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Transcript of The Power of One, or Why is Adherence important? This presentation has been placed on the Mitan web...
The Power of One,or
Why is Adherence important?
This presentation has been placed on the Mitan web site since a number of contributors to the Professional Planning Forum discussion forum have requested copies of it. If anyone knows who the original author is then
please email the information to Mitan, so that a proper acknowledgement can be added.
Why is Adherence important?
What Is Adherence…?
Adherence is a measure of how closely agents stick or “adhere” to their shift patterns
It measures both how long agents spend in on-phone / off-phone activities and when they spend that time
When we accurately predict the volume of calls coming in and prepare shift patterns to meet that volume then adherence can have a huge effect on our service levels
It does this by comparing the information from the agents shift schedules with the information from the ACD
Click on your
mouse to continue
Cont…..
In resource planning we forecast the number of calls that we expect each section to receive in every 15 minute period of the day
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mouse to continue
We add in the average transaction time and forecast the number of Agents required to answer the calls and hit the service levels
How does this translate to what actually happens on the day……….?
I have used a simulation programme to accurately show what happens when adherence goes wrong
Why is Adherence important?Cont…..
We are going to look at one hour of a contact centre operation 10am - 11am
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mouse to continue
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
10:00-10:15 10:15-10:30 10:30-10:45 10:45-11:00
CSA's required CSA's provided For each 15-min period we predicted that we needed 37 Agents in order to hit the service level of 90% in 20 secs
The shifts have been issued out to all, they include breaks, lunches, Team meetings etc to leave 37 Agents on the phones across the hour
We will look at each 15-min interval in turn to look at the effect of adherence on Service levels
Why is Adherence important?
The above example will show the first fifteen minute period.
Each period is identical in that we will receive 90 calls. The average transaction time is 300 seconds (5 mins) and we are trying to answer 90% of all calls in 20 seconds
So how did we do………?
We received 90 calls at
300 secs per call
We are trying to hit 90% in 20
With 37 agentsResulting in a 90.3%
Service level
During the period there is, on average, no more than one call in the queue at any time and customers, on average, wait less than 7 seconds to be answered
On average, during the period 30 Agents (blue) will be dealing
with a call
On average 7 will be in available (yellow)
All Agents will spend 18.9% of the 15min period in
available
Look over the information in this scenario and then click
on your mouse when you are ready to continue
This is an example of what should happen.
The customer is happy as their call is being answered in a reasonable time
The Agents are happy as they are not under severe pressure
The business is happy as this scenario puts us in the best place to achieve our service levels
and greater Customer Satisfaction
Overall we answered 90.3% of calls in 20 seconds
Let’s see what happened in the next 15-min interval
Click on your mouse to run the scenario
Click on your mouse to continue or click on the green button to return to
the scenario results
One of the Agents takes an extra 15mins on their break so that they can chat with a friend. They don’t imagine that it will matter much as things don’t look that busy
So what is the impact if any………?
Now with only 36 agents The Service
level has dropped 4.5%
to 85.8% The average queue size is now over 1 and the average wait time has increased by 3 seconds to 10 seconds
per customer
On average during the period 30 Agents (blue) will be dealing
with a callOn average 6 will be in available (yellow)
Availability has dropped 2% to 16.7%
Look over the information in this scenario and then click
on your mouse when you are ready to continue
So even the removal of just one Agent can have a huge effect on our service levels
Customers have to wait longer to be answered
The remaining staff are under more pressure as they work harder to make up for the absence of
their colleague
85.8% of calls were answered in 20 seconds in this period. Overall so far in the hour the
service level is now 87.8%
Now on to the third period….Click on
your mouse to run the scenario
Click on your mouse to continue or click on the green button to return to
the scenario results
At this point one of the Team leaders decides to bring forward their team’s planned 30-min meeting to 10:30 (it was originally planned for 10:45 to coincide with the arrival of 6 further Agents starting their shifts)
What does this scenario show us………?
Now with only 31 agents The Service
level has dropped 62.5%
to 25.3%! The average queue size is now 24 calls (which will
increase the Abandonment rate) and the average wait time has increased by 232 secs (nearly 4 mins)!
On average, during the period 30 Agents (blue) will be dealing
with a call
On average only 1 will be in available
(yellow)
Availability has dropped 15% to 3.2%!
