Answer:
1a) How many co-browsing sessions must an agent conduct simultaneously in order to be cost-efficient?
Slim pickings here…not enough basic research completed to answer this great question.
1b) What are the recommendations to increase agent's productivity?
There are scripting packages that make this exercise more efficient.
2) What are the most commonly uses of chat? e.g. navigate through My Account page
Most chat is used in conjunction with self-service offerings, i.e., get the customer trying to find the answer themselves, but have a chat window open if they get lost trying.
3) What are the technical requirements (type of application, connectivity) to conduct a co-browsing session: from the agent and customer's perspective?
This is a tough questions since many of the actual details are still a “work in progress.” I’ll pass on this very excellent question…needs more research.
1)service level for tech support 80% of calls answered in 40 seconds.
2)abandon rate should not exceed 5% for internet sales
3)abandon rate should not exceed 3% for cs program.
Amy, thanks for your question.
Here are the answers across agent-assisted channels for all industries:
Channel Cost Per Transaction
Phone $5.68
Fax $2.26
e-mail $3.12
Web-chat $1.89
We have the details by vertical, including public sector, but I suggest you contact MichaelFeinberg@BenchmarkPortal.com for more details on how to proceed.
Dr. Jon Anton
12/21/2004
One would certainly expect that business-to-business (B-to-B) customers in any industry would receive measurably better call handling than consumer-to-business (C-to-B) callers. In financial services (i.e., banks and brokerages), the performance is mixed at best. Average time in queue is higher for B-to-B callers and the percent of "once and done" calls is lower for B-to-B. By contrast, average talk time is more than double for B-to-B, but makes sense since the transactions are bigger and relationship building is more important. Strangely though, caller satisfaction is lower for B-to-B callers and this certainly indicates room for improvement in financial services.
From our research, electrical power redundancy depends on several factors:
1. How mission critical is the call center...i.e., order taking is consider much more mission critical than post sales support?
2. Does the company have more than one call center so that a "downed" center can forward calls to other company sites with trained agents?
3. Does the company subscribe to an in-place "disaster recovery" (also known as "business recovery") strategy, namely, do they contract a third-party outsourcing company to have excess staff available in the case of a power failure, or fire, or "the flue", or a flood, or hurricane...and the like?? Depending on the answers to the above questions, some companies have a minimum investment in power back-up, UPS systems, etc.
The flip of this is that you will not find ANY contact center with over 100 agents that does not have as a minimum a 2-hour battery back up, or a complete diesel power generating unit...the price for this equipment has become so reasonable that it would be irresponsible to not make at least that level of investment.
Peter, outbound “welcome calls” are VERY effective in customer retention. This can be particularly impactful if there is some small bit of information that you can decimate with the welcoming call. I have heard story after story about how welcoming a quick call can be to a brand new customer.
--Dr. Jon
Yes, we have data on cross-selling and up-selling success rates for inbound call centers. PLUS, we could launch a simple one-minute survey with questions more tuned to your information requirements.
Annette, thanks for your questions. Here are some brief answers:
1. For a call center I use 15 efficiency metrics and 15 effectiveness metrics to measure the I/O efficiency of call handling
2. If you’re interested I will send you the list
3. I am not sure what a DEA and/or CRS and/or VRS is...please explain
4. I do have a best practice report that compares government call centers with their non-governmental counterparts...you’ll find the details on our Web site at BenchmarkPortal.com for acquiring that study
5. 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
Cliff, this is a great question. Many, many people quote "new industry standards" with no statistical data to back them up. My team at Purdue University - BenchmarkPortal is the only source in the world that has thousands and thousands of performance data points regarding call center performance. We publish industry-specific reports that have industry-specific best practices regarding over 50 key performance indicators (KPIs) - service level being only one of those important KPIs. I have just reviewed the consumer products industry report, and you're right, the industry standard is 80/20 with a 3% abandon rate. Your client is doing fine. You might want
to purchase the complete Industry Report to scan other KPIs.
Ed,
Thank you for your question. Can you please contact Michael Feinberg, Director of Business Development BenchmarkPortal at: (443)394 - 2500 or email at: MichaelFeinberg@BenchmarkPortal.com to discuss this with you.
Dr. Jon
Mike, We have an industry report for tech support call centers handling hardware and software products and services (much like your center).
I briefly reviewed this industry report for the industry averages for the two metrics you mentioned in your question. Your ASA is better than the average (congratulations), but your abandon rate is slightly higher than average for the industry…..not enough to be concerned about.
Thanks for responding to my many surveys…..I greatly appreciate your participation.
Adham,
Agent Certification is offered exclusively by the Purdue University Center for Customer-Driven Quality through its various agents, like Human Technologies. If you wish to offer the certification in MENA region, this
can be arranged by contacting Catherine Gilmore at CatherineGilmore@BenchmarkPortal.com.
If there is anything else I can help you with please let me know.
