This preview shows
page 1. Sign up
to
Unformatted text preview: Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry Benchmark Report Best-in-Class Call Center Performance Principal Investigator
Dr. Jon Anton
Purdue University
Center for Customer-Driven Quality Content Editor
John Chatterley
BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Current as of 2005
Report ID# PU91
Revision 120605 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Copyright © 2005, BenchmarkPortal, Inc.
Please send detailed questions to:
Information@BenchmarkPortal.com
This report may not be copied, scanned or reproduced without the written permission of
BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Additional copies may be purchased at a reasonable price by e-mailing
Information@BenchmarkPortal.com or by calling (805) 614-0123 ext. 10.
PU91 Revision 120605 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Table of Contents
Acknowledgements v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 2: PARTIAL LIST OF BENCHMARK PARTICIPANTS 7 CHAPTER 3: LIST OF PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES IN THE BENCHMARK
RESEARCH 19 CHAPTER 4: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE HEALTH-PLAN / HEALTH-CARE
INDUSTRY CUSTOM BENCHMARKING REPORT 23 CHAPTER 5: DETAILED BENCHMARK RESULTS OF THE HEALTHPLAN/HEALTH-CARE INDUSTRY 57 CHAPTER 6: PERFORMANCE BY INDUSTRY 69 CHAPTER 7: BEST PRACTICES IN HEADSET MANAGEMENT IN CALL
CENTERS 73 Introduction
Selected Findings and Interpretations
Best Practice Recommendations
Summary and Conclusions 75
77
94
98 CHAPTER 8: PURDUE UNIVERSITY CALL CENTER CERTIFICATION
Introduction to Certification
How the Purdue University Call Center Certification is Unique
The Steps in the Certification Process 101
103
103
104 CHAPTER 9: BENCHMARKING METHODOLOGY: A CASE STUDY
Introduction
Definition of Case Study Terminology
Case Study Specifics
Why and How to Benchmark a Call Center
The In-Depth RealityCheck™ Peer Group Performance Matrix
The In-Depth RealityCheck™ Balanced Scorecard
The In-Depth RealityCheck™ Inbound Performance Comparison Report
The In-Depth RealityCheck™ Performance Ranking Report
Results and Conclusions
References 107
109
109
111
111
113
114
115
116
116
117 CHAPTER 10: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR 119 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FROM THE POPULAR “ASK DR. JON”
COLUMN 123 CRM BOOKSTORE INFORMATION 171 BENCHMARKPORTAL’S PRODUCTS AND SERVICES LISTING 175 GLOSSARY OF TERMS 195 Copyright © i 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report List of Figures
Figure 1. Kind of calls handled............................................................................................ 26
Figure 2. Inbound call types................................................................................................ 27
Figure 3. Reasons for inbound calls.................................................................................... 28
Figure 4. Outbound call types ............................................................................................. 29
Figure 5. Reasons for outbound calls.................................................................................. 30
Figure 6. Call center annual budgetary allocation ............................................................... 31
Figure 7. Average cost per inbound call.............................................................................. 32
Figure 8. Outbound cost per call ......................................................................................... 33
Figure 9. Average Service Level ......................................................................................... 34
Figure 10. Average speed of answer .................................................................................. 35
Figure 11. Average call handle time.................................................................................... 36
Figure 12. Average abandon rate........................................................................................ 37
Figure 13. Percent of calls closed on first call ..................................................................... 38
Figure 14. Agent occupancy percentage............................................................................. 39
Figure 15. Percent of up-sell and cross-sell opportunities ................................................... 40
Figure 16. Up-sell and cross-sell opportunities that result in sale (conversion rate)............. 41
Figure 17. Call centers that have a formal mechanism to gather customer
feedback ..................................................................................................................... 42
Figure 18. Percent perfect customer satisfaction perfect scores ......................................... 43
Figure 19. Percent lowest scores for customer satisfaction................................................. 44
Figure 20. Annual full-time Agent turnover rate for the Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry ....................................................................................................................... 45
Figure 21. Hiring cost of a new agent (agent) ..................................................................... 46
Figure 22. Length of new-hire training period...................................................................... 47
Figure 23. Agent labor union representation ....................................................................... 48
Figure 24. Call volume handled by part-time agents ........................................................... 49
Figure 25. Call centers integrated with other customer-access channels and
touch points................................................................................................................. 50
Figure 26. Features offered on company Web sites............................................................ 51
Figure 27. Percent of inbound calls handled by self-service................................................ 52
Figure 28. Percentage of self-service contacts by contact channel ..................................... 53
Figure 29. Percentage of call centers that outsource .......................................................... 54
Figure 30. Percentage of calls/functions outsourced........................................................... 55
Figure 31. Industry performance matrix............................................................................... 71
Figure 32. Industries represented by call centers participating in Survey One .................... 77 © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. ii This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Table of Contents Figure 33. Satisfaction with present headset management system .....................................78
Figure 34. Reasons for purchasing new call center headsets..............................................79
Figure 35. Percentage of participants purchasing new headsets during the past
year .............................................................................................................................80
Figure 36. Reasons for selection of the particular brand of headset purchased...................81
Figure 37. Percentage of call centers that measured call-handling statistics
before and after implementation of headsets ...............................................................82
Figure 38. Headset training offered .....................................................................................83
Figure 39. Training offered on proper headset usage for monitoring of calls........................84
Figure 40. Percentage of call centers with centralized headset management......................85
Figure 41. Percentage replacement units on hand ..............................................................86
Figure 42. Respondents’ rating of their current headset service provider.............................87
Figure 43. Likelihood to recommend the brand they use to other call center
professionals ...............................................................................................................88
Figure 44. Average price paid for a new wired headset .......................................................89
Figure 45. Average price per new wireless headset ............................................................90
Figure 46. Ratio of call centers that expense versus capitalize the cost of their
headsets......................................................................................................................91
Figure 47. Most important factor in deciding which brand of headset to purchase ...............92
Figure 48. The sixteen key call center processes ..............................................................104
Figure 49. Example of Certificate of Center of Excellence awarded by Purdue
University’s Center for Customer-Driven Quality. Signed by Dr. Jon Anton...............105
Figure 50. Peer Group Performance Matrix .......................................................................113
Figure 51. Balanced Scorecard .........................................................................................114
Figure 52. Inbound Performance Comparisons .................................................................115
Figure 52. Peer Group Ranking Report .............................................................................116 Copyright © iii 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. A cknowledgements
I want to thank the thousands of participating call center managers that help keep our
database current and compelling. I also want to acknowledge the hundreds of call center
solution vendors that sponsor our benchmark research at Purdue University. Dr Jon Anton
Center For Customer-Driven Quality
Purdue University Copyright © v 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 1:
INTRODUCTION Copyright © 1 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 1: Introduction The Importance of Benchmark Research
Over the past few years, companies in most industries have migrated their low-tech call
centers from back office support to the front-line of their enterprise. In this migration,
call centers have become e-business contact centers, and have been outfitted with the
latest in high-tech hardware and software for both voice and data applications. In
addition, the focus has shifted from a singular point-of-contact via telephone calls to
multiple points of customer access, including e-mail, fax-mail, kiosk, and the Internet.
The evolution and integration of these electronic customer “touch-points” is continuing to
accelerate, augmented by high-technology speech and data solutions that automate the
contact handling process, which are transforming the customer contact experience.
Driving e-business contact center development is the growing awareness that managing
customer relationships is a key driver of bottom-line profits. Today’s customers greatly
value timely accessibility to information. In fact, the vision of the customer e-business
center of the future is to allow customers access to information:
•
•
•
• at any time
from anywhere
in any form, and
for free. This ease of customer access is fast emerging as a critical element of global business
strategy. In the not-too-distant future, customers will deal preferentially with those
companies that are deemed to be most accessible in terms of mission-critical information
that is seamlessly integrated throughout all customer touch points.
As the “lightning rod” for customer interactions, world-class e-business contact centers
are becoming the single point of contact for customers. According to research conducted at
Purdue University, over 90% of customer interactions presently occurs through
e-business centers and the Internet. Fueled by tremendous advances in the integration of
telephone and computer technologies, the e-business center has emerged as a company’s
most potent weapon for maintaining long-term customer relationships.
For many companies, global competition has reduced products to mere commodities that
are difficult to differentiate through features, functions, or price. Having reached parity,
where price and quality are the “table-stakes” of doing business, the paradigm shift is
definitely toward customer acquisition, customer accessibility, customer satisfaction, and
customer retention aimed at improving the customer lifetime value.
Even in cases where a company can claim some competitive advantage in terms of
product, service, or market segment, the customer contact functions remain crucial keys
to customer perceptions and loyalty. Copyright © 3 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Today’s customer service e-business center is an ever more important link in building
business-to-business relationships, as well as relationships between a business and its
end-user customers. The cost and performance of a center can be critical to its success.
From reviewing the industry data, we conclude the following:
“Spend too little and perform poorly, and your contact center becomes a
business liability that consistently drives away customers and creates
market damage. Conversely, spend too much and over-perform, and your
center again becomes a financial loss to the company. If you spend
efficiently and perform effectively at a level just better than your
competitors or peer group, your call center will most likely be a profit
center for the company, i.e., acquiring, growing, and retaining profitable
customers.”
—Dr. Jon Anton, Call Center Benchmarking,
Purdue University Press, 1999
Executives are beginning to recognize the potential of the e-business center as a
significant revenue generator, perhaps one of the surest investments they can make in
enhancing and creating customer value and bottom-line profits. The return on
investments made in customer accessibility is seldom less than 100% in the first year,
and frequently even more if customer lifetime value is included in the calculation.
Herein lies the challenge and the primary reason to benchmark your center’s
performance metrics against your peer group, as well as centers representing
best-in-class performance. Benchmarking your e-business center performance against
a Peer Group of similar centers is a mandatory step in becoming and staying competitive.
This vital information, updated constantly, enables managers to remain competitive in a
cost-effective manner. The Purdue / BenchmarkPortal Research, now in its tenth year,
has the following unique attributes:
• It is a unique source for real-time best practice performance measures. • Competitive benchmarking reports for Peer-to-Peer comparison are available
within a week after your company’s performance data is obtained. • Performance is compared to a Peer Group with similar functional characteristics
(apples to apples) defined by you, the participant. All the reports are excellent tools to identify gaps in your performance, and therefore
areas in which your e-business center needs attention. While these reports should not be
used as the only source of your e-business contact center’s performance improvement
assessment, they are valuable to pinpoint areas that need more detailed analysis and
action.
Also, BenchmarkPortal maintains a staff of contact center auditors, i.e., in-house experts
and third-party consultants, who have been certified by Purdue University to help you
gather and input data and to interpret your e-business benchmark results. They can © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 4 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 1: Introduction assist you in finding the “low-hanging fruit” in terms of improvement initiatives that will
maximize your performance at a minimum cost.
It is our hope that the information contained in this report will not only prove useful in
and of itself, but will stimulate an understanding of, and interest in, the use of
benchmarking metrics as an indispensable tool for continuous performance improvement.
For questions contact Dr. Jon Anton: 805.614.0123
For your individualized report go to <www.BenchmarkPortal.com>. Copyright © 5 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 2:
PARTIAL LIST OF BENCHMARK PARTICIPANTS Copyright © 7 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 2: Partial List of Benchmark Participants Agway Energy Products
AIG
AIM Fund Services
Airborne Express
Alabama Power Company
ALARIS Medical Systems
Alcatel USA, Inc.
Align Technology
AllegianceTelecom
Allfirst
Alliance Data Systems
Alliance Teleservices, Inc
Alliant Energy
Allianz Life Insurance
Allied Marketing Group
Allison Engine Co.
Allmerica Finacial
Allstate Insurance Company
Alta Resources
Ameraan
America Online
American Bankers Financial
Services
American Collegiate Marketing
American Community Mutual
Insurance Company
American Electric Power
American Express
American Express Retirement
Services
American Family Insurance
Group
American Health Consultants
Inc.
American Home Shield
American Honda Motor Co, Inc.
American Management
Association
American Medical Association
American Medical Security
American Modern Insurance
Group
American Society for Quality
American Tool Companies, Inc.
American Trans Air (ATA)
American United Life Insurance
Co.
AmeriCredit Financial Services
Ameritas Variable Life Ins Co
Ameritech Cellular Services
Amex Assurance Company
Amica Mutual Ins Co
AmSouth 9 AMVESCAP Retirement
Amway Corporation
Analysts International
Anchorage Municipal Light &
Power
Andersen Consulting
Anexsys, LLC
Annuity Board, SBC
AnyTime Access
Aon Warranty Group
AP Wagner
Apple Computer
AppliedTheory Corporation
Aquarium of the Pacific
Aquila
ARAG Group
ARAMARK Corp
Arcadia Financial LTD.
Arizona Power & Light
Armstrong (Customer Service)
Armstrong (Tech Support)
Army & Air Force Exchange
Service
Art.com
Arthur Andersen
ArvinMeritor
Ascent Solutions, Inc.
Ashton Drake Group
Aspen Systems Corporation
Associate Capital Bank
Associated Bank
Associated Wholesale Grocers
Assurant Group
AT&T
AT&T Broadband
ATL Ultrasound
Atlantic Bank of New York
Atlantic Mutual Ins.
Atmos Energy
ATRoad Inc.
Attorney's Title Insurance Fund
Automobile Club of Southern
California
AutoZone, Inc.
Avaya Inc.
Aveda Corporation
AVOLO
AXA Advisors
Babson College
Baltimore Life Ins. Company
Bandag
Bank of America
Bank One Copyright © 1 World Design
1-800 contacts
1-Cooperative Response Center,
Inc
1st Financial Bank USA
1to1service.com
3M Company
66 Federal Credit Union
800 Support
91 Express Lanes/Cofiroute
A&P Tea Co.
A.T.Kearney
AAA Central-West Jersey
AAA Insurance
AAA Life Insurance Company
AAL
AARP
AB&C Group
AB&C Group
Abbott Laboratories Inc.
Abbott Resorts
ABC Inc.
ABN AMRO North America Inc
Acacia International
Access America
ACEINA
Acer America
ACI Ameritech
ACS Government Solutions
Group
ACS-EZPass
ACS-GSG
Acterna
Active Voice
Adam's Mark Hotels & Resorts
Adaptec, Inc.
AdminaStar Federal Inc
ADOA
ADP
ADS
ADTRAN
AdvancePCS
Advanta
Advocate Health Care
AEGON USA, Inc.
Aether Systems
Aetna Inc.
Affinity Group, Inc.
AFLAC
AFNI
AGCO PARTS DIV
Agilent technologies
AGLA 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report
Banner Health System
Baseline Financial Services
Bass Pro Shops
Batesville Casket Co.
Bausch & Lomb Surgical
Bay Federal Credit Union
Baylor Healthcare
Baystate Health Systems.
BearingPoint
Behr Systems Inc.
Belden
Bell Atlantic General Business
Services
Bell Tech.logix
Bell&Howell
Bendata, Inc
Benova Inc.
Bentley Systems, Inc.
Berkeley Enterprise Partners
Berlin Packaging
Bertelsmann Industry Services
Best Software
Best Western International
Better Health Insurance
Company
BHN/LS
BI Incorporated
BI Performance Services
Big Idea Productions
BillingZone
Biogen, Inc.
BISSELL Inc.
Bisys
Black & Decker
Black Box Corporation
Blackbaud
Blair Corporation
Block Business Call Center
Block Drug Company
Blue Cross Blue Shield
Blue Cross/WellPoint/Blue Shield
Bluegrass Cellular
BNSF Railway
Boeing
Bombardier Aerospace
Bombardier Aerospace
Bondag
Booz-Allen & Hamilton
Borden Chemical, Inc.
Bose
BOSS Internet Group
Branch Banking & Trust Co
Brigade
Brightpoint
Brink's Home Security
BroadbandNOW © Copyright Broadview Networks
Broder Bros.
Brodia
BRONSON Laboratories
Brown & Company
Brown & Williamson
Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
Brownells Inc
BSLD - Customer Care
Buffets, Inc.
BullsEye Telecom
Burnham Corp
Business Improvement
Business Response Inc
Butler Technology Solutions
ByeByeNOW.com
C&H Distributors
Cabela's, Incorporated
Cable One Inc
Cablevision
Cadillac Customer Assistance
Network Centrobe
Caesars Entertainment Inc,
Contact Center
Cal State 9 Credit Union
Calgon Carbon Corporation
Calif State Automobile
Association
Call Center Group for UCSF
Medical Center
Call Center Twinner
CallTech Communications
Canandaigua National bank
Canon ITS, Inc.
Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
Cape Cod Five Cents Savings
Bank
Capital Metro Transportation
Authority
Capital One Financial, Inc.
Cardiff Software
Cardinal Health
CareCounsel, LLC
Caremark Rx
Carilion Health System
Carle Foundation Hospital
Carlson Companies
Carolina Holdings, Inc.
CCC Information Services Inc.
CCH Incorporated
CCN Managed Care, Inc.
CDC IXIS Asset Management
Services
CDW Computer Centers, Inc.
cellcom
Cellular One 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Cendant
Centaurs National Bank
Center for Health Information
Central Corporation Credit Union
Central Vermont Public Service
Corp
CENTRIQ
century maintenance supply
Ceridian
CH Robinson
Charles Schwab & Co.
Charlotte Metro C U
Charter Communications
Chas. Levy Circulating Company
Chase BankCard Services, Inc.
Checks Unlimited
Chelsea & Scott
Chemical Bank Shoreline
Chevron Products Company
Children's Hospital
Choice Hotels Intl
ChoicePoint Direct
chrysler financial
Chubb & Son Insurance
CIBA Vision
Cidera, Inc.
Cigna HealthCare
CIGNA Retirement & Inv Serv
Cimetric Commerce
Citibank
Citicorp
Citizens Bank
Citizens Gas
City National Bank
City of Ft. Collins Utilities
City of Jacksonville
City of Winston-Salem
Claims Administration Corp.
Clark Public Utilities
Clarke American Checks Inc.
ClickRebates.com
CMS
CNA
Coachmen RV Company
Cobb County Water system
Coinstar, Inc.
Colgate Pharmaceuticals
College of American Pathologists
colorfx marketing services
Columbia Funds Services Inc
Columbia Gas of Kentucky, Inc.
Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania
and Maryland
Columbia House
Columbia Service Partners 10 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 2: Partial List of Benchmark Participants
Crestview Consulting Group,
LLC
Critical Path
Critikon Co LLC
Cross Country Automotive
Services
Crowley Maritime Corporation
Cruiseline inc
Crutchfield Corporation
CSAA
CSC
CSG Systems Intl
CT Natural Gas
Cummins Inc.
Cumulus Information Services
CUNA Mutual Group
Cuno, Inc.
Cushman Fruit Company
Customer Solutions Group
Cyber City Teleservices
Daimler Chrysler Financial
Daisytek, Intl
Damark International, Inc.
Datastream Systems
Datavantage
DB Communications
DDSCC
DealerGain
DecisionOne
DeepGreen Bank
Deere Harvester Credit Union
Del Webb
Delias
Dell Computer
Deloitte Consulting
Delta Dental Plan of Michigan
Denali Alaskan FCU
Dept of Veterans Affairs
Dept. of Defense Worldwide
Tricare Information Center
DER Travel Service, Inc.
DESA International
Detroit Edison
Diebold, INC
Digital Insurance
DigitalBroadband
Communications Inc
Digitas
DIRECT Federal Credit Union
DIRECTV, Inc.
Discover Financial Services
Diversified Investment Advisors
DLA Human Resources
Operations Center
Dobson Cellular Systems
Dollar Bank
11 Dominion Virginia Power
Dominos Pizza
Dow Jones, Inc.
Draper's & Damon's
Dresser Wayne
Dreyers Grand Ice Cream, Inc.
Dreyfus - Mellon
Duke Energy Corporation
Dun & Bradstreet
Dunlap, Inc.
DuPont
E Communication Advantage
E*TRADE Group
Eastman Kodak Co.
Eastwood Co.
ECCU
ECI
Eckerd Corporation
Ecolab
eCollege
edcor
EDS
EDS/StorageTek
Educational Employees Credit
Union
Educational Testing Service
EFG Tech
E-Interactions
EL AL
Electronic Arts
Eli Lilly and Company
Eltrax Hospitality Wichita Div.
eMaritz
Emery Worldwide
Encompass Ins
Enhanced Outsource Solutions
ENMR Plateau
Telecommunications
Enron PMC
Enterprise Rent a Car
Enterprises Network Solutions
Envoy Corporation
Equipment Solutions
EqulServ
Eschelon Telecom
ESL Federal Credit Union
eSupportNow
Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc
Evenflo Products, Inc.
Evercom
Evergreen
ewireless
Excel Communications
Excellerx
EXE Technologies
Exel Logistics Copyright © Columbus Life Insurance
Company
Columbus Regional Health Care
System
Comau PICO
Combined Life Insurance
Company of NY
Comcast Cable
Comdata Regulatory Compliance
Services
Comerica Bank
Commerce Bank
Commercial Bank of Texas, N.A.
Commissioners of Public Works
Commonwealth Edison
Communications Family CU
Community First Credit Union
Community Health Group
Community Health Partners
Compaq Computer Corp.
Computer Associates
ComputerLogic, Inc.
Computerprep
Compuware
Concentrex, Inc.
Concentric Enterprises
Concord Insurance
Concordia Publishing House
Confidential
Conn Credit Company
Connexus Energy
Consolidated Freightways
Consulting Psychologists Press
Consumers Credit Union
Convergys Corporation
Converse Inc.
Copeland
Cornerstone Consolidated
Services Group
Corning Inc.
Corporate Systems
Corrigo
Country Insurance and Financial
Services
County of Sacramento
Covisint
Cox Communications
Cox Health Plans
CPI, corp
CQG, Inc.
Crain Communications Inc.
Crate & Barrel
Crawford & Associates
Credit Union ONE
Credit Union West 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report
Experior Assessments, LLC
Express Scripts
EyeMed Vision Care
Fairbanks Capital Corp.
Fairchild Semiconductor Int'l
Fairfield Communities, Inc.
Farm Bureau Bank
Farmers
Farmer's New World Insurance
Company
Federal Reserve Bank
Federated Investors
Federated Services Company
FEMA
Fidelity Investments
Fidelity National Bank
Filenet Inc
Finali Corporation
Financial Computer Support, Inc.
First Bank
First Commonwealth
First Data Corporation
First Financial Credit Union
First Horizon
First National Bank and Trust Co
First Niagara Bank
First North American National
Bank
First Tennessee Bank
First Union National Bank
FirstBank of Colorado
FirstGuard Health Plan
Firstrust
FirstWorld Communications
Fleet Investment Group
FLEETCOR TECHNOLOGIES
Florida Power & Light
Florida Water Services
Fluke Corporation
FNANB - Georgia
FOOTHILL TRANSIT
Ford Motor Co.
Ford Motor Credit Co.
Forethought Financial Services
Fortis Health
Fortis Insurance Company
Fosdick Fulfillment Corp.
FRANKLIN COVEY
Freightliner, LLC
Frey Educational Resources
Frontier Communications
Frontier Natural Products Co-op
FTD.COM
Fulfillment Systems, Inc
Fulton Financial Corporation
Future Three © Copyright FutureHealth Corporation
G&T Industries
G. E. Fleet Services
Galaxy Latin America
Galileo International
Galls Inc
Gap Inc Direct
Garden.com
GARMIN
Gately Communication Company
Gaylord Digital
GE Appliances
GE Capital
GE Fleet Services
General Electric
Georgia Power
Gerber Life Insurance Co.
Gerogia Power Company
Global Payments Inc
GMAC
Go Ahead Vacations
Goeken Group Corporation
Gold Coast Cruises
Golden Rule Insurance
GoldMine Software Corporation
Golfport, Inc.
Goodwill Industries of Southern
California
Government Employees Credit
Union
GPU ENERGY
Grand Hall USA
Grant/Riverside Methodist
Hospital
Great American Insurance Group
Great Smokies Diagnostic
Laboratory
Greater Shreveport Chamber of
Commerce
GretagMacbeth
Greyhound Lines, Inc.
Growing Family
GSI Commerce
GuideOne
H.E.B. Grocery Company
Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Hallmark Marketing Corporation
Hammacher Schlemmer
Harcourt Learning Direct
Harlequin Distribution Center
Harleysville Insurance Company
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
Harris Bank
Hartford Customer Services
Group 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Harvard Business School
Publishing
Hasco International Inc
Havard Business School
Publishing
Hazelden Foundation
Health Care Finanacing
Administration
Health Partners
HealthExtras, Inc.
HealthIS
HealthNow NY
HealthPage
Heartland Health
Heilig-Meyers Co.
HelpLink
Hennepin County
Herbalife International
Herman
Hershey Entertainment &
Resorts
HESC
Hewitt Associates
Hewlett-Packard Company
High Speed Access
Highmark
Highmark Life and Casualty
Group
Hilton HHonors
Hollister-Stier Laboratories LLC
Home Trends
HoMedics
Home-Link Services, Inc.
HomeRuns.com
HomeSide Lending, Inc.
Homesite Insurance
Homesteaders Life Co.
Homestore.com
Honeywell
Hopelink
Horace Mann Educators
Hormel Employees Credit Union
HostLogic
Household Retail Services
Houshold Finance
HR Source, Inc.
HSN
Hubert Company
Hudson Health Plan
Hudson Valley Federal Credit
Union
Hughes Network Systems
Humana
Humboldt Bank
Hunt Marketing
Husqvarna 12 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 2: Partial List of Benchmark Participants
JHHS, Inc.
JLG Industries, Inc.
John Deere Community Credit
Union
John Hancock
John Harland
John Harland SLC
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson City Medical Center
Johnson Controls, Inc.
Jostens Learning Corporation
JP Morgan Chase &Co
Julie Inc.
Just Born, Inc
Kable Fulfillment Services
Kaiser Permanente
KBkids.com
Keane
Kemper Insurance
Kennametal
KeyBank
Keyport Life Insurance Company
Keyspan Energy Corporation
Keystone Health Plan Central
Kirby
Koala Corporation
Kodak
Kowal Associates, Inc.
KPMG Consulting
Kramer & Assoc. for Suburban
Energy Services
KVH Industries
La Gas
Lab Safety Supply, Inc.
LaCrosse Footwear, Inc.
LAFCU
Landacorp
LandSafe Inc.
Lathem Time
LCA Vision
Lease Plan USA
LeaseInsurance
Legacy Marketing Group
LendingTree
LensCrafters
LensExpress
Levi Strauss & Company
Levolor/Kirsch
Lewco Securities Corp.
Lexmark International, Inc.
LG_Zenith Service
Liberty Bank
Life Investors Insurance
Company of America
LifeLine Communications
Lifeline Systems, Inc.
13 LifeScan Inc.
Liffey Partners
Liguori Publications
Lincoln Financial Group
Lincoln National
LiteracyPro Systems
Lithonia Lighting
Lockheed Martin
Loctite Corp.
Long & Foster
L'Oreal USA
Los Angeles Dept of Water and
Power
LTD Commodities
Lucent Technologies
Lutheran Hour Ministries
Lutron Electronics
M&I Support Services Corp
M&T Mortgage Corp
Mack and Parker, Inc.
Madison Gas & Electric
Company
Maersk Data USA, Inc.
Mail.com Business Messaging
Services
Mammoth California Vacations
MAMSI
Manco, Inc.
Manpower
Manulife Financial
marchFIRST
Marchon Eyewear
Marconi Commerce Systems
Marketing Ally
Marketing Matters LLC
Marriott International
Martha Stewart Omnimedia
Massachusetts Electric
Company
MasterCard International
Matlen Silver
MAXIMUS, Inc.
Mayo Clinic
Maytag Corp
McDATA
McDonald's Corporation
McGraw-Hill
MCI WorldCom
McKesson
Mead
MediaOne
Medical Mutual of Ohio
MediCorp Health System
MedInsights
MedSolutions, Inc.
Mellon Bank Copyright © i3 Mobile, Inc.
IBM
IBS
Icelandair
ICT Group Inc.
ICTC/McLeod
Idaho National Engineering &
Environmental Laboratory
Idexx Laboratories
iFLEET, Inc.
IIR
IIT Research institute
IKON Office Solutions
Illinois Power
Imperial AI Credit
Independence Blue Cross
Indyme Electronics, Inc.
Info4cars
Infolink Services
Inforte Corp.
ING Bank, fsb
Ingersoll-Rand Company
Inland Empire Health Plan
Innis Consulting Services
Innotek, Inc.
Insurance Technologies Corp
Integrated Marketing Concepts
Intel Corporation
Interact Services
Internation Paper
Internet Alaska
InterPay
InterQuest Communications Inc.
Intersil
InterVoice-Brite
IntoNetworks,Inc.
Intracorp
Intralinks
Intuit
Invacare Corp
Iowa Department of Revenue
and Finance
Iowa Mold Tooling Company
Iowa Telecom
Irwin Mortgage Corporation
Isky
J&L Industrial Supply
J.A.Webster, Inc.
J.P. Morgan
Jackson National Life Insurance
Co.
Jaguar Cars
JCI
JD Edwards
Jefferson Pilot Financial
Insurance Co. 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report
Members 1st Federal Credit
Union
Memberworks, Inc
Memorial Hermann Healthcare
System
Merck & Co., Inc.
