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09
Feb

Take the Guesswork Out of Staff Forecasting

We’ve just come through two periods that may have put some pressure on you to closely monitor call volume: the holiday sales period starting on Black Friday and the post-holiday returns and discounts period. We tend to refer to periods such as these as “peak” periods—those where call volumes increase over normal levels for an extended period of time. Depending on the nature of your business, you may have other peaks during the year as seasonal demand for products and services.

Staffing for peak periods can be stressful because accurate staffing goes a long way toward balancing excellent customer service and cost-effective operations.  You want the right staff on hand to handle calls in a timely manner while keeping staff-related costs within budget.

So then, what does it mean to have “the right staff”? There are two common variables to look at here:

  • The number of staff scheduled for shifts.

Overstaffing  can be costly in wages. As well, you may be paying for  more physical space and equipment than you need. Understaffing can be costly in terms of customer service if calls wait too long in queues or you have overtaxed agents trying to deal with customer issues.

  • The experience level of agents.

You need to find the appropriate knowledge balance for each shift. More experienced agents can provide support to junior staff, whether it’s regarding  knowledge transfer or issue resolution. However, you don’t want to overweight shifts with more senior staff than is really needed because these are likely your most expensive staff in terms of wages.

In September’s blog, we talked about the benefits of using workforce management software  to assist with both agent scheduling and adherence. Understanding the agent resources available to you is a good start to staffing shifts properly and in a cost-effective way.

However, developing a predictive approach to forecasting staffing requirements is invaluable. Predictive forecasting means basing future staff schedules on well-founded assumptions about expected demand, such that you can accurately estimate future workloads. In our case, this means anticipating call volume and understanding the resources (such as agent experience and queue capacity) available to meet call demand.

One of the best ways to predict future activity is to look at similar periods in the past. Here’s where a reporting solution can provide a wealth of data. Being able to look not just at last year’s data, but several years of accumulated data helps you separate the meaningful call patterns from the true aberrations. Let’s say that call volume increased 25% in December for four of the past five years. On first glance, it would seem reasonable to plan for a 25% increase this year. It’s important, though, to look at the circumstances around call volume in that fifth year.

  • If call volume was significantly higher than 25%, find out whether your company took any extra measures to reach new customers or to introduce special promotions. There may also have been external reasons, such as an increase in your region’s population or the close of a competitor’s business.
  • If call volume was significantly lower than 25%, try to find whether there is any justification for the decrease. Anything from an economic recession to a shift in the company’s objectives or  executive team should be looked at carefully to understand whether they may come into play this year.

It’s well worth the time to develop a predictive approach to forecasting. When you add up the time between Black Friday and the end of the January sales season, we’re really not talking about a small blip in normal activity. In fact, this time period represents 25% of your annual call patterns. Understanding what happened this year will greatly increase your ability to develop accurate schedules next year.

We hope we’ve given you good reasons to take the guesswork out of staff forecasting, Next month, we’ll look at statistics and techniques that will give you the basis for making accurate predictions.

See you next month.

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Posted in Call Center Operations, Software, Workforce Management

12
Jan

Keeping Your Holiday Customers Happy

Congratulations. You’ve made it through the holiday season.  If you followed the tips in our December blog, you probably picked up new customers, provided incentives for customers to purchase your products or services, and supported your staff through the busiest time of the year. Be careful though. You’re not quite ready yet to take a break and recouperate. Let’s talk about a few things you may encounter in the post-holiday period.

  • Followup service

While we hope that customers are satisfied with the purchases they made leading up to the holidays, it’s best to have plans for dealing with customers who need to return products or request technical assistance. You may also have customers calling to express dissatisfaction over problems with shipping or delivery. Although we try to provide the best service possible, mistakes do happen.

  • Continued high call volumes

In an attempt to boost slower post-holiday sales or to clear last year’s products to make way for new ones, your company may offer deep discounts during January. These discounts may result in calls from customers who, having purchased those same products at higher prices a few weeks ago, have questions about pricing guarentees. (Of course, just like special promotions offered in December, these discounts may attract many potential first-time customers for whom you want to provide an efficient transaction experience.)

Regardless of the reason that existing  customers are calling, make sure your call center can turn them into satisfied customers. Here are a few tips for keeping your customer retention rate as high as possible:

  • Use self-service methods to resolve the customer issue before even being connected to an agent.

