how to achieve the best out of these agents and minimize the wastage of staffing hours. 4: Which kind of scheduling model will suit the best to achieve the highest rate of occupancy? 5: How to benchmark the avg occupancy per agent and as per the center? Please help. Regards Hema

Helma, you have a lot of questions!! Here are some thoughts and answers:

1. First let's define a couple of items that could be causing your confusion:

Occupancy is expressed as a percent of the total number of minutes that an agent is in their seat, and connected to the ACD and ready to handle calls as compare to their total time at work. For example: in an 8 hour shift, we take 480 minutes (8 hours) minus 30 minutes (for two fifteen-minute breaks) equals 450 minutes. Subtract any other time for which the agents is paid, while not ready to handle calls, then divide by the original amount (480 minutes).

Utilization is defined as the percentage of time that an Agent is in their seat ready to handle calls as compared to the actual time they are in telephone mode. Utilization equals the product of average call handle time (talk time + hold time + after call work time) and the average number of inbound calls per Agent per 8-hour shift (ACPS), divided by total time the Agent is connected to the ACD and ready to handle calls during a shift, i.e., occupancy (not in percent).

2. So you can see from the above definitions, the target for utilization is 100% and it is a management challenge ensure that there are enough calls so that the agent can, in fact, be fully utilized during the time allotted for call handling, namely Occupancy.

3. We have Occupancy and Utilization best practice statistics for 43 industries.

Hope this helps. Also, regarding overall call center issues, I just finished a book entitled “Call Center Management – By the Numbers” and this details all the issues related to managing by a balanced scorecard of efficiency and effectiveness. See the bookstore on our Web site if you want a copy.

--Dr. Jon Anton
Answered: 01/17/05

I manage an internal technical support help desk at my company. I noticed that you report first call resolution 'once and done' or 'first time final' (meaning the caller is not transferred or called back) for call centers to be as high as 85%. Is this a meaningful performance measure for technical support centers?

No. Many technical support issues require off-line research and investigation. Your type of call center is more likely to track same day resolution vs. first call resolution. Our data show that on average, same day resolution is seldom higher than 80%.

Should a contact center's expense ratio to sales increase variable to sales, semi variable or remain fixed?

A contact center’s expense ratio to sales increase varies directly with sales.
-Dr. Jon

What are some of the more popular "unit cost" metrics in a call center?

I have seen many worthwhile unit cost performance metrics, and they vary somewhat depending on the function of the call center. Universally, managers try to be cognizant of the more obvious "loaded" operational cost metrics, namely cost per call, cost per minute, cost per agent, and cost to bring on a new agent. A slightly more integrated unit cost that is more indicative of overall management performance is cost per full time equivalent (FTE). As you focus more on the function of a call center, you get into such unit cost performance metrics as the cost per "issue" solved for technical support call centers, or the cost "dollar collected" for collection call centers. An insurance claim call center might track the cost per resolved claim. Benchmarking unit costs is an important managerial responsibility.