MerCruiser
Mercy Health System
Meriwest
Merrill Lynch
Merrimack Valley FCU
MetaCreations
Metatel
Methodist Hospital
MetLife
Metrocall
MetroPCS
Mettler Toledo
MichCon
Microdyne INC
Microsoft
MidAmerica Bank
MidAmerican Energy Co.
midwayusa
Midwest United Credit Union
Miele Inc
Milepost Four
Miles Kimball
Milliman USA
Mine Safety Appliances
Company
Minnesota Life Insurance
Mission Federal Credit Union
Mission St. Joseph's Hospital
Missionary Training Center
Missouri Department of
Transportation
Mitchell International
Mitsubishi Motor Sales of
America, Inc.
Moen Incorporated
montblanc
Montgomery Ward & Co.
Monumental Life Insurance
Company
Mony
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
Trust
Morrison & Foerster LLP
Moss Motors, Ltd.
Motion Picture & Television Fund
Motor Club of America
Motorola
MRG
MTA Distributors © Copyright MTD Ryobi Outdoor Power
Products
MTG, Inc
MultiPlan Inc.
MultiSoft Inc
Musicland
Musicnet
Mutual of America
Mutual of Omaha
MyAssociation.com
Mychoicehealth
NACSCORP
Nalco
Nashville Electric Service
National Association of Realtors
National City Corp.
National Commerce Financial
Corp.
National Computer Systems
National Electronic Warranty
Corporation
National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
National TechTeam
National Western Life Insurance
Co.
National Wholesale Company,
Inc.
NC Dept of Trans
NCMIC Group, Inc.
NCR-Call-One
NCS
NCS Pearson
NDC Health
Nebraska Furniture Mart
NEN Life Science Products
NetEx, Inc.
Netfor
Netsales
Network One
Nevada Power
New Benefits, Inc.
New Century Energies
New York Higher Education
New York Life
New York State Division of
Criminal Justice Services
New York Times
NH Electric Cooperative, Inc
Nissan Motor Acceptance
Corporation
NNC Group
Nolo.com
Norstan Communications Inc.
North FL Education Credit Union
North Texas Tollway Authority 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Northeast Utilities
Northern Indiana Public Service
Co.
Northern Tool & Equipment
Northern Trust Company
Northrop Grumman
Northwest Airlines,Inc.
Northwest Education Loan
Association
Northwestern Memorial
Physicians Group
Northwestern Mutual Life
Northwestern University
Novartis
NRG
N'site Solutions Inc.
Numerica Credit Union
Oak Brook Bank
Oak Trust Credit Union
Oakley, Inc.
ODOT/DMV
OEConnection.com
Office Depot
Ohana Foundation
OhByGosh
Ohio National Financial Services
Oki Data Americas, Inc.
Omaha Steaks
Omron Healthcare, Inc.
OnCall Healthcare
Communications
One Cigna Health Care
OneMade
OneSource Solutions Center
OnPoint
Option One Mortgage
Optiva Corporation
Oracle CRM Global Consulting
Orange County's Credit Union
Orcom Solutions
Oregon Catholic Press
OSRAM Sylvania
Otis Spunkmeyer Inc.
Overton's
Owens Corning
Oxford Health Plans
P&C Select, Inc.
P&H Mining Equipment
Pacific Interpreters
Pacific Scientific
PacifiCare Health Systems
PacifiCorp
Paper Mart
ParTech, Inc.
PARTNERS Health Plan
Patterson Dental Supply Co. 14 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 2: Partial List of Benchmark Participants
Promero, Inc.
Prometric
Provident
Provident Bank of Maryland
Providian
ProxyMed
Prudential
PSINet
Pubic Debt
Public Employees' Retirement
Association of Colorado
Public Utilities Commission of
Ohio
Publications & Associations
Centrobe
Publishers Clearing House
Pulte Homes Inc
QRS
QUALCOMM, Inc.
Qualex, Inc.
QuikTrip Corp.
Quorum Health Group, Inc.
QWEST Dex
Radio Systems Corporation
Rainforest Cafe
Rayovac
RBC Liberty Insurance Co.
Redstone Federal Credit Union
Regional Income Tax Agency
Regional Water Authority
Regions Financial Corp
REI
Reimbursement Technologies,
Inc.
Relco/Reliable Automotive
Reliant Energy
Renaissance Credit Services
Replacements Ltd
Reynolds and Reynolds
RInbound
RMIC
Robbins Auto Parts
Roche Diagnostics
Rockwell Automation
Rodale, Inc
Roku Technologies
Roll up Account - Public Dept
ron weber and associates
Royal Credit Union
RTM Restaurant Group
Rug Doctor, L.P.
Rural/Metro Corporation
Rutgers University
S. Adams Inc.
Sabre, Inc.
SAFECO Life & Investments
15 Safelite Glass Corporation
SafeRent, Inc.
SAFILO USA
Sage Publications
Sage Results
SAIC
Saint Lukes Health System
Salt Lake Community College
Sample Company
Sandy Spring Bank
Sartomer Company
S-B Power Tool Company
SBC
SBI Bancshares Inc
SBVS
SCANA Services, Inc.
ScanSoft, Inc
ScanTron
Scantron TSM
SCB Enterprise Solutions
SCG
Schindler Elevator Corp
Schools Financial Credit Union
Schwan's
Schwan's Sales Enterprises
Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.
Scitex America Corp.
Scudder Investments
SDP
Sears
SeBS, Inc
Securities America
Sedgwich CMS
SEFCU
SEI Information Technology
SEI Investments
Selective Insurance
Seneca Corporation
Sentinel Technologies
Sento Corporation
Sentry Insurance
Service Resources Inc.
ServiceNet
Sharp Health Plan
Shields MRI
Shurgard Storage Inc.
Siemens Building Technologies
Siemens Energy & Automation
SigFX
Siggins Company, Inc.
Sigma-Aldrich
Silver State Schools Family CU
Simens Building Technologies
Simplex Time Recorder
SISNA
SITA/EQUANT Copyright © Payless Cashways, Inc.
Payless ShoeSource
Paymentech
PBD
PCTV/SpeedChoice
Pearson Government Solutions
Penske Truck Leasing
Pentax Vision, Inc.
Pepsi-Cola General Bottlers, Inc
Percepta
Peregrine Systems
Permanent General Companies
Perot Systems Healthcare
Pershing
PharmaCare
Philadelphia Federal Credit
Union
Phillip Morris
phobo.com
Phoenix Group
Phoenix Life Insurance Company
Phoneby
Physerv LLC
Physicans Mutual Insurance Co
Physicians Mutual / Physicians
Life Insurance Company
Picus, LLC
Piedmont Natural Gas Company
Pier 1 Imports
Pilgrim Telephone, Inc.
Pilot Network Services
Pink Dot Inc.
Pinkerton Services Group
Pitney Bowes, Inc.
Plant Equipment Inc
PNC Banks
PNNL
Policy Studies Inc
Polo Ralph Lauren
Popular Club
Popular Club Plan
Pottery Barn
PowerHouse
Powertel
Prescription Solutions
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Primary Network
Primerica Life Insurance
Principal Financial Group
Princor Financial Services Corp
Procter & Gamble
Professional Accounting
Solutions, Inc.
PROFITsystems, Inc.
Progressive Insurance
Companies 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report
SITEL Latin America
SkillPath
Skylight Financial
Skymall
Slic.com
SME
Smith & Nephew, Inc
Snap-on Tools
SoCalGas
Social Security Administration
SoftMed Systems, Inc.
Software Spectrum
Solo Cup Company
Sonsio
Sony e-Solutions
Southbanc
Southern Farm Bureau Casualty
Ins. Co.
Southern Progress Corporation
SouthTrust Corp.
Southwest Credit
Sovietski Collection
Sparkling Spring Water Co.
Sparta
Special Data Processing
Specialty Laboratories
Specialty Outsourcing Solutions
SPECTRUM Human Resource
Systems Corp
Spiegel, Inc
Spokane Teachers Credit Union
SPRINT
SPSS Inc.
SPX Corporation
SRT Communications Inc
SSM Health Care - St. Louis
St. Francis Bank
St. Vincent Hospitals and Health
Services
Staff Leasing, Inc
Stage Stores, Inc.
Standard Insurance Company
Standard Register
Stanford University
Staples, Inc.
Starbucks Coffee Co.
Starwood Vacation Ownership
State Farm Insurance
State Industrial Products
State of NC Child Support
Enforcement Client Services
State of Wisconsin Dept
Workforce Development
Statline
STERIS Corporation
Stewart Enterprises, Inc. © Copyright Stream International, Inc.
Streamline.com
Strong Capital Management
Stylin Concepts
Sub Zero Freezer Co.
SubmitOrder
Summit Bank
Sumter Electric Cooperative, Inc.
Sun International
Sun Life of Canda
SunAmerica
Sunbeam Health and Safety
Sundance Catalog Company
Sunmark FCU
SunTrust Online, Inc.
Superior
Supplynet, INC
Support Technologies, Inc.
Swarovski North America Limited
Sybase, Inc.
Symantec Corporation
Symbol Technologies, Inc.
Synectics Group, Inc.
Synovus Financial Corp.
T.Shipley
Taction
Target
Tarsadia Hotels
TB Wood's Inc
TCF Bank
TCS
TDS Metrocom
TEAC America Inc.
Tech Data Corp
Teco Peoples Gas
Telamon Corporation
TeleCheck
Tele-Direct Call Centers
Teledyne Water Pik
Teleflex Morse
TeleService Resources
Telhio Credit Union
Telkins
Tel-Us Call Center Inc.
Telus Hydro
Tender Heart Treasures
TEPG Simplex
TERI, The Education Resources
Institute
Tersol & Associates
Texas County & District
Retirement System
Texas Guaranteed Student Loan
Corp
Texas Mutual Insurance
Company 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Thales Navigation
The Arizona Republic
The Beryl Companies
The Bradford Exchange
The CBORD Group
The Cleveland Clinic Foundation
The Credit Store
The Customer group
The Dallas Mornning News
The Grove Park Inn
The Hartford Insurance Group
The Home Depot
The HON Company
The Integrity Companies
The Mark Travel Corp
The MEGA Life & Health
Insurance Company
The Mony Group
The New York Times
The Order People CallCenter
Svcs
The People2People Group
The Psychological Corporation
The Research Group
The Ritz Carlton Reservations
Center
The Sacramento Bee
The Schwan Food Company
The Service Center
The Signal
The Spiegel Group
The Standard Insurance
The Summit Federal Credit
Union
The Sutherland Group
The Thompson Group
The Vanguard Group
Thompson, Ross & Associates
Thomson West
thyssenkrupp elevator
TIAA-CREF
Tie Solutions, Inc.
TIME
TiVo Inc
Towers Perrin
TPMG
TradeCard
Trammell Crow Co.
Trane Federal Credit Union
Travel Group International
Travelocity.com
Travis credit union
Triad Financial Corp.
Trinity Systems Technologies
Triple S
Truliant Federal Credit Union 16 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 2: Partial List of Benchmark Participants
US Online
US Postal Service
US West Wireless
USAA
USF Physicians Group
USFilter
UtiliCorp United
Valspar Corporation
ValueVision
Vanderbilt University Medical
Center
Vanguard Group
VANS WorldCom
Vantage Federal Credit Union
VCU Health System
Vector Marketing Corporation
VeriCenter
Verio
Verizon Communications
Verizon Wireless
VESystems
VetConnect Systems, Inc
Viastar Services Corporation
Victoria Secret
Viking Freight
Visa International
Vision Service Plan
Vistakon/JNJ
Visual Services Inc
Vita-Mix Corporation
Voice Power
Telecommunications
Volkswagen on America
Volvo IT North America
Vsource
VSP
Vytra Health Plans
W.M. Berg Inc.
Wachovia Bank
Walker Advertising, Inc. 17 Warn Industries
Washington Mutual
Washington State Employees
Credit Union
Watkins Motor Lines
WEA Insurance Group
Webster Bank
Welch Allyn Inc.
WellPoint Health Network
Wells Fargo
Wenn/Soft Inc.
Wescom Credit Union
West Corp
West Group
Western FCU
Western Reserve Life (Aegon
Equity Group)
Whirlpool Corporation
Williams-Sonoma
Winstar Communications
Witness Systems
Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company
Woodmen Life Insurance Society
Woods Eq Co
Woodwind & Brasswind
World Wide Aquatics
WorldCom
Worldspan
WPCU
WSRC
Xerox Engineering Systems
XM Satellite Radio, Inc.
Yellow Freight
YHD Foxtons
Young America Corp
ZC Sterling
Ziptone LLC
Zouire Promotional Marketing
Zurich Services Copyright © Trustmark Insurance
TSIG.com
TSYS-BPM
TU Electric
Tucson Electric Power
TV Guide
TXU Energy Services
U.S. Department of Commerce
U.S. Department of Energy
U.S. Inspect
U.S. Tire & Exhaust
UAL
UC San Francisco Medical
Center
UCLA
UCSD Medical Center
U-Lane-O Credit Union
UMWA
Underwriters Laboratories Inc.
Unicor
Uniform City Express
Unilever
Union Bank of California
Union Pacific Railroad
United Airlines
United American
United Messaging
United Parcel Service
United States Gypsum Company
United Way
Unity School of Christianity
Universal
University of Miami Medical
Group
University of Michigan Health
System
UnumProvident Corporation
US Balloon Company
US House of Representatives
US Inspect 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 3:
LIST OF PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES IN THE
BENCHMARK RESEARCH Copyright © 19 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 3: List of Participating Countries in the Benchmark Research Call Centers from the following countries are in the international database: Argentina Mexico Australia Netherlands, The Belgium New Zealand Brazil Norway Cambodia Philippines, The Canada Puerto Rico China Qatar Colombia Russia Cyprus Saudi Arabia Denmark Singapore France South Africa Germany South Korea Guyana Spain Honduras Sweden Hong Kong Switzerland India Taiwan Indonesia Turkey Ireland United Arab Emirates Israel United Kingdom Italy United States Japan Uruguay Kuwait Venezuela Malaysia Copyright © 21 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 4:
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE
HEALTH-PLAN / HEALTH-CARE INDUSTRY
CUSTOM BENCHMARKING REPORT Copyright © 23 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Introduction
The online benchmarking questionnaire of key performance indicators (KPIs) consists of
over 105 individual data points (see Chapter 5), which are entered into our call center
database. Purdue/BenchmarkPortal’s call center database, now in its ninth year, has
grown to several thousand call centers spanning twenty-nine vertical industry sectors,
both inbound and outbound, private and public, domestic and international. The
benchmark report is aimed, in particular, at call center managers and senior executives.
In this chapter, we graphically highlight the answers that respondents, typically call
center managers, offered to selected questions related to their call centers. Data for this
study comes from the following:
• 71 call centers in the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry with 50 seats or more,
including companies such as United Health Group, PacifiCare, Physicians Mutual
/ Physicians Life Insurance Company, HealthNet, Humana, WellChoice, WellPoint
(Blue Cross/Blue Shield), CIGNA, AETNA, MAXIMUS, Kaiser Permanente, Blue
Shield of California, MetLife, The Hartford – HCSG, Regence Blue Cross Blue
Shield, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield, and HealthNow NY. • 105 data-points and key performance metrics per call center. We also depict benchmark comparisons between the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry
Average and Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average (upper quartile).
Some of the high-level results include the following:
•
•
•
• call center staffing averages 266 full-time agents and 33 part-time agents;
average call center budget is $20,112,345 annually;
inbound call volume averages 3,622,150 calls annually; and
outbound call volume averages 551,208 calls annually. The detailed benchmarking report of the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry showing the
averaged responses by call center managers to all 105 data-points and key performance
indicators can be found in Chapter 5.
This chapter is subdivided into seven section categories, as follows:
Call Center Classification Section Two: Call Center Costs Section Three: Call Center Performance Section Four: Customer Satisfaction Section Five: Human Resource Management Section Six: Process & Knowledge Section Seven: Outsourcing 25 Copyright © Section One: 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Section One: Call Center Classification
In this section we graphically depict the answers that call center managers gave to
questions related to their Call Center Classification. Kind of Calls Handled Both inbound
and outbound
calls
29.3% Only outbound
calls
0.0%
Only inbound
calls
70.7% Figure 1. Kind of calls handled
Question: What kind of calls does your call center handle? Finding: In the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry, the kind of calls handled
is more heavily weighted with call centers handling only inbound
calls. Interpretation: Call centers in the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry handling only
inbound calls are not leveraging their resources to achieve the
greater efficiency that could be gained by using time when inbound
traffic is low to schedule outbound calls for cross-trained agents. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 26 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Inbound Calls by Type Consumer to
Business
78.7% Business to
Business
21.3% Figure 2. Inbound call types
Question: Of the calls handled annually by your Agents, how do they
breakdown in the following two categories?
•
• Business to Business (B2B),
Consumer to Business (C2B) Finding: Consumer to Business calls constitute the majority of all inbound
calls. Interpretation: These calls are most likely to be for customer service
questions/inquiries or complaint resolution, which represent the
major reasons for inbound calls as shown in the next figure. Copyright © 27 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Reason for Calls - Inbound
100% 80.4%
80% 60% 40% 20% 13.0%
1.5% 3.7% 1.3% 0.1% 0% Customer
Order taking
Service
and tracking
(questions
and inquiries) Technical
support to
external
customers Complaint
resolution Re-directing
Inbound Calls Other Figure 3. Reasons for inbound calls
Question: Which functions do your agents provide regarding inbound calls? Finding: Eight out-of-every ten inbound calls in the Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry are for customer service questions and inquiries, with
complaint resolution ranking second. Interpretation: Calls for the top reasons, i.e., customer service and complaint
resolution, constitute over 93% of all inbound call volume, and will
be from consumers more often than businesses, as reflected in the
previous figure. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 28 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Outbound Calls by Type Business to
Business
27.1% Helpdesk
(internal)
0.1% Business to
Consumer
72.8% Figure 4. Outbound call types
Question: How do your outbound calls break down in the following three
categories:
•
•
• Business to Business (B2B),
Business to Consumer (B2C)
Helpdesk (internal) Finding: The majority of outbound calls are Business to Consumer calls as
reflected in figure 4 above. Interpretation: The outbound calling pattern is similar to the inbound calling
pattern shown in figure 2, with follow-up to inbound calls, outbound
telemarketing/lead generation, and customer satisfaction surveys
representing the majority of the outbound call volume, as reflected
in the next figure. Copyright © 29 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Reason for Calls - Outbound
80% 69.4% 60% 40% 20% 13.8%
6.6% 6.0%
1.7% 2.5% Collections Market
research 0% Follow-up to
Outbound
inbound calls telemarketing
/ Lead
generation Customer
satisfaction
surveys Other Figure 5. Reasons for outbound calls
Question: Which functions do your agents provide regarding outbound calls? Finding: Over two-thirds of all outbound calls are for follow-up to inbound
calls. Interpretation: With 84.5% of their outbound calls for customer satisfaction and
marketing purposes, call centers in the Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry are clearly focused on meeting customer expectations. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 30 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Section Two: Call Center Costs
In this section, we graphically depict the answers that call center managers gave to
questions related to their Call Center Costs. Call Center Budget Allocation 70.5% Human Resources Technology,
Facilities 11.8% 13.0% Telecom 4.8% Other 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Figure 6. Call center annual budgetary allocation
Question: What is your annual budgetary cost breakdown by major cost
category? Finding: Human Resource costs constitute over 70% of the annual budgetary
expense in the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry. Interpretation: Human resource costs for the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry are
comparable to H.R. costs for most call centers across all industries.
This is the best single area for any call center to investigate for cost
reduction initiatives such as agent retention programs to reduce
turnover, reducing live-agent staffing by adding or increasing caller
self-service options, offshore outsourcing, etc. Copyright © 31 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Average Cost per Inbound Call
$10.00 $9.06 Cost per Inbound Call $8.00 $6.00 $4.68
$4.00 $2.00 $0.00 Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 7. Average cost per inbound call
Question: What is your average cost per inbound call? Finding: The Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average cost per call is 94%
more than the Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average. Interpretation: With an industry average of over 3.6 million inbound calls annually,
just a 2% reduction in the cost per call would represent a yearly
savings of over $656 thousand dollars. Our research shows cost per
call as the one of the most closely watched performance measures
that call center managers use to determine their call center
performance. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 32 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Average Cost per Outbound Call $6.00 $5.69 Cost per Outbound Call $5.00 $4.00 $3.48 $3.00 $2.00 $1.00 $0.00 Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 8. Outbound cost per call
Question: What is your average cost per outbound call? Finding: The Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average cost per outbound
call, at $5.69, is 64% higher than the Best of Health-Plan/HealthCare Industry Average cost per outbound call. Interpretation: Given the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average annual
outbound call volume of more than 551 thousand calls, the cost per
outbound call represents more than $3.13 million dollars in annual
costs. Our research shows cost per call as one of the most closely
watched performance measures that call center managers use to
determine their call center performance. Copyright © 33 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Section Three: Call Center Performance
In this section, we graphically depict the answers that call center managers gave to
questions related to their Call Center Performance. Service Level - 80% of Your Calls are Answered in How
Many Seconds?
35 28.79
Seconds 80% Calls Answered 30 24.28
25 20 15 10 5 0 Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 9. Average Service Level
Question: Within how many seconds are 80% of your calls answered (Service
Level)? Finding: The average number of seconds required to answer 80% of the calls
for the Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry is 16% less than
the average time for the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry. Interpretation: This key performance metric is often referred to as “Service Level.”
The best practice Service Level goal is to answer 80% of the calls
within 20 seconds. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 34 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Average Speed of Answer
50 41.36 Seconds to Answer 40 30 27.38 20 10 0 Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 10. Average speed of answer
Question: What is your average speed of answer in seconds? Finding: The average speed of answer (ASA) for the Best of HealthPlan/Health-Care Industry is 34% faster than the HealthPlan/Health-Care Industry Average. Interpretation: Average speed of answer is equal to the total time in queue divided
by the total number of calls answered. This includes both
technology-handled calls as well as live agent calls. This data is
available from the ACD. Average speed of answer is directly tied to
service level. Best practices goals for ASA is to answer the call
th
within the first twenty seconds (before the 4 ring). Copyright © 35 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Average Call Handle Time
8.0 6.73
5.72 Handle Time in Minutes 6.0 4.0 2.0 0.0 Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 11. Average call handle time
Question: What is your average call handle time in minutes? Finding: The Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry average call handle time is
18% longer than the Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry
average handle time. Interpretation: Average handle time (AHT), a key performance indicator or metric
(KPI), is an internal metric that is the sum of talk time, hold time,
and after call work time. AHT is one of the most closely watched
metrics in a call center as an indicator of an agent’s skill and
productivity. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 36 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Average Abandon Rate
5.0% Abandon Rate Percentage 4.0% 4.06% 3.80% 3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 12. Average abandon rate
Question: What is your average abandon rate in percent? Finding: The average abandon rate for the entire Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry is about 4%. Interpretation: Abandon rate is an internal metric of all calls that get connected to
the call center but are disconnected by the caller before reaching an
agent, automated self-service system, outbound trunk, or
information announcement. The abandon rate is the percentage of
calls that are abandoned compared to calls received. Our research
shows abandon rate as the number one most closely watched
performance measure that call center managers use to determine
their call center performance. Copyright © 37 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Calls Closed on First Call
100% 87.01%
77.49% Percentage of Calls Closed 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 13. Percent of calls closed on first call
Question: What is your percentage of calls closed on first call? Finding: The Best of Health Plan/HealthCare Industry averages almost nine
calls closed out-of-every ten calls received, with the HealthPlan/Health-Care Industry averaging nearly eight calls out-of-every
ten calls closed on first call. Interpretation: Calls closed on first call, also known as “first call final,” represents
one of the most closely tracked metrics for a call center. It is the
objective of the call center to resolve all calls on the initial call, but
there are some instances when this is not possible, for instance, 1)
callers requesting information that is not readily available to the
agent, 2) callers reaching an agent who is not trained to properly
respond to the caller, or 3) improper transferring of a call resulting
in the caller hanging up. The best practices objective is to maintain
an average of 85% or higher for calls closed on first call. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 38 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Agent Occupancy
100% 81.18% 81.33% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Occupancy Percentage 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Figure 14. Agent occupancy percentage
Question: What is your agent occupancy in percent? Finding: Average Agent occupancy percentage is over 81% across the entire
Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry. Interpretation: Occupancy, or occupancy factor, is determined by taking the time
that an agent is in their seat ready to answer calls as compared to
the total number of hours that they are at work. Therefore, if an
agent is at their desk and ready to answer phone calls 6 hours out of
an 8-hour shift, the agent’s occupancy is 75%. The best practice goal
for occupancy is 85%. Copyright © 39 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Percentage of Up-Sell/Cross-Sell Opportunities
15% 12.50% Percentage of Calls 12% 8.24% 9% 6% 3% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 15. Percent of up-sell and cross-sell opportunities
Question: What percentage of calls give rise to up-sell/cross-sell opportunities? Finding: The Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry is 52% more effective
than the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry in this important
metric. Interpretation: To up-sell is to sell a higher value product or option to an existing
caller. A cross-sell occurs when an agent recognizes that the caller
might be able to use another product from a totally different product
area within the company. For instance, an agent at a HealthPlan/Health-Care call center who is assisting a caller with a policy
question might recognize the advantage for the caller consider
adding additional insurance coverage at a packaged discount rate.
Training agents to up-sell and/or cross-sell opens up a valuable
added revenue opportunity for a company, and what better time to
approach a customer to “buy-up” or “buy-more” than immediately
after satisfying the customer’s reason for their call. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 40 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Calls that Result in a Sale
50% 44.50% Percentage of Outbound Calls 40% 30.43%
30% 20% 10% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 16. Up-sell and cross-sell opportunities that result in sale (conversion rate)
Question: What percent of up-sell/cross-sell opportunities result in a sale? Finding: The Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry is 46% more effective
than the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry in turning an upsell/cross-sell opportunity into a sale. Interpretation: The up-sell/cross-sell conversion rate of the Health-Plan/HealthCare Industry indicates that their agents are able to up-sell/crosssell to over 87 thousand callers annually. With the average
incremental sales value of $651.50 per transaction, their sales
efforts generated over $56.9 million dollars in additional income for
their business, which represents a significant revenue stream. This
is an important area of opportunity that every call center should
pursue. Copyright © 41 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Section Four: Customer Satisfaction
In this section, we graphically depict the answers that call center managers gave to
questions related to Customer Satisfaction. Percentage of Call Centers that have a Formal Mechanism to
Gather Customer Feedback on Call Center Performance DO have
Formal
Mechanism
59% Do NOT have
Formal
Mechanism
41% Figure 17. Call centers that have a formal mechanism to gather customer feedback
Question: Does your call center have a formal mechanism for gathering
customer feedback on call center performance? Finding: Over four out-of-every ten call centers in the Health-Plan/HealthCare Industry Do Not have a formal mechanism to collect customer
satisfaction feedback determine the level of their customer’s
satisfaction. Interpretation: Internal key performance indicators can only tell management part
of the story of how well they are serving their customers. In today’s
competitive world, customer satisfaction is a more significant
market differentiator and competitive advantage than product
features or price. No company can attain best practices certification
without the presence of a formal customer satisfaction mechanism
to collect customer feedback in place. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 42 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Callers that Gave a Perfect Score for
Customer Satisfaction within the past 90 days
80% 67.7%
60% 48.6% 40% 20% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 18. Percent perfect customer satisfaction perfect scores
Question: On average, in the past 90 days what percentage of your callers
gave you a perfect score on the question, “Overall, how satisfied
were you with the service you received during your call to our
center?” Finding: The Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average is 39%
better than the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average in
perfect customer satisfaction scores given within the past 90 days. Interpretation: The best metric to be used for measuring the “true” level of
customer satisfaction is the percentage of customers/callers who
give a perfect score, provided that a valid statistical sample is taken. Copyright © 43
2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Percentage of Callers that gave the Lowest Score
for Customer Satisfaction within the past 90 days
10% Percentage of All Calls 8% 6% 4% 2.89% 2% 0.04%
0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 19. Percent lowest scores for customer satisfaction
Question: On average in the past 90 days, what percentage of your callers
gave you the lowest score on the question, "Overall, how satisfied
were you with the service you received during your call to our
center?" Finding: The Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry is significantly lower
than the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average for percentage
of their customers surveyed that awarded their call center with the
lowest customer satisfaction score. Interpretation: Tracking lowest scores is the flip side of collecting perfect customer
satisfaction scores, and essential to the quality monitoring process
of a call center. The next step is to classify these calls by
category/agent, and feed the results into the agent coaching and
training process to remedy the root causes. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 44 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Section Five: Human Resource Management
In this section, we graphically depict the answers that call center managers gave to
questions related to Human Resource Management. Annual Turnover of Full-Time Agent Staff
29.58%
30% 27.34% Annual Turnover Percentage 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 20. Annual full-time Agent turnover rate for the Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry
Question: What is the annual percentage turnover of your full-time Agents? Finding: The average annual turnover of full-time agents in the HealthPlan/Health-Care Industry ranges from 27% to 30%. Interpretation: Turnover is the number of agents who left in the course of a year as
a percentage of the total number of agents working during that
same period, and is a major cost and quality factor for call centers
across All Industries. Using exit interviews to determine the causes
of turnover, and thereby gaining insight into controllable factors
that can result in reduced turnover, is a best practice process that
all call centers should use. Copyright © 45 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Cost to Hire a New Agent
$10,482
$10,000 $7,564 New Hire Costs $8,000 $6,000 $4,000 $2,000 $0 Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 21. Hiring cost of a new agent (agent)
Question: How much does it cost you to bring on a new agent (add recruiting,
screening, training, etc.)? Finding: The Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry spend 28% less than
the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average for new-hire
recruiting, screening, and training. Interpretation: With a 29.58% annual turnover rate of full-time inbound agents (see
previous figure), call centers in the Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry average an expense of over $874 thousand dollars per year
just to hire and train replacement agents. An excellent book on this
topic, “Minimizing Agent Turnover” by Dr. Jon Anton and Anita
Rockwell, is available on our Web site at:
<www.benchmarkportal.com/store>. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 46 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Length of Time to Train New Agent
280 273.2
243.9 Training Time in Hours 240 200 160 120 80 40 0 Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 22. Length of new-hire training period
Question: What is the average length (in hours) of your initial, new-hire
training period for agents? Finding: The Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry devotes 11% fewer
hours than the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Average to newhire training. Interpretation: The length of time call centers devote to the training of their newhire agents is an indication of the emphasis that they place upon
efficiency of call handling, quality of service, and caller satisfaction.