Look over the information in this scenario and then
click on your mouse when you are ready to continue
The effect on the office is devastating
Customers are now waiting almost 4 minutes to be answered
This will actually increase the number of incoming calls as customers try to get through, abandon and
then try again later
Agents are taking one call after another almost constantly, increasing the pressure they’re under
This is not an environment to achieve greater Customer Satisfaction
25.3% of calls were answered in 20 secs. Overall so far in the hour the service level is now 67%
And now the final 15-min periodClick on your mouse to continue or click on the green button to return to
the scenario results
Click on your mouse to run the scenario
The T/L realises that the office is under pressure and quickly concludes the Team meeting. They assume that as they are now back on the phones and have the addition of 6 Agents just starting their shift that the situation will be recovered soon
Were they right………?
Now with 43 agents The Service level has risen 76% to 99.3%! The average queue size is now zero, meaning that each
customer is answered almost immediately as the average wait time is less than a second
On average, during the period 30 Agents (blue) will be dealing
with a call
On average 13 Agents will be in available
(yellow)
Availability has risen to over 30%!
Look over the information in this
scenario and the click on your mouse when
you are ready to continue
Being 6 Agents overstaffed adds only 9.3% to the service level where taking 6 away loses 65%!
Customers are being answered quicker but this is virtually undetectable by the customer
30% availability looks attractive but this often produces the “drag” factor as Agents don’t feel
busy enough, call times increase and we can actually be providing an inferior service
This is wasted resource as we could hit our service levels with 37 Agents
Although the Service level in this period is 99.3%
the overall service level for the hour is 75%. Click on
your mouse to run the scenario
Click on your mouse to continue or click on the green button to return to
the scenario results
•Overall in this hour we achieved 75% Service Level when we predicted that 90% was attainable
•In overall adherence terms we had only 15-mins extra off-phone activity than was planned (the Agent who went over on their break)
•Though the last 15-minute period helped improve the service level we would need to repeat this performance for the next 2 hours to get back to 90% in 20 overall!
•This shows the importance, not only of overall adherence (taking the correct amount of time) but accuracy as well (sticking to the time of the day)
Click on your
mouse to continue
Why is Adherence important?
Key things to consider -
•We try to match the number of Agents required to the number of Agents shifted in for every 15-min interval
•Even the removal of 1 Agent has an effect on service levels
•The removal of more than 1 Agent can have a potentially devastating effect
•It is not possible to “fix” it by putting the Agents back or by overstaffing, the damage may have been already done
•Lack of adherence damages the service to our customers and the work of our colleagues Click on
your mouse to continue
Why is Adherence important?
The above example will show the first fifteen minute period.
Each period is identical in that we will receive 90 calls. The average transaction time is 300 seconds (5 mins) and we are trying to answer 90% of all calls in 20 seconds
So how did we do………?
We received 90 calls at
300 secs per call
We are trying to hit 90% in 20
With 37 agentsResulting in a 90.3%
Service level
During the period there is, on average, no more than one call in the queue at any time and customers, on average, wait less than 7 seconds to be answered
On average, during the period 30 Agents (blue) will be dealing
with a call
On average 7 will be in available (yellow)
All Agents will spend 18.9% of the 15min period in
available
Click on the green
button to continue
One of the Agents takes an extra 15mins on their break so that they can chat with a friend. They don’t imagine that it will matter much as things don’t look that busy
So what is the impact if any………?
Now with only 36 agents The Service
level has dropped 4.5%
to 85.8% The average queue size is now over 1 and the average wait time has increased by 3 seconds to 10 seconds
per customer
On average during the period 30 Agents (blue) will be dealing
with a callOn average 6 will be in available (yellow)
Availability has dropped 2% to 16.7%
Click on the green
button to continue
At this point one of the Team leaders decides to bring forward their team’s planned 30-min meeting to 10:30 (it was originally planned for 10:45 to coincide with the arrival of 6 further Agents starting their shifts)
What does this scenario show us………?
Now with only 31 agents The Service
level has dropped 62.5%
to 25.3%! The average queue size is now 24 calls (which will
increase the Abandonment rate) and the average wait time has increased by 232 secs (nearly 4 mins)!
On average, during the period 30 Agents (blue) will be dealing
with a call
On average only 1 will be in available
(yellow)
Availability has dropped 15% to 3.2%!
Click on the green
button to continue
The T/L realises that the office is under pressure and quickly concludes the Team meeting. They assume that as they are now back on the phones and have the addition of 6 Agents just starting their shift that the situation will be recovered soon
Were they right………?
Now with 43 agents The Service level has risen 76% to 99.3%! The average queue size is now zero, meaning that each
customer is answered almost immediately as the average wait time is less than a second
On average, during the period 30 Agents (blue) will be dealing
with a call
On average 13 Agents will be in available
(yellow)
Availability has risen to over 30%!
Click on the green
button to continue