Dr. Jon Anton
Using the median of incoming call volume for one year as the threshold to establish whether the shift condition is abnormal is not recommended. You Contractor will too often be in a non-compliant condition. Instead, the norm is to use one-standard deviation away from the mean. This gives your Contractor a better chance of delivering the hoped for service levels.
--Dr. Jon
I suggest your have a look at two of my books, namely, Selecting an Outsourcing Partner, and Off-Shore Outsourcing Opportunities.
Jack, these channels do not go back 20 years. Here are some of our statistics:
1. Toll free calls began with the introduction of the 800 number on product ads and literature. This happened in 1979. Before that the only channel was to “write a letter.”
2. The first recorded customer e-mail was in 1999. It was very basic, and took 48 hours to answer...a vast improvement over “snail mail.” The volume of e-mails between customers and company in that year was less than 100,000 total. Today, we have that many e-mails every second of every business day...a dramatic increase.
3. Self-service customer contacts first began with the launch of the IVR in 1992, a very rudimentary unit at best. One of the first applications was at Fidelity where you could move stock from one fund to another with the IVR, very cumbersome even on a good day. Volumes were very low as the confidence of the customer in this approach approached zero. The concept and technology rapidly improved, however, and now, especially in the financial services sector, 75% of call volume is actually completed in the IVR without talking to an agent. The advent of speech recognition is vastly improving self-service of calls.
--Dr. Jon
There is no one guide, or "how to" book, that can help you build a "green field" call center from scratch. I have written 24 books, all on sub-parts of the design, implementation, and management of a best-in-class center. But, reading 24 books might not be the answer.
I feel my team at BMP can be of assistance. We certify centers to be Purdue University certified "Centers of Excellence." We know exactly what the best-in-class have in every one of the 43 industries that we study and benchmark. We know what makes the trio of "people, process, and technology" work for call centers. Your best bet is to have my team participate with your team in all the phases listed below. Call center design "from the ground up" has at least the following steps:
1. Understanding the specific that the call center will play in deploying the business model and strategy of the company, or business unit, that the center will serve...
2. Understanding budget constraints,
3. Understanding whether this is a build versus buy situation,
4. Understanding the target customer's profile and probably information requirements,
5. Understanding the best geographical location to locate the new center,
6. Understanding the skill sets and core competencies of the existing
staff at your company,
7. Understanding the proposed time-frame in which you hope to accomplish best-in-class performance,
8. and more...
--Dr. Jon
answered 02/28/05
Handling a customer with a complaint takes very specialized skills, for instance, anger diffusion, mediation, negotiation, empathy, and more.
Many call center report to me that they typically route complaints to a team that specializes in this activity. In our litigious society, complaints that are not handled properly can quickly become major financial risks. The opposite is also true, and that is, a complaint that is handled properly can produce a very loyal customer.
Callback rate is always:
(Total Calls - Total Unique) / Total Calls
The balanced scorecard is a well accepted concept that judges the quality of any process by using a “balance” between the company’s objective (usually low cost, i.e., efficiency) with the customer’s objective (usually getting what I need, i.e., effectiveness). We have created a balanced scorecard for call centers by designing the Call Center Performance Index (CPI) that divides all call center performance metrics into two groups, namely, one group that relates to effectiveness (for instance percent of once and done calls), and the other group that relates to efficiency (for instance after-call work time). By statistically weighting these into one index, you end up with a “balanced” view of a call center’s performance, i.e., balanced scorecard.
Thanks for your question. I really think the best thing for you to do is to participate in our complete benchmark of all your statistics. Performance in a call center is NOT determined by one metric. I need to see the whole picture to give you the advice.
Please go to our Web site and enter your data. The first report is FREE, and I would be most happy to review your specific performance metrics based on the FREE report.
Once I have the complete picture, it would be a pleasure to answer your questions more comprehensively.
You're definitely on the right track to question arbitrarily set metrics of performance.
Jon
Sharon,
We just closed that survey a couple of days ago. I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to participant. However, the survey results are available on our bookstore for purchase. Simply go to www.BenchmarkPortal.com and search for "upselling".
If I can help further, please let me know.
-Dr. Jon Anton
Answered 07/22/05
The standard measure is the number of calls answered within 'n' seconds divided by the number of calls answered, expressed in %, for instance, 80% of calls answered in 20 seconds. The problem with adding abandoned calls to the mix is that abandoned rate is quite variable between industries and between type of call. Though a logical alternative, it is less accepted and less used.
--Dr. Jon
As I am sure you already know, a Web chat session is certainly a different customer interaction than a call. So far, our research into key performance indicators (KPIs) for chat sessions indicates that customers are much less demanding of a chat session. I have witnessed an experienced agent handle as many as four chats simultaneously. From my observations, I think most chat users will tolerate having their answers in one to three minutes.
Good question, Jeff. In managing the other 20%, we often try to understand more about the maximum queue times while watching ASA closely. Another approach is to do a histogram of the 20% of calls that are outside of the 20 seconds to better understand the out-lyers.