It can also be a reflection of the effectiveness of their new-hire
training program. Copyright © 47 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Percent of Call Centers Where Agents
are Represented by a Labor Union Percent Labor Union Representation 20% 16.7%
15% 10% 7.4% 5% 0%
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 23. Agent labor union representation
Question: Are your agents represented by a labor union? Finding: About one out-of-every fourteen call centers in the HealthPlan/Health-Care Industry sector report that their agents are
represented by labor unions. It is interesting to note that one out-ofevery six call centers in the Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry have labor union representation for their agents. Interpretation: Call centers without labor union representation for their agents
have greater flexibility to continually adapt their business models to
better serve the evolving needs of their customer base and to remain
competitive to changing market forces. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 48 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Call Volume Handled by Part Time Agents
15% 12.0%
Percentage of Call Volume 12% 9% 7.7% 6% 3% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 24. Call volume handled by part-time agents
Question: What percentage of your total call volume is handled by part-time
agents? Finding: Almost eight percent, or about 268 thousand inbound calls per year
for the average call center, are handled by part-time agents in the
Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry sector. The Best of HealthPlan/Health-Care Industry average call volume handled by part
time agents is about 533 thousand calls annually. Interpretation: The use of part-time agents for peak periods, as seasonal offset
staffing, and for other scheduling and call flow balancing reasons
makes good economic sense and opens up an additional labor pool to
offset turnover. Parents with school-age children, retirees, and
college students comprise the bulk of this valuable labor pool. Copyright © 49 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Section Six: Process and Knowledge
In this section, we graphically depict the answers that call center managers gave to
questions related to Process and Knowledge. Percentage of Call Centers Integrated with Other
Customer-Access Channels and Touch-Points
100% 83.3%
78.6% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 25. Call centers integrated with other customer-access channels and touch points
Question: Is the call center integrated with other customer-access channels
and touch-points (for instance, e-mail, Web site, and FAX)? Finding: About eight out-of-every ten call centers in the across the entire
Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry are integrated with multiple
customer-access channels and touch-points. Interpretation: Today’s customers expect more from companies than in the past.
With most businesses and many consumers having Internet access,
e-mail and Web site access have become a preferred alternative to
phone calls (with the attendant prospect of being put on hold). The
Internet has also opened up an array of self-service options that
many customers prefer to use instead calling a 1-800 number. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 50 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Features Offered on the Company's Web Site
Voice over IP, or
Internet call 0.0% E-mail access 75.0% An automatic “callback” button (using
a separate phone
line) 4.2% A self-service option
(e.g., a static FAQ
section) 72.9% Your call center’s 1800 number 89.6% 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Figure 26. Features offered on company Web sites
Question: On the Internet, which features does your Web site offer? Finding: Seventy-five percent of the companies in the Health-Plan/HealthCare Industry indicated that they support e-mail access as an
Internet contact channel option for their customers, and over seven
out-of-every ten companies offer a self-service option on their Web
site. Interpretation: Our research has shown that as customers become more
sophisticated and computer enabled, their preference shift from the
telephone to the Internet as their primary communication channel
choice to correspond with companies, shop for new products, conduct
account transactions, compare product features and pricing, etc. Copyright © 51 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Percentage of Inbound Calls that are Handled by
Self-Service
35% 32.2%
30% Percentage of Calls 25% 20% 15.4%
15% 10% 5% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 27. Percent of inbound calls handled by self-service
Question: Of all your inbound contacts, what percentage is handled by selfservice? Finding: About one out-of-every seven calls across the Health-Plan/HealthCare Industry, and one out-of-every three calls for the Best of
Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry are resolved by self-service
without agent intervention. Interpretation: With agent hiring and labor costs representing two-thirds of the
total operating budget, automating self-service options in the IVR
and on the Web site to lower the agent staffing required to handle
ever-increasing call volumes, thereby reducing the average cost per
call, is an essential cost-savings initiative that every customer
facing call center should consider. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 52 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Percentage Self-Service Contacts by Channel
54% IVR 7% Web site E-mail 4% 5% Fax-back 0% Kiosk Other 29%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Figure 28. Percentage of self-service contacts by contact channel
Question: Of all your self-service contacts, what percentage is completed
through self-service channels (e.g., IVR, Web site, Fax-back, E-mail,
Kiosk, Other)? Finding: Self-service via the IVR constitutes over one-half of the automated
self-service transactions, with Web site and E-mail self-service
activity at 7% and 4% respectively. Interpretation: Across the entire call center industry, IVR self-service is still the
most preferred option, especially when combined with an automated
speech recognition system. Our research has revealed a steady
growth trend in the percentage of customer self-service usage
distributed across multiple contact channels for all industry sectors. Copyright © 53 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Section Seven: Outsourcing
In this section, we graphically depict the answers that call center managers gave to
questions related to Outsourcing. Percentage of Call Centers that Outsource their
Calls/Functions
37.50% 40% 30% 18.18% 20% 10% 0% Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Figure 29. Percentage of call centers that outsource
Question: Does your center outsource any calls or functions? Finding: Across the Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry, about threeeighths of the call centers outsource their calls/functions, which is
more than double the average percentage of call centers that
outsource across the entire Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry. Interpretation: Given the highly competitive nature of the Health-Plan/Health-Care
Industry, outsourcing presents some tempting cost reduction
alternatives. For some excellent books on outsourcing, visit our Web
site at <www.benchmarkportal.com/store>. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 54 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 4: Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Highlights Percentage of Calls/Functions Outsourced
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Percentage of Calls/Functions 15% 12% 10.00%
9% 6.42% 6.00% 6% 4.17%
3% 0% Percent outsourced calls (inbound) Percent outsourced calls (outbound) Figure 30. Percentage of calls/functions outsourced
Question: What percentage of your total calls/functions do you outsource? Finding: The Best of Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry call centers
outsource one out-of-every ten of their outbound calls/functions, in
contrast to about one out-of-every twenty-five outbound
calls/functions outsourced across the entire Health-Plan/HealthCare Industry. Interpretation: Our research indicates that contact center outsourcing alliances,
both domestically and offshore, will increase across all industries as
more companies seek to control costs without sacrificing quality or
customer satisfaction. For some excellent books on outsourcing, visit
our Web site at <www.benchmarkportal.com/store>. Copyright © 55 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 5:
DETAILED BENCHMARK RESULTS OF THE
HEALTH-PLAN/HEALTH-CARE INDUSTRY Copyright © 57 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 5: Detailed Benchmark Results of the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average What kind of calls does your call center handle?
Only inbound calls
Only outbound calls
Both inbound and outbound calls 70.69%
0.00%
29.31% 75.00%
0.00%
25.00% Which of the following functions do your agents provide regarding
inbound calls?
Customer Service (questions and inquiries)
Complaint resolution
Re-directing Inbound Calls
Order taking and tracking
Technical support to external customers
Other 80.42%
12.99%
3.73%
1.48%
1.31%
0.07% 80.79%
12.15%
3.67%
3.21%
0.18%
0.00% Which of the following functions do your agents provide regarding
outbound calls?
Follow-up to inbound calls
Outbound telemarketing / Lead generation
Customer satisfaction surveys
Collections
Market research
Other 69.45%
6.57%
6.03%
1.69%
2.49%
13.78% 58.08%
12.62%
0.96%
2.18%
0.12%
26.04% How many inbound calls per year are directed to your call center?
Calls offered annually 3,622,150 4,628,132 Of the inbound calls directed to your call center, how many are handled
by a live agent and/or your IVR?
Calls handled annually 3,484,514 4,440,114 How many outbound calls are made per year by your call center,
including return calls to inbound callers?
Outbound calls per year 551,208 333,120 Of the calls handled annually by your agents, how do they breakdown in
the following two categories?
Business to Business
Consumer to Business 21.30%
78.70% 18.93%
81.07% How do these outbound calls break down in the following three
categories:
Business to Business
Business to Consumer
Helpdesk (internal) 27.07%
72.80%
0.13% 25.61%
74.39%
0.00% Call Center Classification Questions
1. 2. 3. 4. 6. 7. 8. 59 Copyright © 5. 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Do you use an automatic call distributor (ACD) at your call center?
Yes
No 100.00%
0.00% 100.00%
0.00% 10. How many minutes of telephone usage are recorded annually by your call
center’s automatic call distributor (ACD)?
Minutes 22,859,388 32,463,848 266
33 315
42 282 336 Call Center Classification Questions (continued)
9. 11. How many agents work at your call center?
Full-time agents
Part-time agents
12.
How many Full Time Equivalent (FTE) agents work at your call center?
Full-time Equivalents (FTEs) © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 60 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 5: Detailed Benchmark Results of the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 66.81%
3.66%
8.09%
3.81%
2.29%
4.88%
5.68%
1.03%
3.75% $20,112,345 $19,860,182 6.38 $9.06 13. What percentage of your ongoing costs is for:
Human Resources - salary, benefits, etc.
Human Resources - recruiting, screening, training
Telecommunications phone charges
Computer hardware
Computer software
Telecommunications equipment
Real estate (floor space)
Outsourced calls
Other 68.23%
4.13%
6.81%
3.01%
2.08%
6.51%
4.71%
0.68%
3.84% 6.71 Call Center Costs Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average $4.68 14.
What is the total annual budget for your call center for this year?
Annual Budget
15. How much are you paying the telephone company for your toll-free calls? 16. What is your average cost per call in dollars?
Average Cost per Call 61 Copyright © Cents per minute 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 3.80%
77.49%
1.93%
81.18%
88.06%
89.39%
30.43% 4.06%
87.01%
1.38%
81.33%
91.86%
90.06%
44.50% 7.14%
92.86% 8.33%
91.67% 12.50% $3.48
$10.00
0.75
37.00
$0
$0.00
$0.00 36.54 18. Over the past 90 days, what were your average inbound performance
percentage-based metrics?
Average abandoned in percent
Calls resolved on first call in percent
Calls blocked in percent
Agent occupancy in percent
Adherence to schedule in percent
Average attendance in percent
Percentage of calls that result in a sale
19. Does your call center do any up-selling/cross-selling?
Yes
No 24.28
27.38
4.49
1.24
39.80
86.54
$125.00 $5.69
$37.83
0.40
25.93
$442,320
$0.00
$1,843.00 17. Over the past 90 days, what were your average inbound performance
time-based metrics?
80% of your calls are answered, on average, in how many seconds
Average speed of answer in seconds
Average talk time in minutes (includes hold time)
Average after call work time in minutes
Average time in queue in seconds
Average time before abandoning in seconds
Average sales value 28.79
41.36
4.30
2.44
54.46
100.11
$651.50 8.24% Call Center Performance Measures Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 22.36 20. What percentage of calls give rise to up-sell/cross-sell opportunities? 21. What are your outbound performance metrics?
Cost per call in dollars
Cost per sale
Sales per hour
Contacts per hour
Average sales revenue per TSR per year
Average revenue collected per seat per shift
Average sales revenue per seat per shift
22. What is your average data entry error rate per thousand calls?
Errors per 1,000 calls © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 62 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 5: Detailed Benchmark Results of the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 59.09%
40.91% 88.24%
11.76% 48.63% 67.74% 2.89% Caller Satisfaction Measurement Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 0.04% 23. Does your call center have a formal process to collect the caller's
satisfaction regarding their experience with how their call was handled?
DO have Formal Mechanism
Do NOT have Formal Mechanism
24. On average, in the past 90 days what percentage of your callers gave you
a perfect score on the question, “Overall, how satisfied were you with the
service you received during your call to our center?” 25. On average in the past 90 days, what percentage of your callers gave you
the lowest score on the question, "Overall, how satisfied were you with
the service you received during your call to our center?" Copyright © 63 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 17.77 19.53 29.58% 27.34% 28. As a percentage of total turnover, how does this breakdown into the
following two categories?
Turnover due to promotions
All Other Turnoner 16.32%
71.71% 27.30%
72.70% 29. How do you compensate your agents?
Base salary per year only
Average hourly wage for front-line agents. $26,520
$13.08 $26,764
$13.63 $42,747 $42,781 $69,860 $71,506 273.18 243.94 $10,482 $7,564 7.35%
92.65% 16.67%
83.33% 7.68% 12.00% Human Resource Measurement
26. What is the ratio of TSRs to supervisors (span of control)?
Agents per supervisor
27. What is the annual percentage turnover of your full-time agents?
Annual Turnover 30. What is the average annual salary of your supervisors? 31. What is the average annual salary of your call center manager? 32. What is the average length (in hours) of your initial, new-hire training
period for agents? 33. How much does it cost you to bring on a new agent? (Add recruiting,
screening, training, etc. Please, include all costs.) 34. Are your TSRs represented by a labor union?
Yes
No
35. What percentage of your total call volume is handled by part-time
agents? © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 64 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 5: Detailed Benchmark Results of the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 36. Is the call center integrated with other customer access channels and
touchpoints (for instance, e-mail, Web site, and FAX)?
Yes
No
37. On the Internet, which features does your Web site offer?
Your call center’s 1-800 number
A self-service option (e.g., a static FAQ section)
An automatic “call-back” button (using a separate phone line)
E-mail access
Voice over IP, or Internet call (allowing the TSR to talk to the caller through
the Internet phone line).
Instant Messaging (chat capabilities) 78.57%
21.43% 83.33%
16.67% 89.58%
72.92%
4.17%
75.00% 100.00%
72.73%
9.09%
81.82% 0.00%
0.00% 0.00%
0.00% 15.44% Process & Knowledge Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 32.15% 54.14%
7.48%
5.44%
4.09%
0.23%
28.61% 59.09%
7.91%
8.70%
2.53%
0.19%
21.58% 38.
Of all your inbound contacts, what percentage is handled by self-service? 65 Copyright © 39. Of all your self-service contacts, what percentage is completed through
the following self-service channels:
IVR
Web site
Fax-back
E-mail
Kiosk
Other 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 40. Does your center outsource any calls or functions?
Yes
No 18.18%
81.82% 37.50%
62.50% 41. What percentage of your total calls do you outsource?
Percent outsourced calls (inbound)
Percent outsourced calls (outbound) 6.42%
4.17% 6.00%
10.00% Outsourcing © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 66 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 5: Detailed Benchmark Results of the Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average Best of
Health-Plan/ Health-Care
Industry Average 310.51 340.04 43. How large is your average TSR cubical workspace?
Square feet 40.37 34.69 44. How many total square feet does your call center occupy?
Square feet 49,099 40,416 Facilities & Design
42. What is the total number of TSR workstations at your call center? 67 Copyright © Seats 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 6:
PERFORMANCE BY INDUSTRY Copyright © 69 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 6: Performance by Industry Figure 31. Industry performance matrix
This “balanced score card” positions centers from different industries on a 2-by-2 matrix
by plotting their efficiency and effectiveness indices. The Efficiency Index integrates
those metrics that have an important impact on costs, while the Effectiveness Index
combines metrics that correlate to mission accomplishment and customer satisfaction.
Thus, industries with centers that are able to optimize customer-centric results, while
containing costs, are found in the upper-right quadrant.
In sum, industries rated an “Asset” perform the best, “Liability” the worst. Copyright © 71 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 7:
BEST PRACTICES IN HEADSET
MANAGEMENT IN CALL CENTERS Copyright © 73 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers I ntroduction
The purpose of this study was to document current best practices in headset management
in call centers. This study focused specifically on headset:
•
•
•
•
• selection
usage
budget
maintenance
replacement While the cost of even the highest quality headsets is low when compared with call center
staff salaries, computer software, and telecom expenses, the mismanagement of headsets
can contribute to poor customer service, increased agent stress, and unnecessary
budgetary expense. And, yet, organizational accountability for this essential piece of
equipment and its related parts is sometimes loose at best in the fast-paced, pressure
cooker environment of today’s call center.
A primary driver of this study was our conviction that there is much more money at stake
when headset management is neglected than busy call center leaders might realize. Often
the focus of call center cost reduction initiatives is the obvious—reducing agent turnover,
increasing agent efficiency, upgrading technical capabilities to reduce wasted time, and
the like. The results of our study will illustrate that effective headset management is an
often-overlooked endeavor that will not only result in improved agent job satisfaction and
increased customer satisfaction—but in cost savings worth pursuing. Objectives
The main objective in conducting this study was to document best practices in headset
management. Specifically, we believed that documentation of the best practices of the
following headset management practices would reveal ways call center leaders could
improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their organizations:
•
•
•
•
• Centralized accountability for headset management
Headset selection process
Budgeting for the purchase and repair of headsets
Agent training in headset usage, care, and hygiene
Theft deterrence Methodology
Two separate, but related, survey instruments were used to collect headset management
practices information using consistent criteria. For these surveys, we asked call center
managers to offer their view of headset management practices in use within their call
center. The following pages in this chapter are devoted to their responses to key questions
along with corresponding findings, interpretations, and correlations drawn from their
responses. Copyright © 75 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report The first survey, titled “Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers,” was
conducted in Q4 2004 by BenchmarkPortal, Inc. in association with the Purdue
University Center of Customer-Driven Quality, and sponsored by Plantronics
Corporation. It focused on gathering data on:
• the call center itself (e.g., industry served, number of call centers within
organization, number of agents, etc.); • headset brand and model used in the center; headset selection and purchasing
criteria; • service management; • storage and logistics management; and • satisfaction level with brand and distributor, etc. The second survey, titled “Headset Budget and Selection,” was a “One-Minute Survey™”
conducted in January 2005 by BenchmarkPortal, Inc. that focused specifically on:
• headset selection criteria; and • headset budget matters. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 76 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers S elected Findings and Interpretations
The following pages in this section present selected results along with key findings and
interpretations of the two surveys mentioned previously. This report is aimed, in
particular, at call center managers and senior executives. What Industry does your call center serve?
Help Desk / Technical Support 4% Consumer Products 4% Consumer Electronics 4% Health Care 8% Government 8% Utilities 12% Publishing 12% Financial Services 12% Telecom, Wireless, Cable 16% Insurance 20%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% Figure 32. Industries represented by call centers participating in Survey One
Question: What industry does your call center serve? Finding: One-out-of-five call centers participating in the survey belongs to
the insurance industry. Interpretation: The call centers participating in this survey represent a broad crosssection of the whole call center industry. Copyright © 77 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report How satisfied are you with your present headset management
system?
We have a basically solid H/S
model and H/S management
system that works most of the
time for us. 43.48% We have a fairly typical usage of
H/S and H/S management
system. They generally work. 30.43% Our H/S usage and management
system could use some work.
We are looking for better
equipment and a better H/S
management system. 21.74% We have an excellent H/S model
and H/S management system and
others could learn from it. 4.35% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Figure 33. Satisfaction with present headset management system
Question: How satisfied are you with your present headset management
system? Finding: More than one call center manager out-of-every-five surveyed
indicated that they are not fully satisfied with their present headset
management system and are looking for better equipment as well as
a better headset management system. Interpretation: While most call center managers indicated general satisfaction with
their current headset management system, they did not claim that
their headset management system worked for them to their
complete satisfaction. In fact, only 4.35% responded that they were
100% satisfied with their headset management system and that
they have a system that other call centers could learn and benefit
from. This small group would be regarded as having a “world-class”
headset management system. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 78 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers Why did you purchase new call center headsets?
GROWTH ISSUES:_____________
Increase in agent headcount 50% Seasonal headcount Increase 20% New call center 20% Call Center expansion 10% MAINTENANCE ISSUES:_________
Replacement of old H/S 74% Maintenance costs better value 26% TECHNOLOGY ISSUES:__________
New phone system 64% Upgrade to new technology 36% OTHER ISSUES:________________
Stock replacement inventory 33% Enable mobiity of agents 17% Use up budget funds 17% New management influence 17%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Figure 34. Reasons for purchasing new call center headsets
Question: Why did you purchase new call center headsets? Findings: Of the reasons for purchasing new call center headsets stated above,
the most revealing finding is that 26% of the respondents indicated
that the new headsets represented a better value with respect to
maintenance costs. All other reasons for purchasing new headsets
were to satisfy other needs such as growth, compatibility with new
systems or technology, stock replacement, using up budgetary
funds, etc. Interpretation: Maintenance costs of older headsets increase over time, reaching the
point where purchasing newer headsets actually is more cost
effective than continuing to repair them or replace them with
refurbished units. Copyright © 79 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Were the headsets you purchased this past year new or
used? NEW
83% USED
17% Figure 35. Percentage of participants purchasing new headsets during the past year
Question: Were the headsets you purchased for your call center during this
past year new or used? Finding: Although all survey respondents indicated that they had purchased
headsets for their call centers during the past year, one-sixth
reported that they purchased used headsets rather than new ones. Interpretation: While purchasing used headsets will be less costly than new
headsets initially, the ongoing cost of repair and replacement is
likely to offset, if not exceed the difference in cost over time. In
addition, more frequent replacement of agent headsets, with the
accompanying loss of agent productivity that is inevitable while the
unit is being replaced, adds to the total cost of headset management. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 80 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers What led to the selection of the particular brand H/S you
purchased?
Comfort &
Durablity
18.4% Warranty & Service
13.2%
Price
10.5% Compatibility
7.9% Quality,
Performance, &
Reliability
36.8% Other
13.2% Figure 36. Reasons for selection of the particular brand of headset purchased
Question: What led to the selection of the particular brand of headset you
purchased? Finding: Of the call centers surveyed, 50% cited quality, performance,
reliability, warranty & service rather than price as the primary
reasons for selection of the headset that they purchased for their
call centers. Interpretation: Although we traditionally think of price first when making a
purchasing decision, considering the value of the purchase with
respect to quality, performance, reliability, warranty and service
may actually result in a lower cost investment overall. Copyright © 81 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Did your center measure call-handling statistics before and
after the implementation of headsets for comparitive
purposes? YES
15% NO
85% Figure 37. Percentage of call centers that measured call-handling statistics before and
after implementation of headsets
Question: Did your center measure call-handling statistics before and after the
implementation of headsets for comparison purposes? Finding: According to the survey responses, only 15% measured call-handling
statistics before and after the implementation of headsets for
comparative (benchmarking) purposes. Interpretation: As with any improvement initiative, benchmarking call-handling
statistics of a call center before and after implementation of
headsets is a best-practice that enables management to determine
the impact that the initiative produced and permits management to
calculate the return on investment (ROI) of the initiative. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 82 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers Does your center offer agents any of the following headset
training? Proper headset cleaning
and hygiene management 8% Proper agent headset
storage 12% Proper agent headset
usage, care and
maintenance 56% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Figure 38. Headset training offered
Question: Does your call center offer any of the following headset training?
•
•
• Proper headset cleaning and hygiene management
Proper agent headset storage
Proper agent headset usage, care and maintenance Findings: Over one-half of the call centers surveyed offer training to their
agents on proper headset usage, but few offer training on the proper
storage, cleaning, and hygiene management of their headsets. Interpretation: This chart shows the significant room for improvement call center
managers have in terms of headset management. Without training
in these headset management areas, it is difficult, if not impossible,
to properly manage headsets and costs associated with their upkeep
and maintenance, which inevitably leads to higher breakdown and
failure of headsets, and greater headset management costs. Copyright © 83 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Does your center offer any of the following training on proper
headset usage for monitoring of calls? Training on wireless
monitoring 63.64% Training on double
jacking for side-by-side
monitoring 56.00% 52% 54% 56% 58% 60% 62% 64% 66% Figure 39. Training offered on proper headset usage for monitoring of calls
Question: Does your center offer any of the following training on proper
headset usage for monitoring of calls?
• Training on wireless monitoring procedures • Training on double-jacking procedures for side-by-side
monitoring Finding: About five-out-of-eight call centers surveyed that use wireless
headsets offer training on proper wireless headset monitoring
procedures, but only slightly more than one-out-of-two center offer
procedural training on double-jacking for side-by-side monitoring. Interpretation: Improper usage of headsets for monitoring can result in unintended
and undesirable consequences such as lost calls or interruption of
calls, both of which produce customer irritation and dissatisfaction.
Centers that train their agents, supervisors, and quality staff in the
proper usage of headsets, both wireless and wired, for call
monitoring are engaging in best-practices for headset management. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 84 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers Storage/Logistics Management
NO Are full unit H/S replacements
managed by a centralized
inventory? Are spare H/S parts (ear
cushions, voice tubes, cords,
etc.) managed by a centralized
inventory? Does your center have a
centralized location for storage
and maintenance of H/S? 0.00% YES 86.96%
13.04% 86.96%
13.04% 91.30%
8.70% 20.00% 40.00% 60.00% 80.00% 100.00% Figure 40. Percentage of call centers with centralized headset management
Question: Is your headset management system centralized? Finding: Across the board, the overwhelming majority of call centers
surveyed indicated that they have a centralized system for headset
management. Interpretation: Centralized headset management with respect to spares and spare
parts, as well as storage of replacement headsets assures the
optimal efficiency, as well as control of shrinkage due to loss or
theft. Centralized control of headsets enables management to track
headset usage, manage inventory, generate usage reports, forecast
future requirements, and avoid costly out-of-stock situations.
Centralization is a mandatory element in world-class headset
management. Copyright © 85 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report On average, what is the percentage of replacement
units on hand? NEW
30% REFURBISHED
55% NONE
15% Figure 41. Percentage replacement units on hand
Question: On average, what is the percentage of headsets on hand? Finding: Survey respondents reported that, on average, they maintain an onhand inventory of 30% new and 55% of refurbished headsets.
However, 15% of the centers reported no on-hand headset inventory. Interpretation: Prudent headset management dictates that call centers should
maintain an on-hand inventory of headsets, both for immediate
replacement of defective headsets as well as for short-term growth
in agent staffing. Centers with no on-hand replacement headsets are
bound to experience loss of agent productivity while awaiting
delivery of replacement headsets, even if they use overnight or
express delivery service from their headset supplier. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 86 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers How would you rate the service you are getting from your
current headset service provider? Excellent
39%
Good
57% Poor
4% Figure 42. Respondents’ rating of their current headset service provider
Question: How would you rate the service you are getting from your current
headset service provider? Finding: Nearly all respondents rated their headset service provider “Good”
to “Excellent” with respect to the service they are getting, with only
4% giving their service provider a “Poor” rating. Interpretation: With so many headset service providers to choose from, there is no
reason for a call center to continue to use a poor service provider. Copyright © 87 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report What is the likelihood you would recommend the brand you
use to other call center professionals?
50% 43.5%
40% 34.8%
30% 17.4% 20% 10% 4.3%
0.0% ab
so
lu
te
ly no
t lik
el
y
W ou
l d N ot ik
el
y lik
el
y ha
tl
So
m
ew Ex
tr
em
el y Ve
ry lik
el
y 0% Figure 43. Likelihood to recommend the brand they use to other call center professionals
Question: What is the likelihood you would recommend the brand you use to
other call center professionals? Finding: Over 95% of the call center managers surveyed indicated that they
were likely to recommend the brand of headset they use to other call
center professionals, with the percentage that are extremely likely
at 43.5%. Interpretation: It seems that most call centers are satisfied with the brand of
headset they use to the extent that they are at least somewhat
likely to recommend the brand to others. The differentiating
element in headset choice is service provider support rather than
brand, as reported earlier in our findings. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 88 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers What is the average price your organization currently pays for
a new wired headset?
50% 39.49% 40% 31.21%
30% 20% 14.33%
9.55% 10% 5.41% $2
00
th
an -$
20
0 M or
e $1
51 -$
15
0
$1
01 -$
10
0
$5
1 Le
ss th
an $5
0 0% Figure 44. Average price paid for a new wired headset
Question: What is the average price your organization currently pays for a
new wired headset? Finding: Of the call centers surveyed, 71% reported that they paid between
$51 and $150 per new wired headset. Interpretation: When taken in context with the other costs of call center operation,
the average cost per headset is relatively minor. Copyright © 89 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report What is the average price your center currently pays for a new
wireless headset?
70% 64.52% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 12.90% 10.32% 9.03% 10% 3.23% ed
us
se
t
he
ad
w
ire
le
ss No M or
e $1
51 th
a s n -$ $2
00 20
0 15
0
-$
10
1 Le
ss th
a n $1
00 0% Figure 45. Average price per new wireless headset
Question: What is the average price your center pays for a new wireless
headset? Finding: The response to this questions revealed that 64.5% of the call
centers surveyed do not currently use wireless headsets. Interpretation: Of the 34.5% of the call centers that do use wireless headsets, over
90% indicated that they pay between $101 to more than $200 per
wireless headset, which is on-average more than double the cost per
wired headset (as compared with the previous figure). © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 90 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers In your organization, are headset purchases and
related costs considered expense items or capitalized
items? Capitalized
items
15%
Expense items
71% Don't Know
14% Figure 46. Ratio of call centers that expense versus capitalize the cost of their headsets
Question: In your organization, are headset purchases and related costs
considered expense items or capitalized items? Findings: Most call centers expense rather than capitalize the headset
purchases and related costs. Interpretation: Taking into account only call centers that reported knowing whether
they expense or capitalize their headset and related costs, the
percentages increase to 82% that consider headset and related costs
as an expense item rather than a capitalized item. This suggests
that the majority of call center management regard headsets as a
tool that will likely be replaced within the first couple of years of
use, and therefore all costs related to the purchase of headsets and
related items are fully recognized during the year purchased. Copyright © 91 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Which of the following was the most important to you in
deciding which brand of headsets to purchase?