In December’s blog, we talked about using reporting software to “tag” reasons for calls. Continuing to draw from that data, update the information available to customers to make it relevant for new circumstances. For example, your IVR introduction may have provided information about delivery timeframes in December. Now, it may be more relevant to provide details about your return policy.

  • Make the time with the agent productive.

As soon as possible after a call is received by the telephone system, let the customer know what information they will need on-hand when talking with an agent, such as the date of purchase or make and model number of a product. This approach reduces the number of customers who wait in a queue, only to find out that they need to call back because they don’t have enough information to complete a transaction. (Don’t forget to keep an eye on real-time statistics in your call center. You may want to adjust the acceptable length of time that calls wait in queues in order to answer calls more quickly.)

  • Give agents the authority to deal with issues, as appropriate for their individual skills and experience.

No matter how hard you try to please your customers, some customers will have unreasonable expectations about what you should do for them. Make sure that agents understand what authority they have to offer solutions to customers and be clear about when they should contact their managers for input on difficult situations.

Look at issue-resolution as an opportunity to increase the loyalty of customer for your business. A really positive issue-resolution experience shows your customers that you’ll honor your customer satisfaction policies without hassle. Not only will those customers come to you first for future purchases, they may even recommend you to others.

Next month, we’ll talk about how you can use the data you’ve gathered over the last few months to plan for future call volume peaks and for changes in your business that affect call center forecasting.

See you next month.

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Posted in Call Center Operations, Customer Relationship Management, Software

12
Dec

Addressing Three Common Challenges During the Holiday Season

With Black Friday behind us and Christmas fast approaching, you’re probably already in the midst of seasonal call volume peaks that occur for many businesses. In fact, you may have noticed that this year, and perhaps over the last few years, that this peak has increased due to changes in the shopping practices of your customers. Online and telephone shopping may be displacing some portion of your in-store sales.

Given our current economic climate, this seasonal peak can bring some interesting challenges. Let’s look at three that we see frequently.

First-time Customer Experience

Your business may try to reach out to new customers during this the gift-giving season by introducing new products, fresh marketing strategies, or special promotions. If these campaigns are successful, your business may have the “good” problem of handling potential first-time customers. You don’t want to be caught off-guard, as many businesses were this past Black Friday, with wait times 139% higher than normal.

Making a positive first impression during your busiest season may require some extra effort or processes. Agents may be under more pressure dealing with higher call volumes and impatient or frustrated customers.  Give your agents scripts to start the call, customized for greetings that are appropriate. If possible, try to find out early in each call if this is a potentially new customer, and make agents aware that it’s OK to spend more time with these callers because you want to ensure all their questions are answered before ending the call.

Of course, all customers should get great service, but paying special attention to first-timers is a good way to turn them into long-term, loyal customers.

Fewer Discretionary Spending Dollars

It’s no secret that consumers are being more cautious with their discretionary dollars. Many are choosing to cut back on the number of gifts they purchase, social events they attend, or organizations they donate to.  With fewer dollars available, you want to capture as much of the spending as possible.

Simple solutions probably aren’t realistic given the cost-controls in effect for many businesses. For example, you could increase your sales force, but the near-term cost may be prohibitive. As well, what do you do with your increased sales force after call volumes return to normal levels?

There’s another solution that may cost you some time, but the return on the investment may be significant. Provide cross-training for staff to broaden the types of calls they can respond to. A good example is to train your support agents to answer questions and take orders related to upgrades or product accessories, resulting in fewer transferred calls to other departments. This means sales agents can stay focussed on first-time customer inquiries and take fewer calls about upgrades. Not only does a cross-training strategy increase the productivity of various departments in your business, but customers are happier. Regardless of the original purpose of the call, a customer dealt with a single point of contact in your organization for guidance through one or more issues.

Overtaxed Agents

As we mentioned earlier, higher call volumes can be a burden on agents. Adding to the busier workload, agents may resent that they have to work at all. It wasn’t long ago that Thanksgiving and Christmas were “guaranteed” statutory holidays. Now, you may have to explain to employees that not only will they be working those days, but they may need to take on additional shifts or extended hours. Overtime pay itself may not resolve negative feelings about lost personal time.