-Dr. Jon
Service to sales is the goal of many call centers that are trying to move from being completely a cost center to a revenue center. Sales per FTE per shift varies widely by industry. I do not know what industry you are in from your question above. However, across all industries (not very accurate for comparison purposes) the sales per FTE per shift is 9.3. Obviously, this includes at one extreme, big ticket items that take longer to sell.
--Dr. Jon
A specific run on our entire database across all industries indicated that US call centers answer 80% of all calls in an average of 42 seconds.
Some call centers spend a lot of money implementing software to check the validity of every piece of data thereby scrubbing the data before it enters the system. Others purchase monitoring and coaching software to improve the training and data entry skills of individual agents. A combination of the two approaches is the best solution.
This is a purely “statistical” question that is often asked when managers look at “raw data.”
The answer is that in order to be “sure” at a 95% level of confidence, with a possible error rate of +/- 5%, you need a sample size of at least 350 randomly selected calls.
From a layman’s point of view, being “sure” at a 95% level of confidence means that your final conclusion will be “correct” 19 out of 20 times...this is more than ample for most business decisions. BUT, of course, if you want to go to 99% confidence, you just need to increase your sample size very substantially...this is basically not necessary in the case of call monitoring…
Hope this helps
Jon
Americans love email. From our studies, I would forecast you will receive one email for every 200 NEW visitors to the Web site. The definition of Web site "hits" is too vague, and often far exceeds the number of NEW visitors.
The very important metric of calls per agent per hour is less dependent on center size, but much more dependent on the industry and the type of call being handled by the center. For example, a claims processing call will be on average longer than a catalog order-taking call. So, to be more responsive to your question, I would need to know your industry, and what types of calls your five agents are handling.
-Dr. Jon
Answered: 11/05
Good question. In contact center situations similar to e-Bay, we have measured CSR productivity at between 7 and 8 e-mails per hour. Scripted answers are a big help, but the e-mail channel is hampered by the following:
1. Most Americans do not write very well.
2. Routing e-mails to the right CSR with the skills to handle the e-mail quickly is not yet very accurate.
3. E-mails can become the source of litigation, therefore assuring the quality of final e-mails is much more important than the quality assurance of the center’s phone calls.
-Dr. Jon
Answered: 11/05
1. Better software to do value-based routing of inbound callers. 2. Cross-channel integration. 3. More sophisticated agent monitoring and coaching techniques. 4. Smaller call centers that are geographically dispersed, but virtually managed. 5. IVR equipment enhanced with speech recognition, making it seem very much like customers are talking to live agents. 6. Caller data warehousing with active ad hoc data mining.
Barbara, this is really two questions.
The first answer is simply “take your total contact center budget and divide it by the total number of contacts handled by your center in the same time period as you budget….this will yield cost per contact, and is typically how this performance measure is calculated…..there are permutations of this, but let’s keep it simple for now.
The second question is “not that simple.” This depends so much on the product, its complexity, the user documentation, the intuitiveness of the product, and, and, and...
Once you have been running a center that handles customer service calls, it is very common to come up with the statistic you seek for that center...if this is your case, there are existing statistical formulae to forecast changes in sales revenue volumes.
There are no generic predictive formulae to estimate the number of service reps for all products simply given their annual sales revenue.
Dr. Jon Anton
12/20/2004
In a recent One-Minute Survey posed to our community of call center professionals, we asked the question, "What portion of your total customer service contacts is completed on your Web site?"
For the majority of respondents, only a small percentage of total contacts is handled via their Web site. Given the lower cost of a Web-based contact, more and more customer service centers are beginning to offer incentives to their customers to encourage them to use the Web as an alternative self-service channel. Of those respondents who do currently offer these kind of incentives, "product discount" and "priority service" were the most popular examples. Some examples of the "other" responses were "points in our loyalty program" and "discounted shipping."
I am part of the team at Bronco Communications that has implemented the MacDonald’s drive-thru window service completely using VOIP. We go from the “Radio Shack” speaker box in the drive thru lane to a DSL line over the Internet to our call center, where a relaxed agent takes the order and has ample time to up-sell, and then submit the order in “zero” time to the kitchen at the MacDonald’s fast food restaurant. This application would NOT be possible without the new computer telephony technology.
-Dr. Jon (answered 8/22/05)
In our experience, these are really two different and important key performance indicators (KPIs). I would track them separately.
We have a technical support industry report that tracks both KPIs.
-Dr. Jon Anton
Answered 07/2005
No...not necessarily...Facilitate the search and use on your Web site using a chat window. It is simple, effective, and low cost. BTW, the chat agent could easily be virtual in North American, or really anywhere.
Rinu, adding a “net-sage” to a Web site has become very popular. I have observed a number of Web site where such a virtual assistant does, in fact, improve the use of self-service search, and does get the Web visitor to their answer quicker. My answer would be that virtual assistants are definitively worth investigating.
-Dr. Jon Anton
Answered: 01/10/05