Performance &
reliability 46.9% 18.6% Competitive price Audio quality 14.5% Agent comfort 7.9% Service and warranty
agreement 3.1% Durability 1.4% Other 7.6%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Figure 47. Most important factor in deciding which brand of headset to purchase
Question: Which of the following was the most important to you in deciding
which brand of headsets to purchase? Finding: By a margin of 2.5 to 1 (46.9% vs. 18.6%), call centers surveyed
indicated performance & reliability rather than cost as the most
important consideration in their decision which brand of headset to
purchase. Interpretation: The results of this question in our One-Minute Survey™ closely
parallel the response to question 5 of Survey One. Given the much
larger sample size of the One-Minute Survey™, this data is more
indicative of the general attitude across the entire contact center
industry regarding factors that dictate the selection of a particular
brand of headset. However, it is important to note that both surveys
showed that call center managers share similar preferences
regarding reasons for headset brand selection purchases. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 92 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers Summary of Key Research Findings
• All respondents purchased headsets in 2004; 83% of respondents purchased new
units while the remainder purchased used. • When it came to headset brand selection, 36.8% of survey respondents indicated
that their choice was based on “quality, performance, and reliability;” this was
higher than any other selection criteria, including price. • Nine out of every ten respondents indicated that they felt comfortable with their
current headset service provider. • Only slightly more than one-third of the centers are using current technologies
(USB and Blue Tooth), and less than one half of the centers that use wireless
headsets employ 2.4 GHz technology. • About three-quarters of respondents indicated that they were “fairly satisfied” or
“satisfied” with their present headset management systems. • Surprisingly, only 1 in 12 respondents offer their agents training in the hygienic
use of headsets. • Training in the proper use and storage of headsets was somewhat better though
still surprisingly low. Copyright © 93 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report B est Practice Recommendations
Centralized Accountability for Headset Management
• It is considered best practice to centralize headset management accountability.
Having headset procedures and systems in place will save you time and money.
The goal is to eliminate the all too common practice of having headsets and parts
crammed in boxes, stuffed under desks, scrapped in cabinets at the end of the hall,
etc. In these less-than-ideal scenarios, whenever a headset breaks, someone has to
leave the floor in hopes of retrieving a working unit. The result in lost time and a
negative impact on performance metrics. The team member responsible for
inventory should ensure that working headsets are always available and those
that are not are quickly turned around for repair and/or return. • Decide who will manage your headsets. In smaller call centers, the best practice
is to assign a call center leader who can own the process and start to implement
procedures and be accountable for managing all headset-related inventory. This
accountability is a portion of the leader’s position description. • In larger call centers (500+ agents), managing headset-related inventory may
require a full-time person. • Those centers that manage their headset inventory typically track headsets on
three different spreadsheets: 1) headsets in stock/available, 2) headsets waiting for
repair, and 3) headsets out for repair. Some manage their inventory electronically,
while others choose to track theirs on paper. Headset Selection Process
• Your business relies on clear, effective communications with your customers, and
the headset is the most important link between your agents and your customers.
Selecting headsets, and a headset company, is an important decision for your
business. A call center’s management team, with members from training and/or
quality assurance, is typically given accountability for headset purchasing
decisions. This team’s responsibility is to research headset brands and model
features and order several different ones. After agents have the chance to “test
drive” the headsets and critique them, the management team makes purchasing
decisions. • When selecting new headsets, best practices include a thorough comparison of
headset brands and models. Most centers typically buy one brand but have 2—3
wearing styles available to accommodate agent wearing preferences and the call
center environment. Typically, ordering one brand from one supplier results in
volume purchase discounts. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 94 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers
• A thorough headset selection comparison should include addressing the following
issues to ensure you make the best selection choice for your center’s needs and
budget:
o Noise level. Determine your call center’s noise level so you can select the
appropriate headsets. Does your vendor offer a complete line of headsets
available with both Voice Tube and Noise Canceling microphones? Investing
in features that you may not need, or skimping on those you do, can leave
you with headsets that don’t function well in your particular call center
environment. o Know your vendor. Consider your headset vendor as you would any other
critical business partner. Do they have the necessary experience? Do they
understand call centers? Can they support you throughout the sales and
support process? Are they financially stable for the long term? o Product range. Does the vendor of choice offer a full range of products?
Comfortable agents are productive agents, and there are many headset styles
to meet individual needs. It’s never a “one size fits all” situation. To increase
agent productivity and monitor customer satisfaction, choose a vendor that
has a cordless option for coaches or supervisors to move freely from agent to
agent. o One supplier. Consider standardizing on one headset manufacturer and
supplier. When developing a call center, or looking to update your inventory,
identify one solid supply chain that can meet all your needs. This will lower
your transaction costs, which can lower your overall cost of ownership. o Inventory management. Be thorough in considering inventory
management. Where are you going to store and how do you keep track of
your headset inventory? Identify a vendor that offers inventory management
solutions. o Sales and support. Think about how your headsets will be serviced postsale. Make sure that you identify a headset supply chain that will provide
you 24-hour support. Having headsets work around the clock is crucial.
Without headsets, agents don’t answer calls, and sales don’t get made. o Agent training. Remember that agents need training on how to use, care
for and maintain headsets. Trained agents will protect your headset
investment. Some vendors provide onsite training, computer-based training,
training videos and interactive tutorials. o The sound of the future. Consider if your manufacturer is continuing to
invest R&D dollars in the call center. The headset is the last link between
agents and customers; it should provide superior sound quality, fit, comfort,
and stability, allowing agents to focus on calls and close sales, rather than
being hassled by inadequate headsets. o Determine what you’re getting for your money. Due diligence requires
that you compare not only one headset price to others but ensure that you
Copyright © 95 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report are buying the best value your center can afford. The cheapest headset will
seldom prove to be the best value. Don’t forget to consider each headset’s
ability to deliver the kind of service your customers expect while managing to
budget.
o Determine if the sound quality heard by both the agent and the
customer is strong and clear. o Determine if the headset will be comfortable for a call center agent
to wear for a full shift. o Ensure the headset offers a snug fit that will stay in place. o Be sure the volume controls can be adjusted easily and offer an
adequate range of control. o If you are considering the purchase of a wired headset, ensure the
cord is long enough to allow adequate agent movement. o Be sure the quick disconnect is truly quick and easy. And ensure the
agent can reconnect without hassle. Without an effective quick disconnect
system, agents might not have ready access to remote consulting sources. If
the agent has to hang up on callers and call them back later, she is not only
increasing her Average Work Time (AWT) but is incurring unnecessary
telecom charges, too. o Determine if binaural (both ears) or monaural (one ear) headsets are
more appropriate for your agents. If your agents seldom have the need to
consult with others in their call center, binaural headsets may be the better
choice because they increase call clarity. Monaural headsets will likely be
more effective for those agents who depend more heavily on the consultation
of other team members within their call center. o Check to see if the microphone is easy to adjust and one that won’t
get in the agent’s way. o If your center is considering going wireless, consider the user
density of your center. Ask yourself: What is our building’s layout and
employee distribution within this space? User density refers to the number of
wireless units that can be used in one space before interference begins
between those units. This can be a critical issue in environments where a
large number of employees use wireless units within close proximity of each
other. o If your center utilizes wireless headsets or is considering
purchasing them, ensure the supplier offers a money back guarantee
on security and density. This offers greater assurance against
transmission interference. This reduces the occurrence of cross talk (when
one receiver picks up the conversation of another transmitter). o Check to see if the headsets you’re considering are compatible with
USB (Universal Serial Bus). USB is a high-speed digital connection © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 96 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers directly into your PC. The USB connector is now ubiquitous, as it has been
included on virtually every PC sold over the past several years. Connecting a
headset via a PC’s USB port allows you to bypass the sound card entirely,
resulting in a cleaner, stronger signal. Headsets are currently available that
utilize the USB port of an agent’s workstation commonly used in VoIP
applications.
Some advanced USB types of headsets have remote call detection and
answer/end capability utilizing specialized software that produces superior
sound quality. Budgeting for the Purchase and Repair of Headsets
• Analyze your headset expenses over a two to four year period – not just upfront
purchase price. The purchase price accounts for only half of the costs over time.
Repairs, spare parts, shrinkage, mismanaged inventories, and warranties
comprise the remainder of the expenses. Identify all costs up front so you have a
complete picture of your financial investment. • Seventy-one percent of respondents to Survey Two indicate that their call centers
consider headset and related purchases as expense items, rather than capitalized
items. • Almost 90% of call centers in Survey Two report that they spend less than $5,000
per year on headset repair/replacement. • Of the call centers who responded to Survey Two, 71% reported that they pay
between $51 - $150 per new wired headset. • Only 34.5% of the call centers that responded to Survey Two indicate that they use
wireless headsets. Of this group, over 90% indicate that they pay between $101 to
more than $200 per wireless unit. • It is considered best practice to maintain a separate budget for headset repair and
replacements. Expenses are more easily monitored and managed this way. • Best practice is to secure a service guarantee from the headset distributor that
promises to send out a replacement headset before receiving the damaged unit. • Best practice is to turn in damaged, out-of-warranty headsets for a credit towards
the purchase of new units. Agent Training in Headset Usage, Care, and Hygiene
• While the number of call centers that provide agents training on headset cleaning
and hygiene, proper storage, and usage was disappointingly low, best in practice
centers provide this education in initial training. Further, during the cold and flu
season, these centers offer agents e-mail refreshers on headset cleaning and
hygiene. • Best in practice centers advise agents returning from sick leave to turn in their
headset for a refurbished, clean unit. The headsets that are turned in are sprayed
Copyright © 97 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report with an antiseptic and thoroughly cleaned with alcohol wipes before being
reassigned.
• Some best in practice centers offer agents replacement earmuffs and alcohol wipes
for a nominal fee via vending machines within the call center. • One best practice center cut cost on disinfectant wipes by discontinuing their use
of pre-packaged ones in favor of “home made” wipes. Call center leaders purchase
in bulk Kimberly Clark paper towels and Top Job industrial-use antibacterial
powder. Leaders then make their own disinfectant wipes for a fraction of what
they had been paying for the ready-made ones. • Another best practice is to provide agents headset pouches for storage when their
headsets are not in use (overnight and throughout extended time away from the
call center). These pouches are then stored in locked file drawers, lockers, or
cabinets. This practice not only reduces the risk of spreading germs and infections
but also protects units from damage and theft. Theft Deterrence
• While the majority of centers in our study did not report issues with headset theft,
this was more of an issue in large call centers where multiple shifts of agents
shared the same workspace.
One center deals effectively with this issue by mounting large, self-designed
platforms (16” wide by 24” long) with curved tops, which hang over the top of
workstation walls. The ACD phone base, headset interface amplifier, and headset
jack are attached by screws and fastened to the platform. The agent simply affixes
her own earmuff and microphone cover or voice tube to set up for work. While few,
if any, theft deterrents are 100% effective, this platform is large enough to make
carrying it out of the building difficult.
(This same center eventually contracted with a headset maker to build these
platforms. The center’s procurement group is responsible for affixing the hardware
to the platforms.) • Another practice is to have agents purchase their own headsets. This agentcentered accountability is a way some centers choose to manage costs. When
headsets require repair, the call center provides the agent with a loaner. S ummary and Conclusions
The equipment used by call center agents—particularly headsets—has a greater impact
on productivity than is sometimes acknowledged by busy call center leaders. To reduce
after call work time and increase Return on Investment in their call centers, leaders
would be wise to acknowledge that consistent call clarity is job number one. An effective
headset management system—including money spent on high-quality headsets—is an
investment in agent stress reduction, customer satisfaction, and the all-important bottom
line. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 98 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 7: Best Practices in Headset Management in Call Centers Following are some summary points pertaining to effective headset management worth
remembering:
• The cheapest headsets available are not typically the best values available. Savvy
call center leaders know that real value most often comes in the form of
competitive product performance, reliability, service agreements and warranties. • Effective headset management often requires a centrally managed inventory
system. In small call centers, this may be a portion of one team member’s role. In
larger centers, it may require the full dedication of a team member. • Training agents in proper headset use, storage, and hygiene practices will most
certainly pay for itself in terms lower agent sick leave and fewer occurrences of
headset theft and damage. • Though headsets are inexpensive when compared to call center salaries, telecom
costs, computers, and other equipment, the effective management of them can
result in tangible savings such as lower headset repair and replacement, telecom,
and agent sick time expenses, and improved productivity. Copyright © 99 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 8:
PURDUE UNIVERSITY CALL
CENTER CERTIFICATION Copyright © 101 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 8: Purdue University Call Center Certification I ntroduction to Cert i fication
As the customer service call center has become the most vital interface between a
company and its customers, it has become critical that the call handling process be
conducted both effectively and efficiently. Many companies now want a “third party”
opinion regarding how well their call center is functioning in its strategic role of getting,
keeping, and growing customers. This business need to rate the performance of a
company’s mission-critical call center has lead to call center certification.
Call center managers who wish to implement best practices and attain world-class
performance in their industry can call upon us to certify their call centers. Our rigorous
certification process has the advantage of referencing all performance goals to our best
practice database of thousands of call centers. Thus, you will be held to performance
levels that will improve your competitive position, not just force you to adhere to an
arbitrary standard. This makes our certification process management’s best path to a
Center of Quality. Our certification program is unique in the world as it sets performance
standards according to peer group best practices. The statistics are determined through
continuous processing of thousands of performance metrics stored in our data warehouse,
which is the largest in the world.
Certification is performed either directly by us, or else by an independent consultant who
has completed a special training class offered through the Center for Customer-Driven
Quality at Purdue University and who has passed the Call Center Certification Auditor
Examination. H ow the Purdue University Call Center Certification is Unique
Purdue University’s Center for Customer-Driven Quality, through its business partner
BenchmarkPortal, manages a data warehouse of call center best practice statistics on
thousands of call centers in 24 industry segments. These performance data are kept
current and accurate, and are used by call center professionals worldwide to establish
goals for best practice call center performance.
Our call center certification process is unique in the following ways:
• Our certification process is based strictly on a quantitative approach, as compared
to a qualitative approach where most performance issues depend largely upon the
judgment of a trained auditor. • Our certification process begins with a thorough statistical comparison between
the call center striving to be certified and a “peer group” of similar call centers in
the same industry sector. • Our certification process is based on a “balanced score-card” approach of
performance comparison, namely, certified call centers are able to manage call
handling at a high level of both efficiency and effectiveness, i.e., at both “high
quantity of calls, and high quality for each call.” Copyright © 103 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report
• Our certification process relies completely on statistical methods of performance
benchmarking that pinpoint areas of high performance, and quantify gaps in areas
of low performance. • Our certification process is academically based, and uses only established
scientific methods to measure the achievement of certifiable best practices
standards. T he Steps in the Certification Process
The call center certification process is conducted in four phases as follows:
Phase One - An in-depth performance benchmark audit of your call center is
conducted. In this process, we compare your performance with a statistically valid
sample of call centers that are functionally similar to your call center in size, type of
calls handled, and industry segment. We call this Your Peer Group. The Phase One
report indicates specifically and quantitatively all the performance gaps in your
current call center deployment. Hiring New Employees
Employee Internal
Communications Caller Self Service Training Employees
Employee Development Caller Service
Recovery Real-Time Expert Help Employee
Compensation Caller Satisfaction
Measurement Service Improvement Call Center
Performance Evaluation
Reporting Knowledge Access
Workforce Optimization Call Routing
Call Quality Monitoring Figure 48. The sixteen key call center processes
Phase Two – We may conduct a “deep dive” into the major gaps that were
highlighted in the Phase One report. This discovery process focuses on sixteen key call
center processes (see the figure above). The Phase Two report is a series of specific
recommendations for call center improvement leading to certification.
Phase Three - We conduct another in-depth performance benchmark of your call
center to ensure that you have reached the quantitative performance level needed for
full certification. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 104 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 8: Purdue University Call Center Certification Phase Four - We come back annually to benchmark your performance to ensure that
you are continuing to operate your call center at or above the quantitative
performance level needed to maintain full certification.
The complete audit requires a minimum of two days on-site at your call center. Most call
centers managers find tremendous value in having a qualified consultant help them to a)
focus on those metrics crucial to their success; b) gather and input data correctly;
c) interpret our reports so as to get highest value-added from the benchmarking process.
The reports required for the audit and travel expenses are billed separately. Figure 49. Example of Certificate of Center of Excellence awarded by Purdue University’s
Center for Customer-Driven Quality. Signed by Dr. Jon Anton Copyright © 105 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 9:
BENCHMARKING METHODOLOGY: A CASE
STUDY Copyright © 107 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 9: Benchmarking Methodology: A Case Study I ntroduction
Over the past decade, the call center has moved from a back-office cost center to the front
line of the current corporate customer relationship management (also know as “CRM”)
strategy. In this migration to CRM, the importance of the telephone service
representative (often referred to as a “TSR” or “agent”) has gone from the need for
individuals with minimum skills at minimum pay to the need for the sophisticated
“knowledge worker” of the present and future.
In parallel with this evolution, technology has opened several additional channels of
communication between customer and companies. The two most popular with customers
are e-mail and the corporate Web site. Management of customer relationships through
these additional channels has added an “e” to CRM, namely electronic customer
relationship management (now called “e-CRM”). With the additional management
challenge of these new channels, the call center itself is in a transitory state as it moves more
and more to becoming the e-business center of the future.
Now that top executives are convinced that the e-business center is a strategic weapon
for: (a) getting customers, (b) keeping customers, and (c) growing profitable customers,
the importance of performance benchmarking (defined below) has become mission
critical.
This chapter describes, in detail, a case study where benchmarking was able to determine
important gaps in call center performance, and then pinpoint areas of improvement in
human resource management. The case study focuses on a bank call center handling
predominately inbound, customer service calls. D efinition of Case Study Terminology
The following are definitions of terms used in this case study presentation:
An Inbound Customer Service Call Center is any group of agents whose inbound
calls are routed by an automatic call distributor (also known as an “ACD”). The ACD
automatically routes each inbound call to the agent based on one or both of the
following routing rules: (a.) the next available agent, and/or (b) the next available
agent who has the proper skills and knowledge to best handle the caller’s issues.
Human Resource Management (or HR), for the purpose of this case study, shall be
that team of professionals in the call center that recruits, screens, trains, and
monitors the agents.
Performance Benchmarking is a structured, analytical method of comparing the
performance of two or more call centers in order to determine best practice goals and
to ensure competitive CRM functionality leading to market dominance.
The Efficiency Index is a combination of performance metrics that are related to
productivity. Examples would be average talk time, average after call work time, calls
per agent per shift, and the like. Copyright © 109 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report The Effectiveness Index is a combination of performance metrics that are related to
quality. Examples would be caller satisfaction, calls handled on the first call, and the
like. More on the calculations of this important index can be found at
<www.BenchmarkPortal.com>.
The Call Center Performance Index (TPI**) is a balance scorecard that combines
the Effectiveness Index and the Efficiency Index into one combined index of
performance.
Best Practices are the acceptable levels of performance that come about by
benchmarking the best performers in any particular group. In the benchmarking
methodology developed by the author, the peer group call centers are first ranked by
TPI**. The best practice metrics for that peer group are determined by averaging the
performance metrics of the top 25% of the peer group. To get the best practices for an
industry segment, for instance, banks, first rank all bank call centers by TPI**, then
select the top 25%, then average their metrics to determine the best practices for the
banking industry segment.
e-CRM is best defined by considering three distinctly different customer needs, as
follows:
Operational e-CRM is the seamless accessibility through all communication
channels (also sometimes referred to as customer “touch-points”) by the customer
to mission-critical information related to the purchase, use, servicing, and repurchase of a company’s products or services.
Analytical e-CRM is the monitoring and analysis of each e-interaction, through
any channel or touch-point that a customer has with the company, whether this is
by telephone, email, or through a Web site visit.
Collaborative e-CRM is the customization and personalization of all future
customer e-interaction based on what was learned from all previous interactions.
A Peer Group, for the purposes of this benchmarking case study, shall be any group
of call centers that has a similar profile to the call center being benchmarked.
Example of profile delimiters are as follows: industry segment (i.e., banking/financial
services), inbound versus outbound calls, annual call volumes, number of agents, type
of calls handled, and many more.
The Peer Group Best as used in reports in this case study is the top 25% of a peer
group based on TPI**.
An Actionable Report is a report that makes it very clear what action needs to be
taken by the manager using the report.
Agent Occupancy, or occupancy factor is determined by taking the time that agents
are in their seats ready to answer calls as compared to the total number of hours that
they are at work. Therefore, if an agent is at their desk and ready to answer phone
calls 4 hours out of an 8-hour shift, the agent occupancy rate is 50%. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 110 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 9: Benchmarking Methodology: A Case Study Agent Adherence to schedule is a measure of whether agents are “on the job” as
scheduled. Adherence is determined by comparing scheduled time when an agent is
“supposed” to be at work, as compared to the actual time the agent is actually at
work. The question, “how often do agents deviate from their schedule” is answered by
this metric.
Aptitude Testing includes a range of personality testing products that tend to
predict if an agent has the right “genes” to give great customer service. These tests
have been validated specifically for the screening of agents. There are also a range of
“realistic job preview” simulators that allow agent job applicants to spend time in a
simulated call handling environment to see if they have the right combination of
attitude and aptitude to do call handling as a long-term job commitment.
Skill-Based Routing of calls is a product offering by the major switch manufacturers
that routes calls not only to the next available agent, but more importantly to the next
available agent that has the proper skills to handle the caller’s issue. C ase Study Specifics
This is a detailed case study of the benchmarking experience of a call center in a company
with the following business profile:
Industry Segment:
Company Size:
Number of Call Centers in the Company:
Number of Call Centers in this Case Study:
Number of Agents:
Annual Call Volume Handled:
Primary Functions Handled by Agents: banking/financial services
$33 billion in assets
22
1
325
4,524,000
a) customer service
b) complaint handling Distribution of Inbound versus Outbound: 90% inbound
10% outbound follow-up Peer Group Delimiters: a) banking/financial services
b) 200 to 400 Agents
c) 2 to 5 million calls handled W hy and How to Benchmark a Call Center
Performance benchmarking of mission-critical company processes, e.g., accounting,
manufacturing, shipping, etc., has been around for years. The process is well documented
and is a popular way to answer the question “How good is good enough” when it comes to
the performance of a department, or process, within an organization. As is clear from the
definition, benchmarking is always a structured gap analysis of performance metrics as Copyright © 111 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report compared to organizations that have similar characteristics, i.e., it is logical to compare
banks with banks, insurance companies with insurance companies, and the like.
By contrast, call center benchmarking is relatively new and was first initiated at Purdue
University by the author in 1995 with a grant from IBM. After more than a decade of
research, the Purdue/BenchmarkPortal database of almost one terabyte of performance
metrics is constantly being enhanced by new participants, and is now outsourced for data
management, maintenance, and information distribution to BenchmarkPortal, Inc. (Web
site at <www.BenchmarkPortal.com>).
The primary reasons to benchmark a call center are as follows:
1. Comparisons help to reduce the typical barriers to change. For instance, if you know
you are 50 pounds overweight as compared to your human peer group, i.e., people
with the same age, gender, and ethnicity, it is more likely that you will take some
action to lose weight. 2. Secondly, you can further magnify performance gaps by calculating the dollar value of
poor performance. For instance, it is much less likely that you will get
management’s attention if you publish a performance gap in average talk time of
1.5 minutes per call. It is much more likely that you will get immediate
management attention if you instead show that a performance gap of 1.5 minutes
for each call compared to your peer group adds up to over a million dollars of
excess cost each year. 3. And finally, the main purpose of benchmarking is to help you select the one initiative
that commits a minimum of company resources to achieve the best performance
goals and objectives. Said in the modern vernacular, benchmarking helps you select
the “low hanging fruit.” Call centers that wish to participate in benchmarking their performance can log into the
BenchmarkPortal Web site and enter their data, click on the Peer Group Benchmarking
link, and then receive the “In Depth RealityCheck™ Peer Group Report,” a complete set
of benchmark reports similar to the examples discussed in this case study. This case
study is about a real bank in North America that participated in the
Purdue/BenchmarkPortal benchmark research, and that has given their permission to
use their data without revealing the identity of the bank.
The purpose of the next four sections will be: (a) to show the reports used by the bank’s
benchmark team, (b) interpret the results as they did, (c) to understand the initiatives
selected by the benchmarking team, and finally, (d) to report on the final actual
improvements in performance that resulted six months later. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 112 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 9: Benchmarking Methodology: A Case Study T he In-Depth RealityCheck ™ P eer Group Performance Matrix
The first report is called the Peer Group Performance Matrix and is shown below. © BenchmarkPortal, Inc Figure 50. Peer Group Performance Matrix
The RealityCheck™ Peer Group Performance Matrix positions call centers in your Peer
Group on a 2-by-2 matrix by plotting their efficiency and effectiveness indices. The
Efficiency Index integrates those metrics that have an important impact on costs
(quantity), while the Effectiveness Index combines metrics that correlate to caller
satisfaction (quality). Thus, call centers that are able to optimize customer-centric
results, while containing costs, are “Best Practices Call Centers” found in the upper-right
quadrant. In summary, call centers rated an “Asset” perform the best, “Liability” the
worst.
What is instantly clear from the performance matrix is that the case study bank’s call
center is performing at the level of a corporate liability while six of its peer group call centers
are able to achieve the status of a corporate asset. Two of the peer group call centers are in the
efficient but not effective quadrant. It was immediately obvious to the call center
benchmarking team that they must drill down to determine what factors may be causing
this less-than-acceptable performance.
Though the RealityCheck™ Peer Group Performance Matrix is not an “actionable report,”
it is a high-level and accurate “litmus test” of the call center’s ability to deliver up to the
CRM best practice standards of peer group call centers with the same business challenges.
So, the next step was to drill down to find the possible root cause(s) of the low performance. Copyright © 113 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report T he In-Depth RealityCheck ™ B alanced Scorecard
The In-Depth RealityCheck™ Peer Group Performance Matrix reflects a “Balanced
Scorecard” of Effectiveness and Efficiency metrics, which are calculated using the
Tonchev Performance Index (TPI). These metrics are weighted to yield composite score.
A typical sampling of the bank’s key metrics used by the TPI to calculate their positioning
with respect to their peers on the In-Depth RealityCheck™ Peer Group Performance
Matrix (Figure 50) is shown in the Balanced Scorecard as follows: A Balanced Scorecard For Sample Company
Effectiveness Metrics
(Y Axis) Top Box Caller-Satisfaction in Percent Your
Value Industry
Average 40.00 42.32 Your
Value Industry
Average Inbound Calls per Agent per Hour 10.50 15.00
54.78 Efficiency Metrics
(X Axis) Bottom Box Caller-Satisfaction in Percent 7.00 3.36 Calculated Self Service in Percent 87.50 Top Box Agent-Satisfaction in Percent 62.00 66.00 Calculated Cost per Call in $ 6.83 4.72 Bottom Box Agent-Satisfaction in Percent 12.00 4.00 Calculated Cost per FTE in $ 145,000.00 52,685.61 Calls Closed on First Call in Percent 65.00 68.41 Average After Call Work in Minutes 2.10 0.98 Average Speed of Answer in Seconds 34.00 33.45 Turnover of Full-Time Agents in Percent 34.00 22.20 Calls Transferred in Percent 7.00 8.00 Average Talk Time in Minutes 3.75 3.22 Average Hold Time in Seconds 25.00 45.00 Agent Utilization in Percent 72.00 89.00 Average Calls Abandoned in Percent 7.00 4.72 Agent Occupancy in Percent 60.00 83.16 80% Calls Handled in xx Seconds 60.00 33.59 Calculated Center Cost per Minute in $ 72.50 56.64 Average Time in Queue in Seconds NA 27.28 Adherence to Schedule in Percent 72.00 89.08 Calls Blocked in Percent 0.00 1.33 Average Agent Attendance in Percent 75.00 89.08 Calls Opting Out of the IVR in Percent 17.00 54.00 Auxiliary Time in Percent 12.00 6.00 Avg Time Before Abandoning in Seconds 71.00 57.68 Agents/Supervisor Ratio 12.00 10.94 * Represents a Normalized Value. ^ Represents an out of range value. N/A Represents Data Not Available.
© BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Patented 2005
TM In-Depth Realit yCheck Figure 51. Balanced Scorecard
It is noteworthy to point out that the In-Depth RealityCheck™ survey is designed to
collect fundamental, industry-wide performance contact center metrics used to compare
contact centers of similar characteristics (e.g., annual call volume, agent staffing size,
human resources, customer satisfaction measurement, operating budget size, call-types
handled, etc.). It is intended for inbound customer contact center operations
encompassing a wide range of contact center key performance indicators. Contact centers
managers will find ample grounds for peer group and best-in-class comparison. The
survey includes slightly over 40 questions that cover:
•
•
• © Copyright Classification
Costs
Human Resources •
•
• 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 114 Performance Measurement
Satisfaction Measurement
Support Center Strategy This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 9: Benchmarking Methodology: A Case Study T he In-Depth RealityCheck ™ I nbound Performance Comparison Report
The next drill-down report is called the Peer Group Comparison Report. A partial listing
of this report is shown in the table below, as follows: Inbound Performance Comparisons
Your
Response Peer Group
Average Average speed of answer in seconds 34.00 Average talk time in minutes (includes hold time) 3.75 Average after call work time in minutes
Average time in queue in seconds Your
Gap Industry
Average Your
Gap 24.78 -9.22 33.45 -0.55 3.22 -0.53 4.23 -0.48 2.10 Average Time-Based Metrics: 0.65 -1.45 0.98 -1.12 Left Blank 24.89 N/A 27.28 N/A Average time before abandoning in seconds 71.00 62.17 -8.83 57.68 -13.32 Average caller hold time in seconds while connected to an agent 25.00 7.50 -17.50 45.00 -20.00 -2.28% Average Percentage-Based Metrics:
Average abandoned in percent 7.00% 4.29% -2.71% 4.72% Calls resolved on first call in percent 65.00% 77.30% -12.30% 68.41% -3.41% Agent occupancy in percent 60.00% 83.16% -23.16% 79.22% -19.22% Adherence to schedule in percent 72.00% 89.01% -17.01% 84.18% -12.18% Average attendance in percent 75.00% 90.39% -15.39% 89.08% -14.08% Average Auxiliary (Aux) Time in percent 12.00% 5.00% -7.00% 9.00% -3.00% Average Utilization in percent 72.00% 89.00% -17.00% 89.00% -17.00% © BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Figure 52. Inbound Performance Comparisons
The In-Depth RealityCheck™ report shows the call center performance metrics
descriptions in the first column followed by a column with the actual call center
performance metrics of the case study bank (noted as “Your Response”), then the peer
group averages along with the performance gaps, followed by the averages and
performance gaps for all participants.
For brevity purposes, only fourteen call center performance metrics are shown and these
are specifically chosen because they highlight HR management opportunities the main
topic of this case study. It immediately became clear to the benchmarking team that the
case study call center is under performing on all the HR-related metrics shown in the
table in Figure 52 above. — At this stage of the drill-down research by the benchmarking team, it was already
becoming clear which metric might be causing the biggest impact on performance. The
most important caller satisfaction driver is the ability of a call center to answers callers’
questions on the first call with no transfers and no callbacks. In the above table, this metric is
called the “average first/final calls” (also sometimes called “average once and done calls”).
In the report above, the case study bank’s score is 65% as compared with the peer group of
banks at 77.3%. This may appear to be a small difference (only 12.3%), but when the cost
of this lack of performance is calculated for this bank, it totals over two million dollars
each year, which means it is definitely worth launching an improvement initiative.
Copyright © 115 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report T he In-Depth RealityCheck ™ P erformance Ranking Report
The third drill-down report is called the Peer Group Ranking Report. A partial listing of
this report is shown below. ©BenchmarkPortal,
©BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Figure 52. Peer Group Ranking Report
The In-Depth RealityCheck™ Performance Ranking Report gives the benchmarking team
an even more granular look at how the case study bank compares, metric for metric, with
its peer group of banks. For instance, when it comes to blocked calls, the case study bank is
actually doing rather well, performing in the 95.7 percentile and ranks second. However,
in the very important performance HR management metric of agent Occupancy, the case
study bank is only ranked 11th, and only in the 18th percentile.
This report is focused on selecting the one metric that may be causing the most damage
to performance, i.e., finding the “lowest hanging fruit” to which you can direct a focused
budget for an improvement initiative. Not shown in this table, is the fact that on the metric
of “average first/final calls,” the case study bank was at the bottom of the heap, i.e.,
performed the absolute worst. This became the focus of the bank’s benchmarking team. R esults and Conclusions
From the previous reports, the case study benchmarking team decided that the biggest
negative gap in performance seems to be the average first/final calls, or “once and done
calls.” It became clear that applicant testing and skill-based routing are high on the list of
potential improvement initiatives. In this particular example, the bank’s benchmarking
team received management’s approval to pursue both initiatives. Specifications were
prepared, a request-for-proposal (also called “RFP”) was issued, vendors were selected,
and the initiatives were launched and successfully completed. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 116 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 9: Benchmarking Methodology: A Case Study Six months after the successful installation and implementation of the two improvement
initiatives, the following results were tabulated:
•
•
•
•
• Percent “first/final calls” improved by 11.6%.
Average time in queue was reduced by 2.8%.
Average agent occupancy was improved by just over 6%.
Calls per agents per shift were increased by 9.4%.
Caller satisfaction rose by almost 7%. The bank in this case study spent approximately $600,000 for the two improvement
initiatives, which included the selection process, the cost of the software/hardware
products, the training costs of the agents, and the installation services costs from a thirdparty integrator. When the improved metrics were converted to new revenue, reduced
operating cost, and customer satisfaction, the estimated ROI indicated complete payback
in less than 16 months of operation.
In conclusion, benchmarking cannot guarantee the success of any improvement initiative.
However, this case study does prove that by scientifically selecting initiatives based on “hard
facts,” not just personal intuition, (sometimes called “gut feel”), management can
effectively target improvements that have the maximum impact on the company’s
bottom-line profits. R eferences
1. Call Center Benchmarking, Dr. Jon Anton and Stijn Spit. 2. Benchmarking at its Best for Contact Centers, Bruce Belfiore, with Dr. Jon Anton. 3. The Tonchev Performance Index for Call Center Best Practices**, Dr. Jon Anton,
Angel Tonchev and Christo Tonchev. 4. BenchmarkPortal Web site at <www.BenchmarkPortal.com>.
** The Tonchev Performance Index (a.k.a., TPI) for Call Center Best Practices was
used to calculate performance for this case study. Copyright © 117 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CHAPTER 10:
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR Copyright © 119 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Chapter 10: Principal Investigator Dr. Jon Anton (also known as “Dr. Jon”) is the director of benchmark
research at Purdue University’s Center for Customer-Driven Quality.
He specializes in enhancing customer service strategy through inbound
call centers, and e-business centers, using the latest in
telecommunications (voice), and computer (digital) technology. He also
focuses on using the Internet for external customer access, as well as
Intranets and middleware.
Since 1995, Dr. Jon has been the principal investigator of the Purdue
University Call Center Benchmark Research. This data is now collected at the
BenchmarkPortal.com Web site, where it is placed into a data warehouse that currently
contains over ten million data points on call center performance. Based on the analysis of
this data, Dr. Jon authors the following monthly publications: “The Purdue Page” in Call
Center Magazine, “Dr. Jon’s Benchmarks” in Call Center News, “Dr. Jon’s Industry
Statistics” in Customer Interface Magazine, and “Dr. Jon’s Business Intelligence” in the
Call Center Manager’s Report.
Dr. Jon has assisted over 400 companies in improving their customer service
strategy/delivery by the design and implementation of inbound and outbound call centers,
as well as in the decision-making process of using teleservices providers for maximizing
service levels while minimizing costs per call. In August of 1996, Call Center Magazine
honored Dr. Jon by selecting him as an Original Pioneer of the emerging call center
industry. In October of 2000, Dr. Jon was named to the Call Center Hall of Fame. In
January of 2001, Dr. Jon was selected for the industry’s “Leaders and Legends” Award by
Help Desk 2000. Dr. Jon is also a member of the National Committee for Quality
Assurance.
Dr. Jon has guided corporate executives in strategically re-positioning their call centers
as robust customer access centers through a combination of benchmarking, reengineering, consolidation, outsourcing, and Web-enablement. The resulting single point
of contact for the customer allows business to be conducted anywhere, anytime, and in
any form. By better understanding the customer lifetime value, Dr. Jon has developed
techniques for calculating the ROI for customer service initiatives.
Dr. Jon has published 117 papers on customer service and call center methods in
industry journals. In 1997, one of his papers on self-service was awarded the best article
of the year by Customer Relationship Management Magazine.
Dr. Jon has published twenty-four professional books:
1. Enabling IVR Self-Service with Speech Recognition
2. Contact Center Management By The Numbers
3. Managing Web-Based Customer Experiences
4. From Cost to Profit Center: How Technology Enables the Difference
5. Customer Service and the Human Experience: We, the People, Make a Difference
6. Customer Service at a Crossroads
Copyright © 121 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report 7. Offshore Outsourcing Opportunities
8. Optimizing Outbound Calling
9. Customer Relationship Management Technology
10. Customer Obsession: Your Roadmap to Profitable CRM
11. Integrating People with Process and Technology
12. Selecting a Teleservices Partner
13. How to Conduct a Call Center Performance Audit: A to Z
14. 20:20 CRM A Visionary Insight into Unique Customer Contact
15. Minimizing Agent Turnover
16. e-Business Customer Service
17. Customer Relationship Management
18. Call Center Performance Enhancement Using Simulation and Modeling
19. Call Center Benchmarking: How Good is “Good Enough”
20. Listening to the Voice of the Customer
21. Contact Center Management by the Numbers
22. Customer Relationship Management: Making Hard Decisions with Soft Numbers
23. Inbound Customer Contact Center Design
24. Computer-Assisted Learning
Dr. Jon is the editor for a series of professional books entitled Customer Access
Management, published by the Purdue University Press.
Dr. Jon’s formal education was in technology, including a Doctorate of Science and a
Master of Science from Harvard University, a Master of Science from the University of
Connecticut, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Notre Dame. He also
completed a three-summer intensive Executive Education program in Business at the
Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
Dr. Jon can be reached at 765.494.8357, or at <DrJonAnton@BenchmarkPortal.com>. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 122 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FROM THE
POPULAR “ASK DR. JON” COLUMN Copyright © 123 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Q & A Category: “Call Center Performance Evaluation”
Question
Are the any client references that you can offer for
Benchmarking? Answer
Yes, we have many companies willing to talk to you
about their benchmarking experience. We do not just
give out names and email address, because we need
to know who you are, and what industry you’re in, and
then connect you with the best reference. I suggest you
email me at DrJonAnton@BenchmarkPortal.com with
your details. Do your senior executives respond to results from call As C-level interest in call center operations as grown
center performance benchmark studies?
over the years, more executives are asking the
questions “How good of a job are we doing?” and “How
good is good enough?” As interest in call center
performance has grown, they are becoming aware that
the most direct path to answering these questions is
through benchmark studies comparing themselves with
other similar call centers.
Our call center is looking for the Original Online
I hope that someone from my team has contacted you
Questionnaire to compare our call center with other
concerning the original questionnaire. If you have
call centers. We can provide Our Center Performance further questions, please contact me.
index to you. And we want you to check our
performance. I want to know how to do this. Please
help me.
The term “world class performance” is often bandied
about in the industry. Are there any metrics that are
actually used as a benchmark to determine so-called
“world class performance?” I think if anyone is
qualified to answer this question, it is you. “World class” is often used qualitatively but seldom
quantified. In my opinion, the only way to truly
determine world-class performance is to compare your
call center with a Peer Group of similar call centers with
similar challenges. On our Web site, you can select
your Peer Group by determining one or more of the
following parameters: 1) percentage of inbound calls
handled, 2) percentage of business-to-business calls,
3) total volume of calls handled annually, 4) total
number of full-time equivalents, 5) type of call handled
(such as customer service or tech support) and 6)
many other “apples to apples” parameters. If you select
such a group of “like” centers, and your performance
places you in the top ten percentile based on the call
center performance index (CPI), you are truly “world
class.” What does a call center have to do to renew
certification? Once certified as a “Center of Excellence,” a call center
must maintain its superior performance and this is
audited annually by a BenchmarkPortal approved
auditor. Copyright © 125 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Q & A Category: “Call Quality Monitoring”
Question Answer Does the time spent monitoring and coaching agents
have any effect on key call center performance
metrics? In this case, monitoring includes side-by-side
coaching, analog call recording, and digital voice and
data recording. If our database is divided into two parts, that is, those
that do not monitor, we observe the following
differences among those that do monitor: a) average
speed of answer is 19% lower, b) average talk time
decreases by 29% and c) after-call work time is nearly
three times lower. We met at the STI meeting in Wash. DC. Could you
We normally use 10 seconds, and this mostly screens
for wrong numbers.
tell me what the standard is for discarding abandon
calls on a Tech. Help Desk? My Help Desk is trying to
determine whether to use 5 or 10 seconds as the
standard. Thanks very much.
How can I estimate the number of calls by month to be
monitoring by CSR? Which is the way that I can
random the calls to be monitored? How is it correct to
calculate the number of monitored calls, by the offered
calls, the attendance calls or by the number of
agents? Great questions.
We have just completed our study on best practices in
Agent Monitoring and Coaching, which explains all of
your questions and more. Please check it out on our
Web site bookstore, or contact
MichaelFeinberg@BenchmarkPortal.com We are outsourcing customer service contact center
and back office operations to our data processing
technology provider. We plan to review recorded calls
already. What software tools, vendors, and products
would you recommend that would enable us to
monitor live calls from our remote location? Thank
you. Thank you for your question.
We have just completed an extensive study on the best
practices in Agent Monitoring and Coaching. It includes
the “how” and the “what” and also has a complete list of
vendors that supply this solution.
Please check our Web site bookstore for details, or
contact MichaelFeinberg@BenchmarkPortal.com We hear a lot about the need to measure agent
performance metrics to better conduct coaching
sessions. From your industry research, what are the
top three agent performance measures? From our benchmark research, we have found that the
most popular metrics used to measure and coach
agent performance are: a) call quality monitoring (often
voice and screen capture); b) attendance; c) call
handle time; d) caller satisfaction results; and e) input
accuracy. What are your thoughts on the impact of wireless
headsets for the purposes of quality monitoring? Wireless headsets are excellent for the purposes of
quality monitoring. Highly recommend checking this
out. What performance metric is the most likely to be
improved if we add agent monitoring or coaching
software to our call center? I am specifically talking
about software that records a conversation between a
caller and an agent and captures the agent's screen
during the call. Based on our research, call centers that use monitoring
or coaching software show measurable improvement in
average talk time, average after-call work time and the
number of calls resolved on the first contact © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 126 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Q & A Category: “Call Routing”
Question Answer Do you have information regarding reduction in call
handle times associated with skills-based routing in
call centers? Our benchmark research shows a possible 18 percent
reduction in call handle times associated with the
application of a skills-based routing package. The
return on investment is usually rather large. This
reduction in call handling time is even greater if the call
center in question has the need for highly specialized
call handlers and can easily identify several levels of
call handling skills among its agents. I hear a lot about caller value segmentation. What is
this and could you give me an example? With customer value segmentation you can pinpoint
your best customers (i.e., for the airlines, those in the
100K-mile category). With your center's ability to
recognize callers' phone numbers, it's possible to
detect callers who represent more value to your
company than other callers. Routing high-value callers
differently is called value-based routing. For instance,
let's say I am a 1OOK-mile traveler with one of the
major airlines. When I call this airline from my home or
my office, I am routed out of the normally long queue to
a special group of agents dedicated to high-value
travelers. But if I call from a pay phone, the center
doesn't recognize me, and I am routed to the regular
queue. That's the result of caller value segmentation I manage a call center for a health care organization.
The callers requesting our services need to speak with
as many as 4 different areas or departments. This
could mean direct transfers or callbacks. At each of
these steps we lose a percentage of our callers. Is this
a common problem with this system? What % of
callers should I expect to lose with each step? WOW, this is very unusual. I do not think you can
afford to lose ANY callers as they are transferred. I manage a contact center in Dallas Texas for a
company called TNB Card Services. We are fortunate
that our containment rate is typically between 78-80%.
My questions is this: As service provider (Customer
Service) for credit cards, what is the average time a
caller spends in the IVR? Like so many of my answers, it depends on the
circumstances. In a properly designed IVR messaging
system, a customer spends less than 30 seconds
working through the menus to find the right queue to be
in to get the response they are looking for. In a credit
card environment, if you have a well-designed selfservice strategy in place, the customer can find and get
their answer in less than 60 seconds ... more than that
and the probability of them “opting out” increases
quickly. Seems like there is something “systemically” wrong
with the design of call handling.
Needs attention. My colleague is working on a paper comparing our
This answer depends on the industry and the type of
transfer rates to standard 'benchmarked' rates. We
call, but in general, here are the answers: Misshave two types of transfers, misroutings and additional routings = 16%Additional questions = 28%
questions. Do you know what standard percentages
are for these two types of transfers?
We find that products that distribute calls to multiple
call centers have a positive impact on the following
performance metrics: average speed of answer,
percentage of 'once and done calls' queue time and
service levels. 127 Copyright © We are considering software that would allow us to
utilize agents in two separate locations to respond to
inbound calls (such as through load balancing). Are
there any statistics on how this software can affect our
call center performance metrics? 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer We need various Benchmarks (from any industry) of
the distribution between customers using IVR vs.
customers using a call center representative for
payment with credit cards. In the US, the cross-industry benchmark for customers
with “delinquent accounts” using IVR versus live agents
to make payments with credit cards is as follows:
23% use IVR
77% talk to a live agent
BTW, this is in contrast to the normal usage of IVR for
self-service by customers, where on-average, 72% of
all informational calls in consumer-product industries
are handled by IVR self service. What percentage of companies in the consumer
products industry and in the retail industry have their
collections done through a call center? To whom do
they report (finance / customer service / other)? What
are the collections call center responsibilities? Thank
you What percentage of companies in the consumer
products industry and in the retail industry have their
collections done through a call center?
From our database, the answer is 87%.
To whom do they report (finance / customer service /
other)?
Typically they report to finance.
What are the collections call center responsibilities?
Receive the details about delinquent customers.
Input their phone numbers on an auto dialer.
Trained agents talk to the customers about payment.
Manage by “promises to pay.” © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 128 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Q & A Category: “Caller Satisfaction Measurement”
Question Answer According to you, can we measure customer
satisfaction for debt recovery departments? This has been tried, but to no avail. Customer
satisfaction in a collection call center is an elusive item
and probably not worth measuring... Are there any best practices for determining caller
satisfaction/completion rates from an IVR? For ex, if
someone hangs up after we have given them a URL
but before we explain an application process, should
that be considered an abandon or a caller-satisfied
metric? I have to hit a 20% caller satisfied within the
IVR for a client, but there are disagreements as to
determining an abandon versus a satisfied. Any
information would be great. This is a tough, but common question. We are all trying
to “make our numbers.” Specifically, if a customer hangs
up after you give them a URL for self-service, you
should consider this a caller satisfied metric, after all,
he/she got what they need to know. Callers usually do
not abandon unless they wait much too long, or they get
some semblance of an answer. At our call center, we do monthly caller satisfaction
surveys using a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is a perfect
score. No matter how hard we try, we are not able to
get our percentage of perfect calls to go over 50%. Are
we doing something wrong? How do others do in this
performance category? Although your scores are slightly below average, your
survey results mirror our call center benchmark
research. Callers are not easy to please. In fact, many
respondents to post-call surveys simply do not give
perfect scores. I suggest you add an open-ended
question to your post-call survey that asks, “What is one
thing we could have done better to improve your calling
experience?” In working with call centers, I have found
that this question results in many new ideas for
improvement in call quality and delivery. Is there an industry standard for email and fax
response times? And if so, what would it be? The answer depends on the industry. If you consider all
industries, the answers are as follows:
e-mail response time = 18 hours
FAX response time = 6 hours
Currently we have between 100 and 200 in the customer
pipeline. Since we established our exclusive partnership
relationship with Witness, the ECHO product/service has
mushroomed. ECHO allows the customer to monitor and
coach the agent…a unique concept that saves the call
center tons of money. 129 Copyright © How many call centers use ECHO? 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer From recent member discussions around customer
satisfaction, first contact resolution, voice of the
customer and more, it has been clear that members
employ a wide variety of approaches/philosophies
when it comes to the timing of customer/external
measurement. Some advocate within 3 days as being
sufficient to retrieve an accurate customer response,
some longer and a few even suggest that real-time is
the way to go. In my book entitled “Listening to the Voice of the
Customer” your members will find a rich array of
methods to obtain timely and accurate customer
feedback regarding their contacts with the company’s
inbound customer service contact center. As is so true
of almost everything in life, “timing is everything”. And,
with no exception, timing is critical in obtaining accurate
customer feedback.
We have developed the Every Customer Has Opinions
(ECHO for short) survey system for caller, e-mail, and
chat customer feedback. Our research shows that the
less time that elapses between the customer “contact”
and the time you ask for feedback, the better.
Regardless of how you get the feedback, i.e., IVR,
e-mail, chat-window, we recommend that it either be
immediately after the contact, or never more than 24
hours later...the simple fact is...customers forget the
details and their answers change with time...immediacy
is critical for statistically, and emotionally accurate
customer feedback. How did you come up with the number of 30 minimum To be statistically valid at a 95% level of confidence with
completed surveys per rep to ensure statistical validity? an accuracy of plus/minus 5%, you need 360 completed
surveys from a random sample of participants (in this
case callers). If you're looking for statistically accurate
feedback from callers at the agent level, 30 per month,
equals 360 per year, and therefore you can statistically
“quote” the voice of the call in your annual reviews of
agents.
If we were gathering customer feedback for agents on
a team level only, how many surveys would we need to
gather for each and what would be the associated
cost? At the team level, you would again need 360 completed
surveys over the period of planned evaluation. Typically
the ratio of agents to supervisors (teams) is fifteen to
one. Logically then, the previously quoted agent-level
cost would be divided by fifteen to get the cost per team
or supervisor. In a BenchmarkPortal report it indicates that: “92% of
calls were resolved on first contact versus 79% for
other financial services companies.” Does this mean
that if there was a problem it was completely resolved
during the first contact? Percent “first contact resolution” is a key performance
indicator for all call centers. It means that the caller’s
issues and/or questions are resolved/answered on the
first call, with no transfers and no callbacks. In regards to post call surveys, is there a “rule of
thumb” as to how long (time) the surveys should be or
how many questions we should ask in each survey?
Should you limit the number of questions to avoid
callers from hanging up early? Length of time to complete the post-call survey and/or
number of questions is definitely an issue in maximizing
completed surveys...tell the caller up front how the
survey will take and stick to that time or less.
From our experience, absolutely no more than 10
questions and/or less that three minutes. What is the benchmark for e-mail response that we
should target for our center? What do customers
expect? © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. These are actually two different questions. In our e-mail
benchmarking studies, we find that companies with
e-mail management software consistently respond to
e-mail within three hours. By contrast, when we asked a
large sample of customers what they expect in terms of
an e-mail response, we found that 24 hours is more than
satisfactory. This expectation will, of course, change
over time. 130 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer What is the major difference that BenchmarkPortal
offers with ECHO from the other Customer Sat.
Surveys offered? ECHO has the following features that differentiate it from
others:
1. It was developed by and with real customers.
2. It is scientific and statistically based.
3. It drives results to the front-line agent in real time to
produce change quickly and seamlessly.
4. It is the only system that uses the caller to “monitor”
the call and drive this valuable feedback directly. What is the ratio of quality audits conducted per CSR
on a daily, monthly basis to call volumes in order be
confident of the quality being delivered to customers? 1. For new agents, you should be doing a quality audit
ratio of 10 per 100 calls
2. For experienced agents, you should be doing a
quality audit ratio of 5 per 1,000 calls
Percent “first contact resolution” is a key performance
indicator for all call centers. It means that the caller’s
issue and/or questions are resolved/answered on the
first call, with no transfers and no callbacks. 131 Copyright © In the BenchmarkPortal report on service recognition, it
indicates that: “92% of calls were resolved on first
contact versus 79% for other financial services
companies.” Does this mean that if there was a
problem it was completely resolved during the first
contact? (i.e. If a shareholder calls re clarification on
language within a prospectus the service
representative provides an answer during the call and
does not have to call the shareholder back with an
answer.) 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer Is there a basic ratio of number of satisfied customers
that send in positive feedback to dissatisfied customers
that send in complaints? (For example 1 in 100
satisfied send in a positive feedback and 10 in 100
dissatisfied send in a complaint. Which would be a 1:10
ratio.) This is an excellent question. In my research on
customer behavior regarding survey response, I have
found the following:
1. A customer’s willingness to respond to a survey
following a customer-event (phone call, email, chat, and
the like) is highly dependent on:
a. The loyalty of the customer to that company (for
instance, eBay members are more likely to answer
surveys simply because eBay has created almost a
“cult” company whose members really believe in, and
want to make the company better.
b. The ease with which the customer can switch vendors
(for instance, a utility is more likely to get a higher
response rate because customers can not change to
another utility company. Therefore, the customers try to
change the utility by responding to surveys.
C. And finally, if the customer is really happy, or really
unhappy they are more likely to respond.
2. If you research a customer’s emotional disposition
following a customer-event (phone call, e-mail, and the
like) their most likely emotional disposition will fall into
one of the following five categories: 1 = very dissatisfied,
2 = dissatisfied, 3 = neutral, 4 = satisfied, 5 = very
satisfied.
Now, the probability of a customer responding to a
survey following a customer-event is as follows
(assuming they are in one of the emotional states
described above):
1 = 90% probability they will complete the survey with a 1
2 = 30% probability they will complete the survey with a 2
3 = 05% probability they will complete the survey with a 3
4 = 30% probability they will complete the survey with a 4
5 = 50% probability they will complete the survey with a 5 Is abandon rate still a common performance standard
for call centers? How does the following compare to
industry standards for call center performance areas:
Average Speed of Answer - 80% within 30 seconds
Abandon Rate - 5% Response to inquiries - 90% within
3 business days © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Abandon rate is not a common performance standard
for call centers. It depends too heavily on the patience of
the caller. ASA 80/30 is not particular great. ASA in 30
seconds if an average performance. Abandon rate of 5%
is definitely poor across industries, and response of 90%
in 3 business days is almost at unacceptable email
levels. I suggest you get one of our industry reports for
your industry and compare all performance metrics. 132 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Q & A Category: “Caller Self Service”
Question Answer As an outsourcer, we have a prospect (public sector)
that performs the majority of their customer facing
services via paper mail. We believe that a multichannel approach with a focus on self service, then
email, then voice, then paper mail,(government
requirement must allow paper mail hence its inclusion)
would not only be a more cost effective solution for
them, but it would also dramatically increase citizen
satisfaction, service levels to the public and enhance
their reputation as a public body. Would you have any
statistics that could support us in this sell - e.g., AHT
for each of the channels, contact costs per channel
across public and different private sectors, satisfaction
levels per channel etc Your question is a good one, and certainly opening
other channels will be a blessing both for the citizen
and for the “budget.” Of course, government
organizations may not be so budget sensitive.
We have produced an industry report on government
call centers with lots of great data. I have asked
Michael Feinberg to contact you regarding our existing
reports.
Regarding just raw statistics on the various channels,
here are some stats from our various reports:
Channel Cost per contact Customer sat with the
channel:
web self serve $0.10 High
email mail $1.25 Medium
web chat $2.10 High
live telephone $5.50 High
snail mail $9.75 Low Do you have any predictions as to the mix in the use of We use predictive analysis to understand the growth of
various contact channels in the future?
alternative customer contact channels, and project the
following mix by the year 2005: 35% by Web selfservice, 30% by telephone, 25% by e-mail and 10% by
all others. We do not think the number of inbound
telephone calls will stop growing. Instead, we think the
total number of contacts with companies will increase
along with the changing distribution of those contacts.
Americans demand easy access to the companies with
whom they do business. In fact, accessibility to
mission-critical information is already a recognized
feature used to differentiate companies.
Do you have any statistics or projections for companies From our studies we would suggest you focus on the
that provide on-line customer service?
following issues: a) For most companies, a robust Web
site generates between four and six times more e-mail
messages than toll-free calls; b) Most e-mail messages
require the same amount of time as phone calls for a
proper response; c) Customers like e-mail but they
expect a response in fewer than 24 hours; d) The
number of people required to answer e-mail can equal
the number required for answering phone calls; e)
E-mail staffing costs are equal to or greater than
staffing costs for traditional telephone agents; f) Expect
a ten to one ratio of e-mail messages to live text
messages; and lastly, g) Chat session times are best
kept to about four hours per day. Copyright © 133 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer I'm looking for data that supports contact reduction via
Web/Chat, IVR, customer self help or other interactive
self-help media's in an e-commerce Pharmacy and
OTC environment. Do you have any comparative
industry benchmarks for this environment? I do not have a formal study completed yet, but I am
working on one. This is a very hot area and yours is a
timely question. This is what I have found so far:
1. live” call reduction possibilities depend heavily on
the proper integration of other channels with intuitive
self-service
2. “live” call reduction after implementation of userintuitive Web/chat averages 16% depending on the
complexity of the questions and the ease of finding
information on the Web through natural language
searches
3. “live” call reduction approaches 25% with the
implementation of voice-enabled IVR solutions that
provide answers to relatively simple questions. We have discovered, via surveys, that a significant
percentage of our customers prefer not to use the VRU
to obtain order information even though we know that,
many times, the VRU can be more available and more
accurate. I would like to know from a broader range,
how many call centers experience this and with what
percentage of their customers? From our research, consumers prefer self-service
alternatives, especially if it saves them time and/or
money to get the answers they are seeking. VRU
usage does vary by the “reason” for the call. For
instance, the following types of calls seeking simple
information are excellent for VRU usage: order status
or tracking, account balances, check clearance, stock
quotes, flight status, prescription ordering, and the like.
