Knowlagent and Ventana Research shares insights into new research about key operational metrics, including idle time. View these slides to learn which call center rules can be broken in order to provide superior customer service.

1. Breaking Call Center Rules:
Find Time to Wow Customers
PRESENTED BY:
Matt McConnell, CEO, Knowlagent
Richard Snow, Vice President and Research Director, Ventana
Research
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2. Agenda
Call Center Trends
Agent Performance & Customer Experience
Efficiencies, Occupancy and Utilization
Understanding Idle Time
Case Study
Final Observations
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3. Call Center Trends
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4. Priorities for Investing in Contact Centers
Increase Customer Satisfaction 54%
Reduce Operational Costs 18%
Adhere to Regulations 10%
Gain Competitive
7%
Advantage
NOT to scale
Based on #1 responses
Source: Ventana Research State of CC Technologies Benchmark Research
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5. Handling Customer Interactions
82% of Companies Indicated the Need to Improve the Handling of Customer
Interactions
Increase Customer Satisfaction 89%
Improve Business Processes 72%
Increase Customer Retention 70%
Reduce Operational Costs 70%
Source: Ventana Research Agent Performance Management Benchmark Research
Source: Ventana Research Agent Performance Management Benchmark Research
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6. Quality of the Customer Experience
The Attitude of Agents 26%
The Ability of Agents to Understand the Issue 23%
Queue Lengths 20%
The Ability of Agents to Resolve Issues at the First 20%
Attempt
Agent Knowledge 8%
Consistency of Based on #1 choice ONLY
Information
2%
Agent performance is vital to the customer experience
and customer satisfaction
Source: Ventana Research CEM Benchmark Research
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7. Efficiency of Interaction Handling
Optimize agent utilization 30%
Divert interactions to self-service 24%
Optimize call routing - skill-based 18%
Improve agent training 9%
Improve QM process 7%
Formalize
agent coaching 2%
Source: Ventana Research Agent Performance Management Benchmark Research
Source: Ventana Research Agent Performance Management Benchmark Research
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8. Key Objectives for Improving Performance
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9. Priorities for Improving Agent Performance
80% of Companies Say it is Very Important to Improve Agent
Performance
Improve Customer Satisfaction 82%
Improve First Contact Resolution Rates 72%
Improve Agent Satisfaction 66%
Make Better Use of Agent
Idle Time
40%
Reduce Agent Turnover 30%
Increase Agent
Training Times
29%
Source: Ventana Research Agent Performance Poll
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10. Time Invested for Improvements
Industry Average Composition of Secondary Loss
21% Training
17% Coaching
16% Team Meetings
11% Projects
9% Paperwork
9% Call Research / Follow-up
17% Email, Call Back,
Knowledge Base, etc.
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Source: 2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey
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11. Efficiencies, Occupancy and Utilization
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12. Target Agent Occupancy Rates
Target %
The Average Target for Agent 95% 11%
Occupancy is 83% 90%
85%
17%
19%
80% 18%
Reasons why targets are NOT 100%:
#1 Agents are required to do other tasks as well
as answering calls
#2 A rate any higher would cause agent burn-out
#3 Raising the rate is impractical given the
uncertainty of call volumes/patterns
#4 This is an operational decision
#5 We are not able to forecast idle time
Source: Ventana Research Agent Performance Poll
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13. Profile of a Typical Agent Shift
Source: Ventana Research Agent Performance Poll
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14. Understanding Idle Time
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15. Managing Wait Time
40% of companies schedule
agent time in 15 minute slots,
34% in 30 minute slots,
and13% only do it by shift.
On average agents are only
idle for 2 minutes at a time.
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16. There is a Lot of Wait Time in The Call Center
2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey
100% Secondary Loss
12% (off-phone work)
90%
80% Primary Loss
18%
17% (absenteeism, vacation, etc.)
70%
11% Wait Time
60%
50%
40%
30% 60% Call Handle Time
20%
10%
0%
Source: 2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey
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17. Five Weeks of Really Bad, Boring Vacation
The average agent waits:
• 48 Minutes Every 100%
Day 12%
90%
• 240 Minutes Every80%Week 17%
18%
• 960 Minutes Every70%Month 11% Wait Time
60%
• 11,520 Minutes Every Year
50%
40%
• Five Weeks! 30% 60%
Costs our industry $30Bn/Yr
20%
10%
0%
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18. Can I Reduce Shrinkage Hours & Deliver Quality?
Shrinkage hours can be reduced by moving off-phone shrinkage
activities into wait time creating “Active Wait”.
Secondary Loss
(off-phone work)
Active Wait
Wait Time
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19. Active Wait
Off-phone activities are assigned to
agents forming "Activity Queues”.
Content is dynamically delivered
to agents during downtimes in
call volume.
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20. Active Wait - Shift Off Phone Activities
Today
Occupancy
Call Volume
Tomorrow
Occupancy
Call Volume
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21. Moving Shrinkage to Active Wait
Labor Savings $7,830,000
$810,000
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22. Push Almost Any Activity From Shrinkage to Wait
Training/ Knowledge Back-Office
Communication
Performance
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23. Customer Satisfaction
Getting First Call Resolution Done
Major U.S. Telecommunications Company
Using Knowlagent to deliver more training, coaching,
and communications to over 45,000 agents
Increased Delivery
“Delivered more training time to a site in 5 days using
RightTime than was delivered over 1 month when
manually scheduling time”
Improved Take Rate
“71.7% take rate for RightTime
vs. 59.4% take rate for pre-scheduled breaks”
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24. Deploying the productivity gains
Agent Agent
Productivity Performance
Increase training, coaching, and communications to:
• Increase FCR
New methods
• Increase Customer Satisfaction
• Increase Retention
Performance
Agent
Traditional
Methods
Time
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25. Final Observations
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26. Key Takeaways
• Customer requirements drive increased focus on customer
experience
• Idle time is abundant and useful if optimized with appropriate tools
“Rule” to Bend – Wait/ idle time is unproductive.
“Rule” to Break – High shrinkage is a fact of life.
“Rule” to Ignore – Wait/ idle time improves agent satisfaction.
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27. Contact Info
Matt McConnell
matt.mcconnell@knowlagent.com
Richard Snow
Richard.Snow@ventanaresearch.com
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