You can at least mitigate some of the negativity by implementing tools and processes to help alleviate the burden. Identifying trends or common issues among calls may allow you to direct callers to other resources, such as videos on your online storefront, FAQs on your website, or self-service options in the IVR. One useful way to track commonalities among calls is to ask agents to “tag” the reason for each call, such as “Return Policy” or “Warranty”. If your reporting software supports tracking these tags (often referred to as reason or account codes), you can report on them. Even answering the most-frequently asked question as part of the IVR introduction may help to reduce call volumes, and allow agents to deal with a broader scope of issues.

Good luck with your holiday season. Keep tracking those key metrics and, if you haven’t already, start collecting data related to the seasonal peaks you may be seeing now. Over the next couple of months, we’ll look at how you can use this information to look ahead and anticipate factors that affect the performance of your contact center.

Happy holidays.

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Posted in Call Center Operations, Customer Relationship Management

10
Nov

Answering Customer Service Challenges in Healthcare

Many of our blogs have been on the subject of key metrics and how you can use them to contribute to the bottom line of your business. This month, we’re going to look at challenges in the healthcare industry and how contact centers can turn improved service into successful results while managing costs.

The Challenges

Healthcare is expensive. Whether you’re a supplier of products or services, or a patient in need of them, there’s no question that costs in this industry are becoming prohibitive. Unfortunately, demographics show that our aging population will just increase the burden on this industry over time. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that the proportion of the population 65 years old or more will increase to 19.6% by 2030. In the U.S., the problem is more complex given that there is more choice than ever for clients who are able to choose their healthcare. This industry has become extremely competitive with a variety of organizations and services vying for clients in the same marketspace. Passing costs on to the customer is not an option.

A contact center in a healthcare organization faces some special challenges. Your agents are the first point of contact for your organization. No matter how good your healthcare team is, customers will quickly become frustrated if they can’t get through to make appointments. Furthermore, if your contact center handles emergency calls or triages healthcare inquiries, the environment may be highly stressful. The wrong decision has life-threatening consequences. Lowering patient care is not an option.

On top of these considerations, social media plays a role in your ability to compete. Whether it comes from government watchdogs or individual patients, the viral nature of online communications means that word – good or bad —spreads instantly. Unfortunately, you may lose potential customers just based on one poorly handled call.

One Organization’s Solution

In our blogs, we don’t talk about our own products and customers as a rule. In this case, though, we’d like to share the success of one of our customers in the healthcare industry. As the largest employer in North and South Dakota, Sanford Health provides an integrated healthcare system through its network of service facilities, which include many hospital departments, clinics, long-term care centers, and research centers. It’s the largest, rural, not-for-profit healthcare system in the United States, with a presence in 111 communities in 8 states. Through its dedication to the work of health and healing, the organization is building international clinics in Belize and Ireland.

Sanford’s success is based in the organization’s dedication to improving customer satisfaction through strong customer service. Here’s one example. Given the severe weather conditions in the geographic areas of their call centers, agents are not always able report for work on time. Calls to any agents who did not log out the previous evening are suspended in queues the next day, rather than being routed to afterhours services. Through innovative use of real-time reporting, the organization can now automatically log out all agents who are not able to report for work, resulting in better handling of customer calls. Check out the case study for more information about Sanford’s innovative use of real-time monitoring and reporting in their contact centers.

Every industry has its own challenges when it comes to providing quality customer service. Understanding those challenges and addressing them within your contact center goes a long way toward contributing to the overall success of your business. If you’ve found unique ways to meet challenges in your industry, we’d like to hear from you.

See you next month.

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Posted in Call Center Operations, Case Studies, Industry Specfic

06
Oct

Tips for Engaging Contact Center Staff in Key Metrics

Over the summer, we talked about the importance of defining key metrics such that they help your contact center contribute to the success of your business.  We hope that the information has helped you to set achievable metrics based on sound analysis of the factors that are critical to business objectives. Now, let’s look at one of the biggest barriers to meeting those objectives: lack of motivation among your employees to provide the service levels necessary to meet the targets.

We all hope that our employees find meaning in their work. Interest and engagement are great ways to keep employees invested in their jobs, which in turn, leads to lower turnover and higher ROI for your business. In many cases, however, the nature of contact center employment means that staff works regularly in highly frustrating or stressful customer interactions. Depending on the type and size of a contact center, many agents may be simply working for a paycheque, with plans to move on to other careers or opportunities. More often than not, reducing employee turnover is a fulltime endeavor, let alone finding employees who are interested in contributing to higher-level business objectives.