By contrast, the following types of calls are seldom
successfully completed by VRU: technical problem
resolution, complaint handling, financial planning, and
the like. Lastly, the recent addition of voice recognition
software to the VRU is making a substantial difference
in customers' willingness to interact with VRU and
conduct self-service. When first establishing a corporate Web site, what can
we expect in terms of calls or e-mail messages per
Web site visit? From interviewing companies in our database, we have
found the following trends: 1) For a Web site with
robust content that has been designed to take
advantage of customers willing and able to do a high
level of self-service, the ratio can be one call for every
50 visitors to the Web site and one e-mail message for
every 20 visitors. 2) For a poorly designed Web site
with limited content and few self help options, the ratio
can be one call for every 20 visitors to the Web site
and one e-mail message for every five visitors. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 134 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Q & A Category: “Caller Service Recovery”
Question Answer Our management team recently went through a brief
presentation on Appreciative Inquiry (AI). One of the
ideas we thought about was instead of reporting on
“abandonment rate”, it might be better to report on
“answer rate”, or percentage of calls answered. Is this
common in other contact centers today and are 3% 4% abandon rate, or 97 - 96% answer rates still
consistent goals?
Thank you for providing your Ask resource. We are in
the health care industry. Would you happen to know
the percentage of abandoned calls that call back, and
how many times they try to call back? Also what is the
average time before abandoning? Grand idea. Abandon rate is a highly variable
performance metric and therefore not as common as
answer rate expressed in percent of calls answered on
the first call. In the health care industry, the average time before
abandoning is 128 seconds. On average 90% of the
callers will call back and if they do not get through, they
will try at least three additional times to reach you. Q & A Category: “Employee Compensation”
Question Answer For annual telephone agent performance reviews, I
have a four to seven percent range to work with
regarding compensation increases. Is this consistent
with other call centers? On average and across industries, the performance
increase range is from three to ten percent. Many call
center managers are encouraged not to increase the
annual compensation by very much, but instead give
quarterly bonuses based on achieving very measurable
goals, like calls per shift, attendance, occupancy, caller
satisfaction scores and the like. In addition, overtime is
also a way to satisfy both the companies need to take
care of seasonal spikes in calls and the employees need
to make more money. On which basis would you build up the bonus of a Debt
Recovery Agent and what % of total salary would you
also recommend as a bonus? Suggest the following:
1. Make at least 20% of total salary related to
performance.
2. Make percent “Promises to Pay” calls equal to 50% of
performance pay,
3. Make percent “Partial Paid Debt” calls equal to 25% of
performance pay,
4. Make percent “Completely Paid Debt” equal to 25% of
performance pay, What is company policy on sick days for agents? I have received several “Ask “ questions regarding
company policy on sick days for agents. In checking our
benchmark database of best practices, it is clear that
more than half of all call centers allow unused sick days
to accumulate from year to year. In addition, it seems
that the most common strategy to minimize agent sick
leave is to make attendance part of an agent's
performance evaluation. Copyright © 135 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Q & A Category: “Employee Development”
Question Answer Are the any client references that you can offer for
Agent Certification? We do not do Agent Certification. Two of our partners
do offer excellent Agent Certification programs:
1. Human Technologies
2. STI Knowledge Client has developed a certification course for CSRs
and other customer care support employees. Is there
any industry-acceptable average of those participants
who should pass the test on the first try? They would
like to ensure that 80% of those reps taking the
assessment will pass it on the first attempt, but there
is some concern that this number may be too low (or
too high). All testing and certification depends heavily upon
proper training and preparation of the applicants.
Purdue has a CSR certification program, and our target
is that 70% will pass the assessment on the first
attempt. There is not a negative stigma for “not
passing,” i.e., it is not thought of as being a failure. If
they do not pass, they hit the books again and then try
the examination again.
I greatly support the concept of certifying CSR with a
combination of on-the-job experience and “theory”
about the practice of satisfying customers.
I would love to know more about the company you are
serving, and about their certification process. Let me
know if I can assist you. Do you have anything specific on Contact Center
career paths/progression? Thank you. There are so many career paths/progression options in
contact centers that I am not sure where to begin. For
agents to move up the call handling “ladder” there are
the logical steps from Level 1, 2, and 3 (mostly skill
dependent) to Team Lead, to Subject Matter Expert
(SEM), to Supervisor, to Queue Manager, to Contact
Center Manager. Branches in this progression can
include moving into the analytic world of report
preparation, workforce optimization, contact
forecasting, and the like. If neither of these are
functional progressions, a career path could be going
into technical solution support for the contact center. How many call centers use Fair-Compare? FairCompare is our agent satisfaction and feedback
service. Currently there are between 50 and 100
customers in the pipeline. We have received “rave”
customer reviews on this unique product. My agents are responsible for entering a lot of
customer data about other details. Data entry errors
are very costly, and it takes a lot of time to correct the
mistakes. Is there some data on best practices that I
could use as a performance guideline for what we
should achieve in the data entry process? Our benchmark data shows that call centers that
require agents to enter data achieve an error rate of
fewer than two errors per 10,000 data fields entered.
For example, if you have a center with 100 agents
responding to 40 callers per shift with an average of
ten data fields per call, you would want to achieve a
rate of no more than eight errors per shift. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 136 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer Our center is planning to rate team members’
performance metrics to a Bell Curve. Are you aware of
any industry standards on the % of staff that should be
within the higher & lower sections of the Bell Curve? A simple and often used approached is to use standard
statistical sectioning of the performance on any one
metric or group of metrics rolled up into an index. What
this means is as follows:
a. Two standard deviations away from the mean would
be the really excellent performers and would represent
the top 5% of the Bell Curve.
b. One standard deviation would equate to the top
45%.
c. The remaining would essentially represent average
performance. Please have a look at my book
“Minimizing Agent Performance” for more information
on performance compensation. Q & A Category: “Hiring New Employees”
Question Answer I am currently proposing that my call center implement
a structured behavioral interview. Do you know of any
research that shows how much this can reduce
turnover in a call center? We have studied the impact of the following preemployment screening techniques for reducing
turnover: 1. Aptitude testing can result in turnover
reductions of about 10%; 2. Realistic job previews can
result in turnover reductions of about 8% and; 3.
Structured behavioral interviews can result in turnover
reductions of about 3%. I have heard widely varying examples of the cost to
bring on a new agent. Do you have a “rule of thumb”
as to what is commonly spent to hire a new agent?
This would greatly assist me in my budgeting process
for next year. The cost to bring on a new agent varies quite a bit by
industry. The average for all industries is $6,398. This
cost includes advertising, recruiting, screening and
testing, interviewing, and training. We currently have an annual turnover of
approximately 34%. To refill these seats, we interview
approximately 16 applicants in order to hire one new
agent. What are the best practices in the screening
and hiring process? Our research shows that, on average, call centers
interview seven applicants in order to hire one new
agent. Your number is a bit higher. Perhaps you can do
better by screening job applicants in advance. Many
call centers now use aptitude testing and/or exposing
the applicant to a realistic job preview. What is a healthy turnover rate for the Northeast
area? What is the average? Healthy = 15%
Average = 36% What is average turnover for an inbound only call
center in the financial services field? How about a call
center in the insurance field? What is the average
number of training hours for a financial services
company for their member contact reps. Same
question...but for insurance reps (phone contact
only)? Thanks for your questions. You might want to inquire
about our industry reports…..loaded with comparison
statistics.
In the meantime, here is a thumbnail sketch:
Financial Service Turnover = 32%
Insurance Turnover = 24%
Initial Training Hours for Financial = 120 days
Initial Training Hours for Insurance = 95 days What is the industry standard for “unable to verify” rate In the contact center vertical, less than 9% of prefor pre-employment screening?
employment verifications come up ‘unable to verify.”
The job description would depend upon the size of the
call center and the types of calls being handled. 137 Copyright © Where can I get a good job description for an
incoming call center manager? 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Q & A Category: “Knowledge Access”
Question Answer Do you know of any statistics or resources that show a Our benchmark research of high-tech support centers
recommended number of level two technicians per
show that, on average, these is one “level two expert”
servers managed?
per 15 to 20 front-line technicians. These experts
typical field difficult questions, take escalated calls,
plus constantly mentor, train and coach individuals on
their team
From your research, do you have a rough idea of the
distribution of customer contacts by telephone, e-mail
and other contact channels? Exact data on the distribution of consumer-to-business
preferences among channels is not readily available,
but our approximations from 1999 data are as follows:
75% by telephone, 10% by US mail, 3% by e-mail, 2%
by Web self-service and 10% by all other channels.
With business-to-business centers, electronic data
interchange remains the major source of contact
among business customers. These centers are also
changing rapidly to encompass both the Internet and
specialized intranets. I have the Technical Support - Industry Benchmark
Report for Best-in-Class Call Center Performance as
of 4/1/2003 and was looking at the FCR % of 66.7 for
the industry average. Do you have a current figure for
FCR? Has this gone up or down and why? With the introduction of new desktop technology,
FCR% continues to improve, especially in Tech
Support. The current figure for inbound tech support
calls from customers is 79.2%. The main reason for
this improvement is better knowledge systems for
finding answers to technical questions. I hear a lot about customer service touch-points. What Customer service touch-points are all the different
are they, and could you give me some examples?
channels through which customers can reach out and
touch (contact) a company. Some examples include
the following: phone, fax, e-mail, kiosks, Web sites,
voice over IP, live text messages, regular mail,
satisfaction surveys, electronic data interchange (EDI),
IVR and voice mail.
I hear people refer to a call center as having a “robust
agent desktop.” What technology must be in place to
ensure that an agent’s desktop is robust? A robust agent desktop has at least the following
technology attributes: 1) screen pops with caller
information, 2) value-and skills-based routing, 3) a
caller-tracking CRM system, 4) easy access to product
knowledge, 5) ready access to computer-based, self
directed training, 6) automated agent monitoring
software, 7) onscreen information for agents about the
number of callers in queue and average talk time. We are working feverishly on integrating our Web site
with our call center. Have you seen any benchmarking
statistics on Web sites that would give us some
performance norms to set as our goal? About six months ago, we began a study to quantify
the customer relationship value of commercial Web
sites. Using a specially designed report card with an
exhaustive list of possible Web site features, we visited
and scored 80 Web sites and found even the best sites
sadly lacking in the design and implementation of
mission-critical features. When you are finished with
the first phase of your Web site launch, we would be
glad to score your site, and compare it to others in a
true benchmark. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 138 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question
What is your suggested method of calculating the
average cost of an on-line transaction? Answer
We have seen several ways to determine the cost per
Web hit. The most common one that I have seen
requires two steps. First, take the total initial cost to
build the Web site and amortize this figure over three
years. To this annual amortization value add the
annual maintenance cost. This should give you a fairly
consistent annual cost to operate your Web site. Then
take the total number of visitors who actually perform
on-line transactions, such as downloading brochures or
purchasing products, and divide that figure into the
total cost for the same time period. This number can be
as low as 50 cents per transaction, if not lower. Q & A Category: “Real-Time Expert Help”
Question Answer What is the span-of-control for supervisors to manage In a recent poll of approximately 1,000 call center
team leaders?
managers, we asked about their staffing models
regarding supervisors, team leaders, and customer
service representatives (CSRs). The most common
span-of-control for supervisors was to manage five team
leaders. The most common span-of-control for team
leaders was to manage 15 CSRs. It was surprising to
see that in a little over 11% of the cases, the span-ofcontrol for team leaders was to manage as many as 25
CSRs. Copyright © 139 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Q & A Category: “Reporting”
Question Answer Is there an industry standard for email and fax
response times? And if so, what would it be? Peter, the answer depends on the industry. If you
consider all industries, the answers are as follows:
e-mail response time = 18 hours
FAX response time = 6 hours Does having a centralized reporting and management Definitely. A number of vendors offer powerful analytics
system impact any call center performance metrics?
that can convert caller data into executive information
quickly and efficiently. A sample of some of the leaders
in analytical software for call centers and tele-web
centers include E.piphany, Broadbase, Hyperion,
Oracle, PeopleSoft/Vantive, Siebel, and Visionyze.
With proper reporting feedback and root-cause
analysis, these systems can, at a minimum, improve
the following metrics: average talk time, after-call work
time, adherence to schedule, sales per agent per shift
and caller satisfaction.
Does having a centralized reporting and management Definitely. A number of vendors offer powerful analytics
system impact any call center performance metrics?
that can convert caller data into executive information
quickly and efficiently. A sample of some of the leaders
in analytical software for call centers and tele-web
centers include E.piphany, Broadbase, Hyperion,
Oracle, PeopleSoft/Vantive, Siebel, and Visionyze.
With proper reporting feedback and root-cause
analysis, these systems can, at a minimum, improve
the following metrics: average talk time, after-call work
time, adherence to schedule, sales per agent per shift
and caller satisfaction.
I manage an internal technical support help desk at
my company. I noticed that you report first call
resolution 'once and done' or 'first time final' (meaning
the caller is not transferred or called back) for call
centers to be as high as 85%. Is this a meaningful
performance measure for technical support centers? No. Many technical support issues require off-line
research and investigation. Your type of call center is
more likely to track same day resolution vs. first call
resolution. Our data show that on average, same day
resolution is seldom higher than 80%. Should a contact center's expense ratio to sales
increase variable to sales, semi variable or
remain fixed? A contact center’s expense ratio to sales increase
varies directly with sales. Do you have metrics or percentages for types of calls? Here are some metrics for the requested calls:
For example, inquiry: asking for an account balance,
or, transaction: a purchase or balance transfer.
Metric
% AHT ACWT FTF
Call type
Inquiry
55 3.6
Order taking
20 2.5
Order tracking
5 1.4
Technical support 10 8.9
Complaint
5 11.6
Routing
5 1.1 2.2
1.1
0
3.4
4.8
0 85
92
89
52
23
95 AHT = Average Handle Time
ACWT = Average After Call Work Time
FTF = First Time Final © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 140 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer What are some of the more popular “unit cost” metrics I have seen many worthwhile unit cost performance
in a call center?
metrics, and they vary somewhat depending on the
function of the call center. Universally, managers try to
be cognizant of the more obvious “loaded” operational
cost metrics, namely cost per call, cost per minute, cost
per agent, and cost to bring on a new agent. A slightly
more integrated unit cost that is more indicative of
overall management performance is cost per full time
equivalent (FTE). As you focus more on the function of
a call center, you get into such unit cost performance
metrics as the cost per “issue” solved for technical
support call centers, or the cost “dollar collected” for
collection call centers. An insurance claim call center
might track the cost per resolved claim. Benchmarking
unit costs is an important managerial responsibility.
I have been searching the whole wide world of internet
to find answers to my questions on Occupancy; I am
working with a BPO in a research department and
currently doing a small research on occupancy, but
haven’t been able to find any suitable answer to my
quest. I have following doubts pertaining to the same.
1: As we know that the Avg. Occupancy of a call
center/agent has to be 80 to 85%, however want to
know what is the norm across the industry, which
means whether a technical call center should aim for
lower occupancy rate as the agents get worn out by
trouble shooting difficult technical issues or is it that
the financial center has higher rate of occupancy,
what is the practice and benchmark for the same
across the industry handling different type of clients
for voice and non-voice based centers.
2: What is the most used formulae to calculate
occupancy? You have a lot of questions!! Here are some thoughts
and answers:
1. First let's define a couple of items that could be
causing your confusion:
Occupancy is expressed as a percent of the total
number of minutes that an agent is in their seat, and
connected to the ACD and ready to handle calls as
compare to their total time at work. For example: in an
8 hour shift, we take 480 minutes (8 hours) minus 30
minutes (for two fifteen-minute breaks) equals 450
minutes. Subtract any other time for which the agents
is paid, while not ready to handle calls, then divide by
the original amount (480 minutes).
Utilization is defined as the percentage of time that an
Agent is in their seat ready to handle calls as
compared to the actual time they are in telephone
mode. Utilization equals the product of average call
handle time (talk time + hold time + after call work time)
and the average number of inbound calls per Agent per
8-hour shift (ACPS), divided by total time the Agent is
connected to the ACD and ready to handle calls during
a shift, i.e., occupancy (not in percent). 3: There are multiple factors affecting occupancy one
of them being team based scheduling, in this type of
scheduling model, the whole team which comes in at
the low call volume intervals, has very low occupancy,
2. So you can see from the above definitions, the target
how to achieve the best out of these agents and
for utilization is 100% and it is a management
minimize the wastage of staffing hours.
challenge ensure that there are enough calls so that
the agent can, in fact, be fully utilized during the time
4: Which kind of scheduling model will suit the best to
allotted for call handling, namely Occupancy.
achieve the highest rate of occupancy?
5: How to benchmark the average occupancy per
agent and as per the center? Please help. 3. We have Occupancy and Utilization best practice
statistics for 43 industries.
Hope this helps. Also, 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. Copyright © 141 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Q & A Category: “Service Improvement”
Question
How many co-browsing sessions must an agent
conduct simultaneously in order to be cost-efficient?
What are the recommendations to increase agent's
productivity?
What are the most commonly uses of chat? e.g.
navigate through My Account page.
What are the technical requirements (type of
application, connectivity) to conduct a co-browsing
session: from the agent and customer's perspective? Answer
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?
These are 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. What is an acceptable Service Level for a technical
support program? 1) Service level for tech support 80% of calls answered
in 40 seconds. What is an acceptable abandonment rate for an
Internet sales program? 2) Abandon rate should not exceed 5% for internet
sales What is an acceptable abandonment rate for a
customer service program? 3) abandon rate should not exceed 3% for customer
service programs. Do you have any information statistical or anecdotal
regarding the organizations who use outbound
welcome calls to contact newly acquired customers?
Do they work, are they effective, what's the return,
impact on retention, etc? Particularly in the
banking/financial sector. Many thanks. Outbound “welcome calls” are VERY effective in
customer retention. This can be particularly true if there
is some small bit of information that you can
disseminate with the welcoming call. I have heard story
after story about how welcoming a quick call can be to
a brand new customer. Do financial service call centers handling business-to
business calls have better performance metrics than
those that handle consumer-to-business calls? One would certainly expect that business-to-business
(B-to-B) customers in any industry would receive
measurably better call handling than consumer-tobusiness (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 Bto-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. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 142 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer Does benchmarking exist for cross-selling/up-selling
success rates in inbound call centers? 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. Do you have any information regarding industry best
practice for the level of redundancy required within an
enterprise call center? I'm speaking of the number of
generators required, length of battery time, A/C
systems, etc. 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. What method do you use to measure input/output
efficiency? How do you define the relationship
between the inputs and outputs? What measures are
considered? Is there a DEA - CRS or VRS employed?
How is the formula defined that determines efficiency?
Is this comparison information for government call
centers published somewhere, along with their
efficiency ratings? 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. Copyright © 143 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer One of my clients, a large candy company, recently
came to me and stated that they felt an 85% service
level in 20 seconds was the new industry standard for
inbound order entry and customer care services. We
currently operate at an 80/20 service level with 3%
abandon as our key performance indicators outside of
customer satisfaction and raw quality scores. While I
certainly agree that an inbound sales channel would
require a higher service level and would be provided
at an increased cost, I'm wondering whether or not
you would agree that the industry has moved on this
metric or not? 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 o purchase the complete
Industry Report to scan other KPIs. I have been accessing your site and responding to
your surveys for almost a year. I cannot find the
answer to one question that I have been asked. I run
technical call center that provides support for an
enterprise level software product. Our ASA is around
30 seconds, which seems about right. Our abandon
rate, on all calls is running about 5.2% this year. I can't
seem to find any comparison on the abandon rate.
Can you tell me how this compares to other similar
organizations? 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. You 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. I would please like information on international
certification courses and fees for call centre agents,
supervisors and managers. Is AT&T Centre for
Excellence the right place? Is there an alternative for
STI Knowledge. Appreciate your enlightenment. 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. Presently, I am working with an electric utility Call
Center. I want to validate if it is correct to use the
median of registered/incoming calls volume (one year
(2003) data sub-categorized into normal and peak
months) as the threshold to establish that the shift
condition is abnormal and thus waive our set AL/SL
for our Contractor. Calls peak every time a major line
circuit trip usually during rainy season. Is using the
median valid or is there a standard practice in the
industry in setting the threshold? Thank you very
much for your assistance. 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. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 144 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question
I am looking for data going back 10 to 20 years or
more on the call volume in different service channels
like phone, email, self-service, etc. Do you have this
data? If yes, can you please share it with us? Answer
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. How do most call centers handle customer
complaints? 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 145 Copyright © How do you measure callback rate? Given Total Calls
= 1,000 Total Unique Originating Number = 500 Do
you calculated Call Back Rate as: (Total Calls - Total
Unique) / Total Unique = 100% or do you calculate it
as: (Total Calls - Total Unique) / Total Calls = 50% 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question
Hello, I am interested in building a best-in-class call
center from the ground up. Are you aware of a
definitive guide to this? Answer
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... I have heard a lot about a “balanced score card” for
judging the quality of service that I provide in my call
center. Can you elaborate? © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 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 aftercall 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. 146 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer Is Service Level calculated as the number of calls
answered within 'n' seconds divided by the number of
calls 'answered' or 'answered plus abandoned'? 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. Most call centers use something like 80/20 for service
level. What is an acceptable service level for chat? 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. Our call center works towards an 80%/20 second
service level objective. We are looking for a metric
that assures that the exceptions are not out of control.
What are some common metrics used to monitor what
is happening to the 20% of calls that miss the
objective? Is Average Speed of Answer the most
common? Is it % of calls within x% (i.e. 93% within 60
seconds?). I'd appreciate any help to avoid reinventing
the wheel. Good question. 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 outliers. Studies through the Benchmark Portal have been
valuable in moving from a service only to a service to
sales environment. One question that I have not been
able to find is a benchmark of sales per sales FTE for
those industries that have a dedicated sales unit
within their center. For example, our branch staff sales
are around 3.6 - 3.8 sales per FTE and here in the
center, we're at around 5.5. We would be curious to
see how we compare to the industry. Any information
or direction on where I could find that information
would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. 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 vary
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. A specific run on our entire database across all
We always struggle with service level performance
industries indicated that US call centers answer 80% of
statistics. What do you find is an industry-wide
average for the number of seconds in which 80% of all all calls in an average of 42 seconds.
calls are answered?
We are concerned with agents' data entry error rate. It
costs us thousands of dollars each year to correct
errors. Can you advise me what other call centers do
to reduce the error rate? 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. We have a call center that processes about 750,000
calls per year and a website that receives about
900,000 hits per month. We are thinking of adding a
very visible “CONTACT US BUTTON” to the website.
The question at hand is how to determine how many
e-mails we would receive a month. Do you have any
information about what has happened at other
companies? 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. Copyright © 147 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question
What have you found to be the most challenging
issues facing call center professionals? Answer
Better software to do value-based routing of inbound
callers.
Cross-channel integration.
More sophisticated agent monitoring and coaching
techniques.
Smaller call centers that are geographically dispersed,
but virtually managed.
IVR equipment enhanced with speech recognition,
making it seem very much like customers are talking to
live agents.
Caller data warehousing with active ad hoc data
mining. What is the formula to determine the number of phone This is really two questions.
lines that a call center should have?
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.
What portion of your total customer service contacts is In a recent One-Minute Survey posed to our
completed on your Web site?
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 kinds 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.” © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 148 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer Would you define First Call Closure the same as
Repeat Calls (and therefore the numbers would be the
opposite of each other--i.e.: 80% First Call Closure
would equal 20% Repeat Calls)? Historically in the
work that I have done related to data analysis, we kept
these data points separate. We defined First Call
Closure as a call that didn't require the CSR to do any
follow up work. Repeat calls are those in which the
customer had to call back on the same issue. What
are your thoughts on this? Do you have any industry
data on repeat calls? In our experience, these are really two different and
important key performance indicators (KPIs). I would
track them separately. Would you recommend implementing a virtual agent
tool to facilitate the Search and Use on the Website?
and why? 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. Would you recommend implementing a virtual
assistant (i.e. an Avatar, not a real person but a
graphic representation) to facilitate the Search and
Use on the Website? and Why? 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. We have a technical support industry report that tracks
both KPIs. Copyright © 149 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Q & A Category: “Training Employees”
Question Answer Do you have any benchmark data on the ratio of
trainers to call center agents? The need for trainers will obviously vary with the
complexity of the calls being handled and the amount of
agent turnover. Across industries, the ratio of trainers to
call center agents is one trainer to every fifty agents. Do you have any statistics around nesting v no nesting
coming out of training? Any stats that nesting improves
retention? Thank you, Wendy Roth Wendy, every study we have done on agent retention
indicates that a well-designed nesting program coming
out of training has a very substantial impact on lowering
turnover...in several cases reducing it by over 50%. I would like to know if there is an industry standard or
mathematical formula that should be used to set a
realistic IVR baseline objective? I work in the customer
service supporting external education and training
customers for a large fortune 500 company. My quality
team would like to establish an IVR baseline objective
for 2005 using the results of a piloted external surveys
conducted August through December 2004. In 2004,
137 completed surveys of 4000k opportunities resulted
in ratings of 73.72% Very Sat, 86.13% Overall Sat and
90.36% Average Sat where ; Very Sat - measures
against the number of 5's or Very Satisfied's we
received Overall Sat - measures against the number of
4's and 5's or Sat and Very Satisfied's we received
Average Sat - measures by taking the number you
received for that rating multiplied by the rating (1
through 5) to equal a value then that value is divided by
the number of actual surveys multiplied by 5 (highest
possible rating). To answer your first question:
There is no “silver bullet” formula for setting realistic IVR
baseline objectives. The best way is to benchmark your
company’s performance against a peer group of
companies....this is what BenchmarkPortal does in
detail. I am a member of Benchmark Portal and have found a
ton of great information on the website. It is a very
valuable resource for our call center! One statistic I
have not been able to locate is the average number of
hours spent training a call center agent per month. This
would be the average # of hours of all training provided.
Do you know what this might be for the financial
services industry? The answer does vary quite a bit depending on the
industry you're in. Hi Jon, Student Loan Consolidation Center, LLC is a
Federal student loan consolidation center in San Diego,
CA with about $4B loans to date. Presently, we are
looking for: - Recommended vendors and products for
an ASP based Time & Attendance tool (to clock in/out
from each employee's computer) - Training
effectiveness tools and vendors (for Sales, Customer
Service, and Lead Generation). For the time and attendance tool, I am not able to give
you a specific company. However, all the major journals,
like Call Center Magazine, Customer Interaction
Magazine, and others have annual vendor issues listing
all companies and their products in our space. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. Concerning the second part of your question:
Very interesting data. I am sure we can improve
substantially on the granularity of these results. I
suggest you establish phone contact with Susan
Hampton who can arrange for a telephone conference
call with my team. For the financial services industry, which includes
banking, the average on-going training for existing
agents is 4 hours. In this number is included the time
that monitored calls are reviewed by the front-line
supervisor, which is often considered both coaching and
continuing education for the agent. Formal classroom
training on a monthly basis is not tracked by our system. Regarding the training effectiveness tools, I would
recommend you contact Knowlagent. They are a leader
in this space. 150 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer How can call center training managers determine which To make your decision, I suggest that you ask the
CBT and WBT products offer excellent learning design vendors the following questions: Was this learning
and strong training content?
system designed by experts in the field? Was the
content developed specifically for call centers? Has it
been proven to produce measurable results? Does the
learning process offer realistic, relevant and challenging
caller simulations? Can the learning be tailored to a
participant's varied learning needs and preferences?
Can you adapt and expand content to meet new training
priorities? Does it identify each agent's needs and does
it confirm that all participants achieved the targeted
learning? Most importantly, has the learning design and
content been scientifically shown to improve agent call
performance and to be a cost-effective alternative to
classroom training?
I am interested in learning how much time a call center
supervisor spends on average monitoring, providing
feedback and coaching agents. Do you offer any
statistics or information regarding how much time
should be dedicated to monitoring in general? From our database, supervisors spend 58% of their time
on average monitoring and coaching. This varies
considerably by industry and in particular by the function
of the call center. I am very interested in learning, on average, how much
time a call center supervisor spends monitoring and
coaching agents. Our data indicates that supervisors spend, on average,
58% of their time monitoring and coaching agents. This
does vary somewhat by industry and the function of the
call center. I hear a lot about agents exposed to learning telephone
techniques using simulation, combined with selfdirected learning. Does this work, and which vendors
provide this type of product? We have tested computer-based training and simulation
as a learning technique for agents, and have found it to
be both efficient and effective. Ulysses Training and
Simtrex are two of the best in the business. Check
www.callcenter magazine.com/product-info for more
details and other suppliers. What are some of the financial services industry
standards regarding percentage of total training hours
spent on all the various types of training needed? In general, call centers report that they allocate initial
agent training into the following categories including the
respective percentage of total training time spent on
each category: product knowledge (30%), administrative
procedures (20%), telephone techniques (20%), and
screen navigation (10%). What are the keys to evaluating CBT and WBT
products? There's a tendency to focus on the technology of
computer-based training (CBT) and Web-based training
(WBT). Will the software run on our computers? Is it
buggy? Will my people find it easy to use? These are
obviously important questions, but you can't stop there.
You must also evaluate the design and content of the
courseware offered by the vendor. I suggest you talk to
other users; look for tangible results, such as better
performance from agents and less time in classroom
training. What have you found to be true for most companies
that have classroom training for their agents? Are the
trainers’ management people, nonexempt
administrative specialist/trainers or outside trainers,
including consultants? Our data shows that 10% or less of classroom training is
typically conducted by internal management people,
50% to 80% by in-house specialist/trainers, and 10% to
20% by outside training professionals. Where have you seen CBT being used in call center
training? In our 1999 call center benchmark study, 41% of the
participants indicated that they used CBT. The majority
of the CBT applications were for product training or
technical support training. Some companies reported
successfully using CBT to train agents in customer
service and telephone handling. Copyright © 151 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Q & A Category: “Workforce Optimization”
Question Answer 1) How many chat sessions must an agent conduct
simultaneously in order to be cost-efficient? What are
the recommendations to increase agent's productivity?
