Archive for January, 2010

What to consider when I create my forecast besides Historical data?

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

From previous post: “The idea is to use a model.  A model based on historical data.”

We have created a model or pattern for our call flow.  What else should we consider?  Here are some examples for our two Road Side Assistance call flow types:

Sales call flow:

  • TV promotions – What would be the impact in call volume if your Road Side Assistance company decides to advertise on TV during the Super Bowl?
    • I would suggest you meet with your Marketing department once a month, covering the next three months of promotions
  • Invoices – Is the Road Side Assistance billing always on the same day for all the customers?  Twice a month?  What would happen if instead of billing half the customers the first week of the month and half the customers the third week of the month, a decision is made to charge every customers the first week of the month?
  • What if, by mistake, customers are billed twice?  How can we plan that?  Is there a plan to change the billing application or system in three months from now?
  • Is there a new competitor with a breath taking pricing out there?
  • Did you install a new IVR (Interactive Voice response) that will allow the caller do get resolution without talking to a live agent?

Assistance support call flow:

  • At what time of the day is there more cars on the road?  Morning before work?  After work?  Nights? Week-ends?  You are right all of those would be part of the pattern based on historical data. What about Holiday week-end?
  • Is there a major weather storm planned in the next few days?  Is it more likely to have more assistance requests?

How can we forecast the number of calls we will receive if the marketing planned a promotion in the newspaper or on TV?  You need to use different sources of information.

First, currently in your Call Centre, what is the ratio of calls received / sales completed?

Then, how many sales is the marketing department planning to do based on the promotion?  At what time will the TV commercial be on the air?

Can we say we might roughly receive calls two times the number of sales planned?  (Hopefully a bit less, if the marketing was done properly, we would have a better hit rate than 2 to 1…)

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How do I calculate a weighted average?

Monday, January 18th, 2010

The equation is:

If we take our Road Side Assistance Call Centre, we currently have two call flows, two queues.  One for Sales and one for Assistance.

If yesterday, we received 500 Sales calls with a Service Level of 80% and we received 215 Assistance calls at a Service Level of 90%, what is the Service Level of the Road Side Assistance Call Centre?

I have seen many people simply take the two queues’ results, 80% and 90%, add them and divide by 2 = 85%.

But the correct answer is 83%. (Rounded)

The weight of the Sales calls (500) in the day is more important than the Assistance calls (215).  The Sales Service Level has more weight.  How much weight?  500 / (500+215).

In this case, the equation would be:

(500 / (500 +215)) * 80 + (215 / (500 +215)) * 90 = 83.

Number of Sales calls divided by the total number of calls = Sales queue weight.

Number of Assistance calls divided  by the total number of calls = Assistance queue weight

Service Level = (Sales queue weight * Sales queue Service Level) + (Assistance queue weight * Assistance queue Service Level)

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Why do you need Call Centre Management?

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

The short answer to “Why do you need Call Centre Management?” is that you need to analyze past data to forecast the future volume in your Call Centre.

To do so, you need to create a model.  Here is a simple example.

Let’s take an ice cream sandwich manufacture and a road side assistance call centre.

Ice cream sandwich manufacture:

  • Open 24/7
  • Objective: 21 000 boxes / week

Road side assistance call centre:

  • Open 24/7
  • Objective: 80/20 (We will talk about this soon!)
  • Two incoming call flows:
    • Sales
    • Assistance needed

For the ice cream sandwich manufacture, the management team would create schedules around the objective.  One of the possible solutions is to have three 8-hours shift per day with the objective of 1 000 boxes per shift.  Which would mean 3 000 boxes a day and 21 000 boxes a week.

For the Road side assistance Call Centre needs to “wait” for the calls to come in.  To a certain extent, the Call Centre do not control how busy it will be.  The idea is to use a model.  A model based on historical data.

For this example, I have created the below model for some intervals in a day.  In real life, it would have been an average day, per interval, including call volume and AHT – Average Handle Time.  (We will talk about this soon!)

As you can see, the call pattern for an average day where the morning starts slow, growing busier, slower around lunch time, then growing busier in the afternoon and finally slowing down at the end of the day.

In this case, we would would obviously try to set the lunch breaks at the middle of the day.  Your staffing model (graph curve) would need to follow the model curve.

If your are scheduling your call centre staff with a pen and paper vs a workforce management application, you would need to create many different models.

Here are some exmaples:

Average Monday, average Tuesday, average Wednesday, (…)  Those daily models would then bring you to a day of the week factor.  Through out the year, your call volume will change.  You will not receive the same call volume every month.  Your call volume and your AHT will differ monthly and weekly.

After gathering your interval data every day, you will get to a point where you have a pattern you can apply to your schedules.  Obviously, you will not receive the same number of calls you gathered from your historical data but you will have at least the model on how the day/week/month will look like.

Next post: What else should I consider besides historical data?

Luc Denis

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What is Call Centre Management?

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

CallCentreGuru.caI have seen many different definitions of Call Centre Management.  The high level definition we will use in this site is the science of having the right number of agents at the right time.

Note 1: I used science, while other sources would use art.  What is the difference?  I do not see any, we all agree in this definition it means the same thing.  But when I look back on my career in Call Centres, I have used historical data, math and past experience.  I wouldn’t considered it art.

Note 2: In this site I will be using the term Call Centre and not Contact Centre.  What is the difference?  This time there is a difference.  By definition, a Call Centre manages calls from/to the customers.  A Contact Centre manages calls, e-mails, fax, web chat, etc from/to the customers.  This being said, many of the topics discussed in this site will be applicable to both.

The objective of this site is to help you achieve having the right number of agents at the right time.

In your Call Centre, the group responsible to achieve this task are usually called the Call Centre Management analysts.

Who are they?

  • Well, they are usually the folks you go see and mostly their answer is “no”.
  • When the Call Centre is not achieving the service level or TSF objective, they are the first blamed.
  • When the Call Centre is over achieving the service level or TSF objective, they are the first blamed.
  • When the Call Centre is right on target for the service level or TSF, they see the credit go to the agents and management! ;-)

Next week: What is the TSF or Service Level and we we calculate it.

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Welcome to Call Centre Guru!

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

CallCentreGuru.ca

Hi,  I am pleased to share my Call Centre expertize with you.  I have been working in Call Centres for more than 15 years and I have been lucky enough to work in many different fields within Call Centres.  From agent on the phone to Forecasting and Planning, to management, Call Recording, speaker to conferences…

On a weekly basis, I will post a note on a Call Centre related topic.  Feel free to add your comments and questions.

Call Centre Guru

Luc Denis

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