Here are some suggestions that may help you increase buy-in from your contact center staff on key metrics.

Make the Value of the Metrics Real

Try to find ways to show your agents the value of their efforts in a way that makes it personal to them. Each day, agents talk to clients about specific issues, whether they are trying to resolve product breakdowns or sell a new service. This can lead to a somewhat limited view of the end-user. If you can provide a bigger picture of who that customer is, agents may be reminded that they are offering a valuable service. For example, a contact center working for clients in the medical industry may need to be reminded that while they may be selling bandages and stethoscopes, their work contributes to health and safety in their community.

You may also be able to show agents the value of the products or services they are supporting. Encourage staff to use the products or services you provide, and, if possible, offer some free usage or samples. Similarly, if your company sends a percentage of sales or some other contribution to a charitable organization, show agents the improvements or effects of that work. You may even be able to give agents time off to volunteer with the organization, further increasing a personal connection between employees and your company’s outreach efforts.

Any way that you can make an aspect of your business relevant in a personal way is going to go a long way toward the way agents approach their work.

Make the Value of the Metrics Profitable

Incentive programs are the obvious way to increase the interest that agents have in meeting service levels. Be careful, though, to understand what rewards are important to your agents. Financial incentives may be well appreciated, but tend to provide only short-term results. You may see better results over a longer term by incenting employees through additional time off or the public recognition of awards.

Depending on the individuals, another great way to increase commitment and investment is to delegate more responsibility to those who have shown they make extra effort in customer satisfaction, operations, or team performance. Agents may start in your contact center with an eye to move up or laterally within your organization. Offer senior agents who have excelled the opportunity to become coaches to junior staff. These agents will appreciate that you’ve acknowledged their experience and the value they can offer by sharing what they’ve learned.

Another way to delegate responsibility is to provide appropriate agents with the opportunity to take part in working groups involved in the strategic directions of the business. Agents are your first line of contact with clients. One who has demonstrated a particularly good understanding of issues or techniques may have insights that other working group members don’t have the perspective to provide.

Whatever your incentive program is, make sure that the employees it’s offered to see value to them. This may mean that the program offers different levels of incentives or customized incentives for certain individuals on the team. The effort in creating a program of this type will pay off when agents have a reason to work toward business objectives, rather than simply putting in their hours.

Make the Value of the Metrics Understood and Measurable

It seems almost too obvious to state because we all understand that communication is important. However, it is always a good idea to make sure that the message you think you are communicating is actually the one being received. First, communicate to agents why the metrics are critical to the success of the business and the relationship to the call center’s work. As a followup, it’s critical to check in on a one-on-one basis with supervisors and agents about their understanding of that information to ensure it’s accurate.

For example, make sure that not only is there an understanding of the metrics themselves, but also, how the contact center performance will be measured on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. As well, let agents know whether meeting targets is acceptable or whether they are encouraged to exceed them.

Give agents a way to see whether they are making progress, and communicate the status on an ongoing basis. Some organizations provide wallboard displays of real-time statistics, with summaries of how they roll up into the higher-level metrics. Other organizations install software on individual agent computers for monitoring progress and customizing the information that’s displayed.

Regardless of how you communicate and measure progress, keep in mind that consistency is important. A variation in understanding across teams or individuals within the contact center can put efforts out of synch, and cause disruption in activities and performance.

When looking at ways to increase employee commitment to business objectives, don’t forget about those who aren’t on the front line in your contact center: the support personnel who keep your telephone system in operation, the IT staff who maintain your computer infrastructure, and the subject matter experts that your agents turn to with inquiries. Without the buy-in from these employees as well, the systems and knowledge that your contact center relies on can become barriers to your agents’ abilities to do their jobs effectively, no matter how motivated they are.

Without employee buy-in on your business objectives, there’s a problematic gap between those objectives and the people most important in meeting them. If you have other ideas or programs that increase the engagement of your employees in meeting key metrics, open a comment for discussion. We’d like to hear from you to share experiences.

See you next month.

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Posted in Call Center Operations, Measuring Performance

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