2) What are the most commonly uses of chat? e.g.
assist customer during ordering process. 3) What is
the average length of chat? It may differ by type of
chat. 4) What is the percentage of chat sessions that
are followed-up with a call to the contact center? 1a)How many chat sessions must an agent conduct
simultaneously in order to be cost-efficient?
At least three…
1b) What are the recommendations to increase agent's
productivity?
A list of standard answers to customer questions in the
form of ready-to-go sentences and paragraphs.
2) What are the most commonly uses of chat? e.g.
assist customer during ordering process.
Assist Web-based customer service. Moving from selfservice attempts to agent-assisted Web-based service.
3) What is the average length of chat?
It may differ by type of chat. Definitely different by type
of chat, but in our benchmark, across industries, the
average “length” of a chat session is 23 minutes.
However, your agent is not bog down by this
“seemingly” lengthy process as they are handling other
customers in parallel.
4) What is the percentage of chat sessions that are
followed-up with a call to the contact center?
Only 14% of chat sessions are follow-up with a call to
the center. Chat is proving to be a very efficient and
useful channel for both the company and its customers. About the brokerage industry report, I do not
understand how the reported average number of
calls/shift/CSR is correct in comparison to the reported
talk and wrap times. Often there is a discrepancy between these two
metrics. The most plausible explanation is the
“utilization” factor, namely what percent of the time that
an agent is in their seat “ready” to handle phone calls,
are they actually on the phone.” Are there any call centers that send all their
employees to lunch at the same time? Though a delightful concept, this is VERY rare.
Instead, in some centers, employees are allowed to
select certain other employees that prefer to have
lunch with so that the workforce management system
can arrange for this luncheon timing. At one time we measured our agents by system time.
Since we have moved to a Workforce Mgmt tool we
now measure them by adherence to their schedule.
This is the time that they are signed-in to ACD,
available to take an inbound call while adhering to
their actual scheduled shift times (start/stop, breaks,
and lunch). What is the target measure for CSR
Adherence in an inbound, order-entry call center? Great question…..from our experience with call
centers, the target for adherence to assigned schedule
is 95%. This key performance indicator (KPI) is mission
critical to a call center that wishes to maintain an
acceptable service level. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 152 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer Can you explain why there are such large
discrepancies between the median and average talk
times and after call work times for the Peer Groups
and All Participants categories. There are large variances in our collected numbers
when the groups are less specific in terms of the type
of call that they handle. In a Peer Group, this variability
is more limited. AT&T has a virtual rep “Ask Allie” on its corporate
website http://www.consumer.att.com/ (see on the left
screen, need help? Ask Allie). She is a “virtual rep”. A
customer types in text Q&A’s and a computerized
virtual rep (a.k.a., our Knowledge Management
System) supports the response. If she has difficulty
answering, on the 3rd attempt, the virtual rep provides
an e-mail form or chat session with a live rep (a.k.a.,
“Escalation”). My question: Are there any industry
benchmarks or standards for virtual reps such as
percent accuracy, percent customer satisfaction, cost
savings, call avoided etc.? Great question. And, yes, there are now companies
that supply these virtual reps as a product. These
same companies have also done the research you are
looking for. I have not been able to find this information. What is
the average (for all industries) and the ideal/best
practice for the staff to manager ratio in a contact
center? Peter, the ideal/best practice for the “staff to
supervisor” ratio in contact centers across all industries
is 17 to 1. Do you have any information (benchmarks) in the
Retail Call center industry the shows the cost per
selling an item at brick and mortar vs. the costs per
selling an item in a call center setting? In other words
a comparison of selling costs in retail industries that
have brick and mortar and catalog channel. Thank
you. Good question, and yes we do have some best
practices benchmarks in the retail industry for you to
consider. One such company is called “Finali.” They are located
in Boulder, Colorado. I do not have their coordinates
with me as I am on the road at the moment. Check out
their Web site for the details. Since cost depends on the type of retail store, I would
suggest a “unit” cost approach in our comparison:
1. Brick and mortar cost per item sold = 1,000 units
2. Telephone catalog channel cost per item sold = 100
units
3. Web site self-service cost per item sold = 1 unit
Fulfillment of these orders and the items sold is, of
course, another story. Tough question since agent absenteeism can be a
Do you have any metrics that would establish
acceptable levels of agent absenteeism in a customer major hurdle in delivering acceptable service levels.
service contact center environment?
If I study our database of over 10,000 call centers, we
see an average absenteeism of less than 5 percent, or
about 10 days per year.
This number does vary quite a bit between industries
and regions of the country.
If you have not already done so, I suggest you join our
benchmarking community, and enter your performance
numbers. This way you can get a more exact
comparison with your peer group of call centers.
Absenteeism is a challenge for all call centers. Copyright © 153 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer I am interested in both captive and outsourced seat
utilization statistics for the US & Canada, EMEA and
India ... an average across industries (but if you have
more detail on the differences between industries that
would help too). Steve, this is a tough question and would require some
intense cuts of our database. We have the details, but I
suggest you contact
MichaelFeinberg@BenchmarkPortal.com for more
details on how to proceed.
But, I can give you a quick answer from our database
for the US call center after a definition of the word
“utilization”:
Utilization is defined as “the percent of time that an
agent is on the telephone with a caller as compared to
the total time they are in their seat, connected to the
ACD, and ready for a live caller.
“Utilization, across industries, for captive, in-house, inbound customer service call centers in the
US of A: 72% utilization
Utilization, across industries, for outsourced in-bound
customer service call centers in the
US of A: 87% utilization What's the meaning of the FTE acronym, and what it
means? Is it an external variable to calculate the
number of paid hours or is a result from any other
calculation in the call center calculation? FTE stands for Full Time Equivalent. Contact centers
usually have a mix of full time agents and part time
agents. A full time agent equals one full time
equivalent. A part time agent working 30 hours per
week equals 75% of a full time equivalent. A part time
agent working 20 hours per week equals 50% of a full
time equivalent. The number of FTE's cannot be
determined from total paid hours, as total paid hours
would eliminate absenteeism, leaves of absence and
other non-paid activities. FTE's is a very important
thing for contact center managers to understand and
know, particularly when building staffing models and
budgets. It is one of the data points captured in
Purdue's benchmarking survey. My question is...have you or your team been able to
identify a correlation between turnover rates and
supervisor/agent ratios? It would seem logical that the
more agents that are on a team, the less coaching &
development they would receive, which would lead to
higher turnover. I would appreciate knowing if there
was a clear relationship identified that could be
referenced to contact center managers. We have found a statistical significant relationship
between turnover and the supervisor: agent ratio. The
relationship is non-linear as indicated by the following:
1. between a ratio of 1:5 and 1:12, there is not much
impact on agent turnover.
2. between ratios of 1:12 and 1:20, there is a gradual
increase in agent turnover.
3. between ratios of 1:20 and above, there is an everincreasing impact on agent turnover. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 154 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer I would like to know what is the average call volume a Great question. Our data shows the following:
day for a CSR in a world-class telecom operator? And
how long does a call last on average?
1. Calls per shift for a CSR in a top performing telecom
call center is 94 calls.
2. Typical call is 3 minutes.
From this you can calculate the “utilization” factor, and
this can be impacted by “occupancy.” There is a lot to
know about each of these important call center
management metrics.
How do call centers handle their seasonal fluctuations In another recent BenchmarkPortal One-Minute Survey
in call volume?
we investigated how call centers handle their seasonal
fluctuations in call volume. The results showed that the
majority of call centers experience a volume increase
that is between 20 and 30 percent above normal. We
then asked how the centers handled their seasonal
fluctuations. The responses indicated that 38 percent
of the respondents have their agents work overtime to
handle the seasonal fluctuations. Next in line were
“other” and “hire seasonal agents,” followed by “convert
part time to full time,” “outsource,” and “bring on at
home agents.”
We asked for a recommendation of something that
they had done that had worked well in handling their
seasonal increase in call volume. After analyzing the
open-ended responses we saw the following popular
responses.
How do I measure the extent of impact of
Every missing agent that you had counted on being at
absenteeism on SL . what are all the data that I would work when you did your manpower loading, will
require to collate will it be on the lines of AHT
decrease SL by 2%.
According to our benchmark research, the optimum
span of control is one supervisor to 16 agents.
Supervisors need time to monitor, coach, and field
questions, take escalated calls, track attendance and
plan improvements. You might want to enter all your
performance data into our Web site, and receive a
report detailing your performance as compared to your
Peer Group. This would bring out important
performance gaps for your new boss to consider. 155 Copyright © I am having a philosophical discussion with my new
boss regarding the role of supervisors in my call
center. We have 90 agents, four non-supervisory team
leaders, who currently have 20-25 agents on their
teams, and three supervisors. I think we need another
supervisor, but my boss thinks I'm creating a
bureaucracy. What is the benchmark for span of
control? 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer I am hearing more and more about 'human factor'
design regarding call centers. What is this and how
does it apply to managing my call center? Human factors design has become more popular as
management focuses on the seemingly “little” things
that can often make a big difference in productivity.
Human factors is an engineering discipline in which the
prime thesis is that the “human-to-machine” interface is
critical in applying effective technology solutions, and
maximizing ROI. The call center agent, or knowledge
worker, must use complex technology to consistently
deliver excellent service. A few examples of factors
that can be researched for design changes include the
following: the keyboard (size, shape, layout, etc.), the
screen (color, size, height, angle, etc.), screen layout
(location of fields, color-coding of fields, pop-up
windows, etc.) and many, many more. The human
factors specialist focuses on those elements of the
human physiology and psychology that can impact
performance. Major improvements in agent
effectiveness and efficiency have been realized by
human factors re-engineering call centers technology. I am hearing more and more about moving calls “off
On average 60% of the operational cost of a call center
shore” to reduce costs. What does your research offer is tied up in human resources, and just finding great
on this issue?
agents that can read, write and speak English
articulately is becoming tougher and tougher. Countries
that were part of the English Commonwealth, like India,
British Guyana, and others are stepping in to take up
the slack. Many citizens of these countries benefit from
having an excellent education that includes reading,
writing, and speaking English fluently, but they cannot
find jobs opportunities due to the lack of
industrialization of their countries. With the
globalization of telephone networks with the resulting
low cost of long distance calls, call centers in these
remote areas have become financially quite viable.
Handling e-mail, especially technical support email, is a
great way to begin.
I am interested in learning the average agent
population of in-house call centers in the US, and the
same for outsourced call centers (mainly doing
telemarketing and customer support). The average number of workstations for an in-house
call center in the US is 78. The average for outsourced
centers in the US is 250. There are about 100,000 call
centers in the US if you include inbound plus outbound
centers and internal help desks. I am responsible for the Business Development of a
call centre (financial sector). I am trying to find ways to
maximize the agent performance and occupancy ratio
during outbound sale campaigns. We usually have 5
people working on a campaign and we use predictive
dialing. Is the agent occupancy ratio better if they: 1.
take their breaks (20 min) in turns 2. take their breaks
all of them at once? In an outbound, telesales centre it is much easier to let
agents take breaks together. The socialization is
important to them and can motivate and energize them
when they return. I pick number 2 from my experience. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 156 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer I am hearing more and more about moving calls off
shore to reduce costs. What does your research offer
on this issue? On average, 60% of the operational cost of a call
center is tied up in human resources, and just finding
great agents who can read, write and speak English
articulately is becoming tougher and tougher. Countries
that were part of the English Commonwealth, like India,
British Guyana and others, are stepping in to take up
the slack. Many citizens of these countries are
receiving an excellent education. With the globalization
of telephone networks resulting in lower long-distance
costs, call centers in these remote areas have become
quite viable financially. Handling e-mail from these
countries, especially technical support e-mail, is a great
way to begin. I manage a small call center (25 agents) for an
insurance company in southeastern Indiana. Our
CSR's often have post call work that takes them away
from answering inbound calls. We have struggled with
finding a meaningful way of measuring these activities
and the time they take. We believe some of this work
is related to training, or lack of available information.
Do you have any suggestions for effectively and
efficiently tracking post call work that might help us to
better understand the resources needed to staff for
this work? Are there any working models that you are
aware of that might help us see into this “black hole”? I would begin by asking each CSR to document the
“type” of activities required after the call, for example
reasons like, a) claims correspondence, b) claims
paperwork completion, c) claims investigation, etc.
I would then create a frequency report of these
activities to determine the major time “hogs.” I would
then determine if a “less skilled” (i.e., less expensive)
clerk could handle some or all of these activities. I
would investigate if there is software available to
minimize the agent's time spent on these post call
activities.
And finally, I suggest you benchmark your call center's
post call work time against a peer group of insurance
call centers through the Purdue performance database.
By benchmarking, you will better “see” if your amount
of post call work time is normal, or is it really too big,
and therefore needs your attention. I'm trying to figure out an appropriate percentage of
my budget to allocate to overtime expenses to handle
calls during peak times rather than staff up for the
peaks. I am not aware of a specific article that addresses
overtime issues in call centers. However, from our work
in benchmarking call centers, I would suggest an
average budget allotment of 10% to 15% for overtime.
Almost all centers encourage overtime for handling
unanticipated peak call volumes. Too much overtime
may be detrimental, causing burnout and increased
turnover. In calculating agent annual turnover, should we
include part-time employees? Most companies in our database report the turnover of
full-time agents and part-time agents and part-time
agents separately. Mixing them could be confusing. Is there any data on the cost of answering a
customer's inquiry by phone, e-mail, fax, regular mail
and through on-line self-help? We have polled call center managers and Web
masters, and have averaged their results across
industries as follows: a) telephone=$3 to $4 per inquiry,
b) e-mail = $15 to $20 per inquiry, c) fax = $25 to $35
per inquiry, d) regular mail = $25 to $35 per inquiry, e)
Web site = $0.50 to $1 per inquiry. Copyright © 157 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer Our center is looking at desk sharing for all part timers
that fit together from a schedule perspective. HR
seems to think this will be viewed as non-employee
friendly, where Resource Planning views it as a
“meeting us halfway” to saving overhead costs. Is
there any type of case study out there to show either
side that might be right? This is a very common situation, which is never easy
implement without some “pain.” In a recent benchmark
study on this issue, we found that over 50% of call
centers in our database do have desk sharing.
Frequently, this is limited to part timers and/or agents
that are new to the job. Having “your own” desk is
sometime a way to add benefits to keep agents longer.
HR and Resource Planning are both right. It takes
strong leadership to convince agents that the “meeting
us halfway” is the right thing to do. I think if other HR
issues are “on target”, i.e., compensation, hours of
work, great frontline supervisors, then desk sharing
becomes less of an issue. Typically in the call center one would schedule for
daily business using some type of scheduling tool. My
question is what is the “industry” stance on staffing up
for outages? I suspect the answer is that we in the call
center business should not “overstaff” for outages, but
I need an official statement. In most call centers, one would schedule for daily
business using some type of scheduling tool. Over ten
vendors supply such ingenious scheduling tools.
Outages are completely unplanned and cannot be
statistically forecasted. Therefore, standard manpower
scheduling tools do not work for such random events.
Instead, most call centers have some type of “business
recovery” plan in place for business outages caused by
weather, fire, theft, and other natural disasters. Usually,
this does not include extra staffing, but instead includes
contracts with companies that provide business or
disaster recovery through the availability of stand-by
agents at alternate locations. We are a utility company with a 24x7 call center. I
have 90 agents and four (non-supervisory) team
leaders, who currently have from 20 to 25 agents on
their teams. In addition, I have three supervisors. I
believe we need another lead. The span is far too
wide for the leads to effectively field questions, take
escalated calls, mentor, coach and track attendance
and availability. My boss thinks I am creating a
bureaucracy. Our benchmark research indicates that the typical team
leader would mentor between 15 and 20 people at
most. You’re definitely much too lean. The best way to
convince your boss that you are not creating a
bureaucracy is to benchmark all of your performance
metrics with other utilities of the same size (peer
group). If you are performing substantially below
average compared to your peer group of utilities, you
may find it much easier to justify more team leaders. We are considering closing our call center during
lunchtime in an effort to better manage the peaks and
valleys of incoming calls. We are looking for a
benchmark to determine if we should pursue this
initiative in our call center. There is not one single company in our database that
reports closing during the lunch hour. Customers need
access to information at all times, especially during the
business day, when working customers often call
during their lunch hours. We are considering Home Based Representatives to
help save costs. Do you have information on Costs
(labor and benefits), Processes, Problems and Issues
with this? Also could you recommend some articles or
web sites on these issues? I already have an article
you wrote on these issues from ICCM Weekly. Home-based agents are a very realistic and exciting
new source of low-cost “people power” for today's call,
chat, and e-mail channels. I am in the processing of
completing a white paper that focuses on enabling
physically disabled Americans to work from home. This
paper will be available by the end of July and then
posted on our Web site. We currently have an average of nine agents reporting
to one supervisor. Is this good enough? Have you
found that there is an optimum ratio of agents to
supervisors? In our database of call centers, the ratio of agents to
supervisors that produces the most effective service in
the most efficient way is 14 agents to one supervisor. It
looks like you have room for improvement. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 158 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer What do you see as an optimum staffing model for a
large company's call center with regard to the correct
number of agents per site? When we compare our multi-view call center
performance index (MPI) with the size of call centers,
we find that the most efficient and effective call centers
(i.e., those with the highest MPI), are between 250 and
500 agents. The MPI dips at both the very small call
center and the very large call center. What is a Call Center's average of calls vs.
applications in their Loan By Phone department? Average calls per loan application are about three to
one. What is the industry standard for call volume
Daily = 96% accurate
forecasting accuracy at the daily level? At the monthly
level?
Monthly = 83%
We have noticed an ever-increasing interest by contact
center managers in best practices related to e-mail
management. For that reason, we have launched
major initiatives in e-mail benchmarking. The majority
of e-mail is responded to in less than 6 hours. This is in
spite of the fact that when we survey consumers, they
are quite happy to have their e-mail answered in 24
hours, or even more. Regarding e-mail quality, the
majority of managers seem to sample the e-mail that
was sent and perform their quality check there. We
would encourage a greater focus on ensuring that each
e-mail is answered in one e-mail, i.e., “first time final,”
as we all strive to do in our telephone calls. 159 Copyright © What is the interest, by contact center managers, in
best practices relating to e-mail management? 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer Would you be willing to share with me your high-level
thoughts on what you think a realistic Adherence to
Schedule expectation should be for agents in an inbound call center who also do a mix of back-office
work during the day. We're an in-bound Electric Utility
call center (union shop). Our approx. 200 agents
mostly work 8 to 5 with an hour for lunch and two
scheduled 10 min breaks. They're on the phones all
day Mondays, and usually have 1 to 2 hours of nonphone activities scheduled Tues thru Friday. We're an
Aspect shop: ACD, IVR, CTI and eWFM w/Real Time
Adherence. We also use the Witness eQuality system.
We are simply trying to promote a “quantitative” ATS
metric: total hours available to the customer (in Aspect
terms that would be the total of Talk, Hold, Wrap and
Available for the next call) divided by the total
Scheduled ACD hours out of the eWorkForce
Management system. Our center is consistently at or
around 87% adherence, and I'd like to get to around
95%. Is that realistic? How does that compare to other
centers that may perform a like mix of work? First of all, you have a wonderful array of enabling
technologies to run a world-class contact
center...congratulations. In answering your question,
let’s not confuse adherence to schedule (ATS) with
Agent Occupancy, and/or Agent Utilization.
ATS is simply the individual Agent’s adherence to
exactly the schedule that you give them for a particular
shift. It might include phone time, classroom time, back
office time, and the like...ATS for the telephone time is
very easy to track with your Aspect system...you are
essentially tracking to see that the agent is in their seat
at the exact time required by the Aspect WFM
scheduler...namely, do they arrive on time, do they
take their breaks on time, do they return from breaks
on time, and the like...union shop or non-union shop,
you should be able to achieve a better than 95% ATS.
Occupancy, by contrast is the percent of time that an
Agent is in their seat and connected to the Aspect ACD
and ready to handle inbound phone calls (availability),
as a percentage of their total time at work (total paid-for
shift time). If their only job is telephone work, you
should be able to achieve an occupancy percent of 85
to 90%...much more than 90%, and you will begin to
see Agent burnout and turnover.
A third key performance indicator (KPI) is called
Utilization, (again available from your switch) and it
indicates the percent of time an Agent is on the
telephone with a customer as a percentage of their
being in their seat connected to the ACD (available).
This key performance indicator is controlled by proper
management in forecasting calls and scheduling
Agents. You should strive to achieve 95% utilization of
your phone agents.
Hope this helps… © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 160 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Q & A Category: “Other”
Question Answer Are there any Vendor references that you would refer
us to for webinars or product validation studies.? Yes, we have many wonderful vendors willing to talk to
you about their experience with us in doing webinars
and product validation studies. We do not just give out
names and email address, because we need to know
who you are, and what industry you’re in, and then
connect you with the best reference. I suggest you
email me at DrJonAnton@BenchmarkPortal.com with
your details. Thanks for your question. Hope to hear
from you soon. I am working with GE Capital India and it is one of the
largest IT Helpdesks in the country. I require some
information on Problem Categorization. A call is
categorized into PCC, which is Problem Category
Codes for that particular. Today these PCC's are
symptomatic in nature which the call taker thinks is the
problem. At the end of the day, I would like to study
what kind of problems are coming into my HelpDesk
using these PCC drill downs. Is there any study that
has been done on Problem Categorization for IT
HelpDesks? What are the best practices? How are
other people doing? What is the best way to study
what kind of problems are coming into my HelpDesk? This is a VERY complicated area, for which little
standardization exists. “Best Practice” approaches to
categorization go beyond symptom (or problem code
as you describe), and consider a broader classification
schema. A typical schema would include: Product line
(i.e. Pc, server, printer) , Domain (i.e. database,
network, etc), Symptom (squeaky sound, blue screen) ,
Failure (missing DLL) and Solution (patch # 12345). Do you know current figures on outsourced customer
service in the US (percentage of companies that
outsource)? My last figure is 25% (Fortune 1000) in
1997. In your estimation, is the outsourcing trend
continuing? Thank you very much for any assistance. From our research of over 25,000 call centers,
including the Fortune 1000, companies outsource only
approximately 8% of their calls. The teleservices
industry continues to grow at about 11% per year,
however, it is a very crowded industry with many small
players. I would anticipate a consolidation in the next
twelve months. Are the any client references that you can offer for
Benchmarking in the Health Insurance industry in
Australia? Q2 : Australia is listed as one of the 50
countries in the Benchmark research. What Australian
companies have been included in Health Insurance
Call Centre Benchmark study? A1. We do have good references, but why bother...just
send your data and benchmark with us….after all, the
Reality Check Benchmark is FREE… I work for a Customer Satisfaction Team at SK
Corporation, South Korea. SK Corporation is the
number 1 oil refinery company in South Korea. My
team manages a call center, and we are trying to
figure out a call center's contribution in terms of sales
volume. So I'd like to know whether or not there is any
kind of research or study about a call center's
contribution to sales volume. This is a very complex question. If you are an outbound
sales call center, then the contribution is easier to
predict. If you are an inbound customer service center
taking customers' orders, again easy to predict. If you
are an inbound customer service center just handling
questions, then it is very difficult to predict. What are
you? Many of the providers of Knowledge Management
Software and Help Desk solutions offer insights into
problem categorization on their web sites. You can find
many of the fine companies offering these solutions in
the Yellow Pages section of our web site. We strongly
recommend that you participate in our Help Desk
Technical Support Benchmark Service to compare the
performance of your help desk to your peers. A2. We do not list our member companies as part of
our total confidentiality approach. We do have many
health insurance call centers in our database. Please
join us... Copyright © 161 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer Do you have any interesting demographics regarding
callers? Yes, our research shows that individuals with a higher
level of education are likely to contact call centers more
often. In addition, individuals in the 20- to 40-year-old
age group are more likely to contact companies than
individuals in the 50- to 70-year-old age group. There is
a free white paper available on our Web site,
www.BenchmarkPortal.com regarding caller and Web
visitor demographics. Do you have any international data and if so how
many centers by country? Yes we do. We currently have data on almost 50
countries. I suggest you email me at
DrJonAnton@BenchmarkPortal.com with which
countries your are researching. Thanks for your
question. Hope to hear from you soon. Does Dr. Jon work for Purdue or BenchmarkPortal? Dr. Anton works for both organizations. He is the
academic “liaison” between BenchmarkPortal and
Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven
Quality. This unique research Center at Purdue was
founded by in 1993. He is the Director of Benchmark
Research for both organizations. Dr. Jon also works
for the Anton Press, a publishing house that focuses on
books for the customer service contact center
community. Dr. Jon has
authored 22 books and has another 10 in the
production pipeline. How does Six Sigma either fit or complete with BMP Six Sigma is a worldwide organization focused on Total
Quality Management. They certify QA professionals to
do quality improvement in all aspects of a company. A
Six Sigma person can be your strongest ally in
conducting benchmarking using the BMP methodology. I would like to obtain some curriculum information on
the program at Purdue - including any requirements
for your students to complete internships or
residencies. Let me get some materials together to send you.
Because of the demand on my time, allow about two
weeks. I would like to purchase “Call Center Benchmarking
This is an older book, and is really “out of print”.
(Deciding If Good Is Enough), but it is always out of
stock on the online stores I've searched. Do you know I suggest my new book with Bruce Belfiore,
where I could get a copy? Thanks.
Benchmarking at its Best for Contact Centers. Check it
out on our Web site Bookstore:
http://www.benchmarkportal.com/store/index.taf Have you noticed any gender differences in terms of
who is more likely to call a company's call center? Yes. Our research shows that women are more likely
to call catalog call centers than men, and men are
more likely to call financial services call centers than
women. Also, women are more likely to make
purchases by phone, and men are more likely to just
call for information. How active will Dr. Jon be in our engagement? Dr. Anton is listed as the principal investigator on all
engagements conducted by BenchmarkPortal. From a
quality assurance perspective, he is
intimately involved in all major projects. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 162 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer My organization just made a necessary rule change
that has enraged a high number of our users. The
Board of Directors has heard the negative feedback
but refuses to change back. The issue is just but it
does hurt our customers. I’m left with the daunting
task of informing these irate customers that they will
not get what they want. What kind of positive spin can
I do for this issue? My current strategy is to offer a
filed complaint that will be forwarded to the BOD’s and
even suggest a letter be written to the BOD’s for the
most irate. Our users are primarily Realtors and I can’t
think of another user base that works more closely
with each other. The old adage of 1 customer will
relay their negative feelings to 8 others and they will
relay to 8 others gets multiplied by 20 with this user
base. What’s the best cause of action to try and keep
this from tarnishing our company’s good reputation? Thanks for your question. I would very much like to
know more about what the negative “rule change” was,
but regardless, here is my advice: How do call centers operated by Government
agencies differ from call centers in private industry? In July, we launched a special benchmark study of call
centers in Government agencies, namely Federal,
State, and Municipal centers (also know as the “Public
Sector”). We are already seeing some interesting
differences. In general, we have found that Public
Sector call centers are more focused on effectiveness
to ensure that their annual budgets will be re-approved,
and less on efficiency. Therefore, costs per call might
be higher in the Public Sector, but so are “once and
done” calls and turnover is much lower. The complete
study will be published in January of 2001. How is Public defined, is it a combination of all
Government agencies or something else? Public means a governmental agency,
period……Private means an actual corporation, or a
non-profit organization. How many and who consisted of the Peer Group? Typical Peer Group is ideally 30 call centers. How do you assure that the data submitted and then
benchmarked against is valid and true data? Good question and one of our most frequently asked
questions. We do all of the following: 1. Most customers can relate to a balanced and fair
business practice.
2. I have to assume that your BOD is not an irrational
group and that the policy change is something that
must be done for a good business reason.
3. I suggest you share with your users the predicament
that your company is in, and the business rationale
behind the decision by the Board.
4. The best relationship management strategy between
customers and companies is balanced, rational, and
fair...I am assuming that your Board has taken this into
effect and that the problem has been articulating their
position to your users with a positive spin for both
parties. 1. We visit many call centers to validate their data.
2. We put participants on notice that their data may be
audited at moments notice.
3. We also do several “reality checks” on the data and
flag data that seems to be out of range or just plain
erroneous.
4. We also have cross-computations through which we
compare numbers submitted…..any data point two
standard deviations from the mean is flagged
immediately for further review.
5. Lastly, we have a staff of QA experts that inspect
every data point submitted, and who are quick to call a
participant whose numbers seem unrealistic. Copyright © 163 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question Answer How many call centers have been certified in the
Center of Excellence Program? Our certification program was launched four months
ago, and we now have 14 centers certified, and 58
centers working through the process. How many call centers have current data in the BP
database? We have been collecting data for almost 10 years and
have had over 50,000 call centers participate from 28
different countries. How many call centers must be in a Peer Group for it
to be a statistically valid sample and what are the
informational criteria? We recommend that a peer group should be between 5
and 20 call centers. The statistics are those of small
groups, meaning we need at least 50 percent of all call
centers that fit the “peer criteria.” Peer informational
criteria are user-selectable, and vary from such
parameters as size, and industry to parameters such
as type of calls handled and calls handled/agent/shift. How many Canadian members? At last count, there were 253 Canadian call centers in
our database. How many certified auditors in Canada and the US
does BP have? In Canada, we work exclusively through TELUS.
In the USA, we have several hundred certified auditors.
These individuals are listed on our website. How personally committed are the senior executives
in your company to achieving high service levels
through the call center? Although most senior executives of the companies
surveyed are personally committed to improving call
center performance, many are unsure how best to
focus their commitment. In other words, they realize
the value of the call center to the company's success
but they remain cautious in demonstrating their
commitment through increased budgeting to achieve
higher service levels. I manage a call center for a department of the federal
government. Does your call center research focus on
the public sector? So far we have not had a specific focus on the public
sector. We do, however, have quite a few public sector
call centers in our database. In addition, we are
actively looking for a sponsor to help us develop a
public sector-only benchmark report. I work for a city government, and am trying to lure call
centers to locate here. What are other cities doing to
attract call centers? 1. They send their representatives to call center
conferences to exhibit in booths that offer
comprehensive information about their cities. 2. They
help arrange for companies to tour their cities. 3. They
provide tax incentives. 4. They work with the local
educational institutions to provide courses targeted at
call center skill requirements. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 164 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question
I would appreciate if you could let us know your
thoughts on what call centers will look like in 5 years. Answer
In my “crystal ball,” I see four major trends impacting
call centers dramatically in the next 5 years, as follows:
1. I see a major move to IP Telephony in the “call
channel” – this will change costs and will also allow
easy implementation of “virtual” centers with agents
“anywhere”
2. I see a major move to use the caller in the call
quality monitoring process through post-call IVR
surveys with the results linked immediately back to the
agent via an agent-specific dashboard indicating caller
feedback in real-time, including a verbatim response
from the caller indicating (by the caller’s voice) what
the agent could have done better in handling the call. I
see this new technology, replacing some, if not all, of
the currently expensive and ineffective call monitoring
software using internal quality teams.
3. I see that there will be a major move to outsourcing
in general, i.e., North American based, but also
offshore outsourcing will grow asymptotically.
4. I see call volumes continuing to increase by over
50% in the next five years because the American
consumer “loves” asking questions before, during, and
after the sale, HOWEVER, I see a new emphasis on
“call avoidance” by giving today’s callers the option to
move to other channels including, IVR, web, web-chat,
and email...these channels will grow substantially, and
all will be integrated through a universal queue that will
make managing volumes a reality...the key is to give
consumer choices, and real-time information to make
the “best choice” for a particular contact.
I do see all sorts of secondary “happenings” – but your
wish was the most dramatic changes. In a nutshell, call
centers of the future will be smaller, more dispersed,
more virtually managed, handling mostly “high value”
calls (because most easy calls will go to self-service),
more often outsourced, more efficient, and more
effective….
The cost of handling an inbound call for a 100-seat call
center varies greatly by industry and the type of call
being handled. Two extremes would be $7.01 for
financial services agents handling transactions, to
$17.78 for technology products where agents “fix”
complex problems over the telephone. On average
across industries, Fortune 500 companies have 36 call
centers with an average of 128 agents in each. 165 Copyright © I'm doing some research relating to the economics
surrounding call centers. One number that would be of
interest to me is the cost of handling an inbound call
for a large call center, namely one with 100 seats. I
also want to know the average number of seats in a
commercial call center for a Fortune 500 company.
Terry Mayfield 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question
In an industry report, why do all of the metrics not
always properly align with each other, in some cases
making the “Average” scores better than the “Best”? Answer
An industry report represents the averages for each
question (and sub-question) that the participants
responded to, but the number of participants answering
each question often varies, so the averages are only
relatively related to each other.
The affect of this is that the average for each question
“MUST STAND ALONE” and cannot be directly related
to the other numbers. The averages are, however,
relatively representative of the “industry average” when
taken in their overall context. In your benchmarking research, what are today's hot
issues for call center managers? Our list of “hot” issues tends to vary almost month to
month as we poll the members of our benchmark
community.
Currently the following are at the top of most call center
manager's agendas: 1)preparing the call center for
“eBusiness” 2) striving for a balance between efficiency
and effectiveness, 3)seamlessly integrating e-mail,
Web site, and telephone contacts, 4)redefining the call
center from a cost center to a profit center, and
5)processing the mountains of data generated by
customer contacts. Is it possible for some companies to have more than
one call center represented in an industry report? If
so, can a company that had at least two call centers
be represented in the “Average Group” and the “Best
of Average” at the same time? It is possible for a company to have more than one call
center represented within an industry report; however,
it is important to remember that our specific
methodology is to benchmark call centers, not
companies. Therefore, each call center is
benchmarked as an individual entity, thus bringing its
own merit to the report. Please Bullet point the major “hot” issues for those
striving to be best-in-class call centers. Top five hot issues that we are seeing in the States:'
1. minimizing agent turnover by applicant screening to
ensure better “fit” for the telephone customer service
type of job
2. developing practical strategies to migrate callers to
use email and web chat for low-value interactions, i.e.,
call avoidance
3. measuring caller satisfaction and driving results in
real-time to all levels in the call center to change
behavior
4. adding user-friendly analytics to allow better decision
making within the call center, and to make caller data
available to departments outside of the call center, i.e.,
like marketing, QA, and others
5. experimenting with using countries like India to
outsource customer interactions to determine the cost
effectiveness © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 166 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer The data used in peer group benchmarking
comparison is up to 24 months old. Shouldn't data be
more current to benchmark? Early on we decided on a “rolling” 24 months window
for peer group comparison. We are seriously
considering changing this to a 12 months window.
Benchmarking is not an exact science. We are
comfortable with our current methods, but we now
have so many participants that we plan to move to a
smaller time window for comparison – could even be
that we move to a 6-months window. So to answer
your question, yes, your intuition is correct…the
smaller the time window the more current the data, the
better the benchmarking results. We are in the process of updating our Business
Continuity and Disaster Recovery Strategy and plans.
Are you aware of a source for best practices
information specific to Live Agent Call Centers? Any
books I have found date back to 1999. I recommend you go to the Call Center Magazine
“Buyer’s Guide.” There you will find a listing under
Business Recovery and Disaster Recovery. Contact
those companies in the business and ask for their
advice and best practices. We are truly a unique call center. How do you
benchmark us if you do not have our competitors in
your database? Everyone logically thinks they are “truly unique.” I have
yet to not be able to find all of our participants a peer
group. However, if we fail to find one for you, we will
recruit your competitors into our database. We have
done this many times for others. You make the list, we
check our database, and if they are not there, we
recruit them for you…no additional cost. We are looking at utilizing our internal call center as
an outsource service for other businesses. Where
does one begin to determine pricing structures for
these services? There are several approaches:
1. Call several outsourcing companies and tell them
you are thinking of outsourcing some of your calls, then
ask them to give you some “ballpark” prices
2. Conduct a “bottoms up” analysis of your cost and
determine the base cost of call handling, then add
double that cost for your price points for providing the
service...I recommend doubling your cost to cover
marketing, relationship management, and contracting
with the new business partners
3. Your cost offering should include:
a. by the hour
b. by the minute
c. by the call
d. $s/hour per dedicated agent
e. and more
In closing, this is a complex business...it is very
competitive, and the current supply is in excess of the
demand, i.e., a buyer’s market. What are the criteria for becoming a Certified Auditor
and what are the standards for maintaining that title? A certified auditor must participate in our workshop,
take an exam, and do at least one audit with one of our
certified auditors. Auditors are re-certified each year.
We are very careful and detailed about who can be a
BenchmarkPortal auditor. What experience does BenchmarkPortal have in
actually running call centers? All of our content people come from a call center
background. Copyright © 167 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report Question
What kind of time commitment is it for my internal
team to go through this Benchmark process? Answer
If you start with our new RealityCheck survey, you
need only 12 data points. This should take less than 30
minutes. The complete peer group survey may take the
better part of 4 hours for an organized team. What are the BenchmarkPortal key differentiators from There are other companies that offer benchmarking in
the competition? Can we speak with Dr Anton about
some form or another.
these issues?
We are different and unique in the following ways:
1. The size of our database is over fifty times greater
than the nearest competitor.
2. The size of our database allows us to offer statistical
observations about true best practices that the
competitors are not able to do with their very small
sample sizes.
3. Our basic industry peer group report is completely
free, yet is very informative.
4. We encourage participants to further refine their
benchmark research by selecting a “close fitting” peer
group of very similar call centers.
5. We encourage self-assessment using our peer
group report.
6. We offer a 'membership' in our benchmarking
community that gives members
access to free information and telephone consulting.
7. We offer a four-hour course in benchmarking that is
taught in major cities throughout the world on a regular
basis. This course enables participants to do selfassessments
8. Our benchmarking leads to certification as a “Center
of Excellence” when all the performance metrics reach
prescribed levels.
What call center centric publications does Dr Jon
regularly contribute to? There are many great publications that pick up ’s
research results and articles. They include:
Contact Center Professional
Connections Magazine
Call Center Magazine
CRM2Day
Customer Interaction Magazine
Contact Center World
ICCM Weekly
SOCAP’s Customer Relationship Management
Magazine
And many more… Who are the top two competitors for Benchmarking
Call Centers? No other organization offers contact center
benchmarking in the exact business model used by
BenchmarkPortal. Two groups that are close are ISO
9000 and COPC. Both of these professional groups do
call center benchmarking and certification - and they do
an excellent job of it. However, if one looks thoroughly
at the models of each organization they are completely
different from each other and from BenchmarkPortal.
Therefore, for instance, Microsoft in the last year
actually got their ISO, COPC, and BenchmarkPortal
certification, and - most importantly found each effort
worthwhile as a learning experience for make quality
improvements. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 168 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Frequently Asked Questions From The Popular “Ask Dr. Jon” Column Question Answer What is Purdue University's role with
BenchmarkPortal? The original benchmarking of call centers began at
Purdue University under the direction of Dr. Jon Anton.
The initiative grew so quickly and so
successfully, that it became too much for a universitybased service primarily staffed by part-time students.
BenchmarkPortal, Inc. was founded
as a joint venture with Purdue University, and as a way
to move the operation “off campus.” Purdue staff still
takes an active role to ensure the scientific nature of
the best practice research, including having a seat on
the Board of Directors. What is the difference between being in the upper >
right quadrant as a result of the FREE Group
Benchmarking > and being in the upper right quadrant
after the Peer Group Benchmarking? Good question. They are most often exactly the same.
The difference is that the Peer Group Report digs into
more KPIs than the Free RealityCheck Benchmark
Report. There is a small chance that the “dig deeper”
KPIs will point to a problem not visible through the free
Reality Check experience… not often, but possible. Who is included in 'All Participants' in the Inbound
Performance Comparison? Is it just government
agencies, all industries or a combination of local,
state, Federal, B2B and B2C? In the Government report, “all participants” are all
governmental agencies, including Federal, State, and
Local Municipalities. Why should I not just Benchmark direct with
You can benchmark directly with us. Sometimes the
BenchmarkPortal? Why do I need a Certified Auditor? on-site team does not have the time to take full
advantage of the benchmark results. Our approach is
designed for you to do it yourself…so please try, and if
you’re in trouble contact us for assistance.
What other major call center consultants use
benchmarking as part of their discovery process for
their clients? Almost all the major call center consultant teams use
some sort of benchmarking during their discovery
process. Over 200 call center consultants have taken
our call center “auditor” course and are now formally
Purdue University Certified Call Center Auditors.
Representative from all of the “big five” have
participated, and in addition a partial list would
include: CAP Gemini, E&Y, PWC, IBM, e-Loyalty,
AT&T, AMS, Bain, McKinsey, and more. What specific criteria were used in determining “The
Best In Industry Average? The Best in Industry Average of any BenchmarkPortal
Industry report represents the average of the top
quartile (25%) of the industry. This is a running
average used throughout the report and not a metric by
metric average. Where can I find a current listing of upcoming Dr Jon
speaking engagements? They are listed on our Web site. See the link “Current
Events” Where can we find out more about outsourcers,
including their location, specialization, cost and the
quality of their services? Call Center Magazine often reports on outsourcers
(also known as teleservices companies), including their
contact information and call handling specialization. In
addition, we have just launched a benchmarking study
of teleservices companies. We will collect pricing,
quality and performance data during the next four
months. Reports will be available from our Web site. Copyright © 169 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CRM BOOKSTORE INFORMATION Copyright © 171 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. CRM Bookstore Information Find all the information you’ve ever wanted or needed on e-Business centers and CRM at
<www.BenchmarkPortal.com>. BOOKS
Find valuable information and resources on contact centers, written by some of the best
authorities in the industry.
• 24 books by Dr. Jon Anton and other well-known authors and co-authors INDUSTRY REPORTS
Select from several vertical industry categories including:
• Employee Benefits Issues
Insurance:
• Health
• Life
• Property/Casualty
• Other Insurance
Manufacturing:
• Aerospace
• Agricultural
• Automotive
• Construction
Materials/Tools
• Office Equipment
Non-Profit:
• Non-Profit
Publishing & Media:
• Books, Magazines,
Newspapers
• Television & Radio Media
• Movies/Music
• Educational Testing
Retail:
• Department Stores
• Catalog
Technical Support:
• Computer Products
• Consumer Products
Technology:
• Computer Hardware
• Computer Software
• Telecommunications 173 Copyright Telecommunications
Services:
• Cable-BroadbandSatellite
• Data/Internet Service
Provider
• Telecom Provider
• Cellular
Teleservice Providers:
• Inbound
• Outbound
• Both
Transportation:
• Toll Roads
• Vehicle Rental
• Small Package Shipping
• Heavy Freight Shipping
Travel & Leisure:
• Airlines
• Cruise
• Lodging
• Travel Agency
• Other Travel
Utilities:
• Electric
• Gas
• Water
• Heating Oil © All Industries:
• U.S.
• North America
• Europe/Middle East/Africa
• Asia/Pacific
• Central America
• South America
Chemical:
• Industrial Chemicals
• Pharmaceuticals
Consumer Products:
• Food & Beverage
• Health & Beauty
• Electronics
Financial Services:
• Banking
• Brokerage
• Credit Card
• Mortgage
Government:
• Federal
• State
• Local
• Dept. of Defense
• Emergency Services
Healthcare:
• Health Care Provider
• Health Plan Management
(HMO)
Help Desk:
• Employee Technical
Issues 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report VIDEOS
Listen to what the experts in the contact center industry are talking about:
Ask the Experts video series:
•
Ask the Experts – complete set
•
Agent Coaching & Monitoring
•
Customer Interaction Management
•
Automated Agent Monitoring
•
Computer Based Training
•
Outsourcing Agent Training video series:
•
Introduction to Total Quality
•
Problem Solving
•
Active listening
•
Stress Management
•
Telephone Techniques
•
Negotiation and Mediation
•
Anger Diffusion WHITE PAPERS, ARTICLES, & SLIDES
• •
•
•
• •
•
•
• Customer Lifetime Value
Management: The Secrets of
obtaining The Maximum ROI of
CRM Technology
Improving Call Center Performance
Through Optimized Site Selection
Managing Call Center Service
Quality
The CRM Performance Index
The Impact of an Outbound Contact
Management System on Agent
Productivity
The New Virtual Paradigm of CRM
The Use of Symbols to Capture
Caller Data
Call Center Assessment
Customer Touch Points •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
• What is a CRM-Interaction Center
Customer Lifetime Value Calculator
International Benchmarking
Planning your Benchmark Study
The Tonchev Performance Index for
Call Center Best Practices
The Technology of Self Service
Self Service Solutions
ROI Calculations for e-Business
Improvement Initiatives
Multi-Channel Integration
Calculating the Value of
Performance Gaps
Customer Service Call Centers –
“The New Corporate Battleground”
e-CRM Rules CD-ROMs / VIDEOS
•
• Dr. Jon LIVE
Presentation Toolkit Please take a few minutes to visit our online bookstore and explore all of the resources
we have to offer at www.BenchmarkPortal.com © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 174 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. BENCHMARKPORTAL’S
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES LISTING
To further our mission of providing contact center leaders with the tools
they need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their contact
centers, we offer the following products and services. Copyright © 175 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Services and Products Listing 1. RealityCheck™
RealityCheck™ is a free Web-based tool that allows contact centers to assess the
effectiveness and efficiency of their current contact center performance as compared to
those in the same industry.
RealityCheck™ includes a Balanced Performance Matrix, which plots your efficiency and
effectiveness against your industry peers. Call quantity (efficiency) is plotted on the xaxis. Call quality (effectiveness) is plotted on the y-axis; combined, these provide you with
a high-level view of your call center performance.
Call centers that are able to optimize customer-centric results, while containing costs are
“Call Centers of Excellence;” these are centers positioned in the most desirable upperright quadrant.
Recommended for: All contact centers. Centers that do not have sufficient analytical
staff are encouraged, but not required, to use a Purdue-certified
consultant (see Web site) to help them with data gathering and
report interpretation. Centers with their own analytical staff
should consider sending their specialist to us for training in the
proper use of our benchmarking reports. To access RealityCheck™, go to www.BenchmarkPortal.com and click on the
RealityCheck™ logo or for more information call 805.614.0123 Ext. 77. Copyright © 177 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report 2. Peer Group Benchmark Subscription
Managers may want to a) see additional metrics that are specific to their sector; and b)
know that the peer group is composed of their direct competitors. BenchmarkPortal is the
trusted research organization that collects the additional data from all parties and
produces the sector-specific report. ONLY anonymous and aggregate data are included as
peer information in the reports.
Recommended for: Operations that are part of an identifiable competitive peer sector
and that have key performance metrics that are specific to that
sector. For more information call 805.614.0123 Ext. 77. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 178 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Services and Products Listing 3. Call Center Certification
Contact center leaders who want their centers to be certified as a Center of Excellence
have urged us to develop this program, which utilizes our database, expertise and
proprietary performance indices.
Recommended for: • All contact centers that strive to achieve maximum
effectiveness and efficiency • Best practices organizations • Outsourcers • Multinationals wishing to instill best-practices globally For more information call: 805.614.0123 Ext. 61. Copyright © 179 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report 4. Echo - Caller Satisfaction Measurement
‘Every Customer Has Opinions…even if no one asks’ BenchmarkPortal introduces Echo, the ultimate service improvement solution—a
groundbreaking new approach for translating direct customer feedback into rich
actionable business intelligence. Echo challenges the traditional approach to
measuring and improving customer service. The status quo has consistently fallen short
of delivering the kind of results that create and maintain loyal customers. Based on our
research, we have taken the best practices of the most successful companies and
incorporated them into a dynamic closed-loop approach that really delivers. Echo provides an all-in-one solution:
• Scientifically-based customer feedback collection • Primary source for monitoring agent effectiveness • Service recovery, including post-recovery effectiveness measurement • Core cause determination and analysis • Effective, behavior-based agent coaching • Meaningful metrics to track results • Real-time Reporting • Business intelligence needed to make informed decisions © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 180 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Services and Products Listing The customer feedback collection component of Echo may be purchased as a standalone tool. However, we recommend the full Echo product as your ultimate service
solution. We can help you develop and implement our revolutionary monitoring and
coaching approach without loss of precious time in confronting technology and
implementation issues. In most cases, we can launch Echo in just 60 days.
Recommended for: All contact centers that are interested in leveraging customer
feedback to improve customer satisfaction. For more information call: 805.614.0123 Ext. 62. Copyright © 181 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report 5. FairCompare™ Agent Satisfaction Benchmarking
Finally, BenchmarkPortal introduces a new benchmarking tool
designed specifically for Contact Centers. This tool allows you to
compare the satisfaction results of your Contact Center agents to
the results of other Contact Center agents!
As a Contact Center Professional, you know the importance of
retaining your talent. Our FairCompare™ benchmarking surveys
and reporting system quickly pinpoint areas of risk to proactively
resolve them.
FairCompare™ lets you compare your Contact Center agents
based on any category captured, including:
•
•
•
•
•
• Tenure
Age-range
Job Title
Skill-set
Supervisor
And lots more! FairCompare™ provides the ability to compare your Contact Center results to those of
agents who’ve already participated in the survey. And when our database is sufficiently
populated, you will also be able to compare your results to:
•
•
•
•
• Your Peer Group
Your Industry
Best-in-Industry
Your Demographic Region
Similar Environments Customizable, always available, Online Reporting is a central feature of FairCompare ,
providing results that you can act on quickly. Survey results help you pinpoint exact
areas to focus on for immediate improvement initiatives, giving you the “Why” behind
each “What.” ™ • Contact centers that are experiencing change management
issues. • Centers with high agent turnover rates. • Recommended for: Centers that seek to be regarded as employers of choice. For more information call: 805.614.0123 Ext. 63
or visit www.BenchmarkPortal.com and click on the FairCompare logo. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 182 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Services and Products Listing 6. Benchmarking 201: Your Competitive Advantage
This NEW hands-on workshop is for all call center professionals who need a sound
benchmark methodology to audit current performance results, then prioritize solutions
toward achieving a competitive ROI. Participants will calculate the cause/cost of
poor/excessive performance by case studies and quantify a 30-day impact plan. Attendees
earn Certification as a Benchmark Specialist through Purdue University’s Center for
Customer-Driven Quality.
What Will I Learn?
• Benchmarking the Difference: Satisfaction, Retention, Operations, Cost
containment • Competitive Performance: Peer Reports, Gap analysis on
effective/efficiency metrics • Solutions Savings: Root Cause impact, Simulation charts, quantifiable
action plan
Recommended for those who need a Peer-Industry Benchmark For more information call: 805.614.0123 Ext. 65. Copyright © 183 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report 7. College of Call Center Excellence
The College of Call Center Excellence provides training courses that result in certification
of contact center team members. Courseware is available for managers, supervisors and
agents. Courses are taught both in-person and online. Some are taught in conjunction
with BenchmarkPortal.
Recommended for: All centers. Training is a budget item for all centers that is
rarely optimized. We can help you to get more for your
training dollar. For more information call: 805.614.0123 Ext. 64. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 184 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Services and Products Listing 8. Industry Reports Available From BenchmarkPortal, Inc.
These industry reports contain hundreds of call center benchmarks and best practices for
a specific industry:
Aerospace
Airline
All Industries
Automotive
Banking
Brokerage
Cable/Broadband/Satellite
Catalog
Computer Hardware
Computer Software
Consumer Products
Credit Card Financial Services
Government & Non-Profit Healthcare Provider
Help Desk
Insurance Technical Support Insurance – Health Telecommunications Insurance – Life Transportation Insurance – Property & Casualty Travel & Hospitality Outbound Teleservices Utilities Publishing & Media Wireless Retail Worldwide* Secure online ordering is available at:
http://www.BenchmarkPortal.com/bookstore
or call (805) 614-0123 Extension 16 *Our Worldwide Industry Benchmark Reports provide best practices for call centers in three primary geographical
regions: North America (U.S.A & possessions, Canada, Mexico), EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), and Asia
Pacific (Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, The Philippines, Taiwan). Copyright © 185 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report 9. Best Practice Reports
The team of researchers from BenchmarkPortal and Purdue University’s Center for
Customer-Driven Quality are turning their focus to your most vital resource: Your
People.
Best Practices in Quality Monitoring and Coaching
We are pleased to announce our Best Practices in Quality
Monitoring and Coaching study. This report is the fruit of
almost nine months of research and analysis by the team of
experts headed by Dr. Jon Anton, of Purdue University’s
Center for Customer-Driven Quality.
This study involved over a dozen carefully-selected call
centers of distinction. This is the first study of its kind and
resulted in a work of extreme interest and insight. Best Practices in Workforce Management
Highlights of the reports:
• Study Findings: What are the impact factors in
best practice companies. • Workforce Optimization Cycle and Components • Forecasting and Scheduling Alternatives • Workforce Management Roles & Responsibilities • Workforce Management Metrics • Developing Optimal Schedules For more information on these reports, call: 805.614.0123 Ext. 21. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 186 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Services and Products Listing 10. The Anton Press
The following pages contain a listing of our current books as well as an order form.
Secure online ordering is available at www.AntonPress.com. Business Navigation
Only two centuries ago, early explorers (adventurous
business executives of those bygone days) were guided
primarily with a compass and celestial navigation using
reference points like the North Star. Today’s busy executive
also needs guidance systems with just-in-time business
intelligence to navigate through the challenges of locating,
recruiting, keeping, and growing profitable customers. The
Anton Press provides this navigational system through
practical, how-to-do-it books for the modern day business
executive. For more information call: 805.614.0123 Ext. 21. Copyright © 187 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report 20:20 CRM A Visionary insight into unique customer contacts
The contact center is at the heart of many businesses today, and CRM initiatives are making customer contact even
more critical to the health of every company. 20:20 CRM provides a strategic view of where businesses should be
going with their customer contact operation, with practical examples of how to get there.
ISBN 0-9630464-5-4
By: Dr. Jon Anton and Laurent Philonenko Price: $24.95
Benchmarking at its Best for Contact Centers
Done right, and done regularly, benchmarking provides improved work life, career advancement and
substantially increased earnings on a consistent basis. This book is an essential manual for continuous
improvement peer group benchmarking that shows convincingly why proper professionalism in today’s
environment requires benchmarking. Includes valuable information on how to benchmark through
BenchmarkPortal and describes the latest products and processes to help you get the most from this
crucial activity. Also addresses emerging best practices in key areas such as: customer satisfaction
measurement and using the voice of the customer for monitoring and coaching, agent satisfaction
measurement, as well as the new symbolic language for desktop software that will reduce the time of
data entry and interpretation for your agents in the future.
ISBN 0-9719652-1-8
By: Bruce Belfiore with Dr. Jon Anton Price: $9.95
Call Center Benchmarking “How ‘good’ is good enough?”
This “how to” book describes the essential steps of benchmarking a call center with other similar call centers, with
an emphasis on “self assessment.” The reader learns how to plan a benchmark, how to collect the correct
performance data, how to analyze the data, and how to find improvement initiatives based on the findings.
ISBN 1-55753-215-X
By: Dr. Jon Anton Price: $39.95
Call Center Performance Enhancement - Using Simulation and Modeling
This book provides its readers with an understanding about the role, value, and practical deployment of simulation an exciting technology for the planning, management, and analysis of call centers. The book provides useful
guidelines to call center analysts, managers, and consultants who may be investigating or are considering the use
of simulation as a vehicle in their business to responsibly manage change.
ISBN 1-55753-182-X
By: Jon Anton, Vivek Bapat, Bill Hall Price: $48.95
Contact Center Management “By the Numbers”
With the ever increasing complexity of multi-channel customer contact handling, it is significant that this book
addresses the challenges of managing such a contact center comprised of customer service agents, documented
workflow processes, and enabling technology. Integrated reporting of calls, e-mails, Web-chat, and Web selfservice becomes key.
The authors have written a very practical guide to managing a customer contact center “by the numbers.” In
contrast to most other departments in a company, the contact center has a constant flow of available performance
metrics that are critical for the manager to use in making real-time decisions. The challenge is always what action
to take when the “numbers change,” and what remedies are best suited for specific performance gaps.
ISBN 0-9761109-0-3
By: Dr. Jon Anton and Kamál Webb Price: $32.95
Customer Obsession: Your Roadmap to Profitable CRM
Finally, here is a book that covers the complete “journey” of CRM implementation. Ad Nederlof and Dr.
Jon Anton have done the near impossible: to position CRM in such a way that it makes practical sense
to C-level executives. Beginning with the title of the book, “Customer Obsession,” on through the last
chapter, this book positions CRM for what it really is, namely, a complete change in corporate strategy,
from the top down, that brings the customer into focus.
ISBN 0-9719652-0-X
By: Ad Nederlof and Dr. Jon Anton Price: $24.95 © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 188 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Services and Products Listing
Customer Relationship Management: The Bottom Line to Optimizing Your ROI
Customer Relationship Management recommends effective initiatives toward improving customer service and
managing change. Creative methodologies are geared toward building relationships through customer-perceived
value instruments, monitoring customer relationship indices, and changing the corporate culture and the way people
work.
ISBN 0-13-099069-8
By Dr. Jon Anton and Natalie L. Petouhoff Price: $33.33
Customer Relationship Management Technology: Building the Infrastructure for Customer Collaboration
From our research on the American consumer, it has become very clear that potentially the best customer service
strategy is “to offer every possible channel for the customer to help themselves, i.e., self-service.” Customer
actuated service is mostly driven by technology, and the “art” of self-service is to ensure that the technology is
intuitive, easy to use, and that the customer is rewarded for “having done the job themselves.” This book delves into
all the technology solutions that enable self-service. The reader will find a robust description of the technology
alternatives, and many examples of how self-service is saving companies money, while at the same time satisfying
customers.
ISBN 0-9630464-7-0
By Dr. Jon Anton and Bob Vilsoet Price: $39.99
Customer Service and the Human Experience: We, the People, Make the Difference
One of the leading challenges for today’s managers is the training and motivating of excellent agents. While much
attention has been focused on the technology and benefits of providing multiple channels for customer contact, little
attention has been paid to handling the human part of the equation—training CSRs to field more than just telephone
communications. Great statistics and benchmarking help the customer service/call center professional keep ahead
of the ever-changing business environment as the authors successfully blend the critical human aspect of the
center with the ever growing need for metrics and the bottom line.
ISBN 0-9719652-7-7
By Dr. Rosanne D’Ausilio and Dr. Jon Anton Price: $34.95
Customer Service at a Crossroads: What You Do Next to Improve Performance Will Determine Your
Company’s Destiny
By consistently delivering information about products, services and information to customer service agents, based
on their individual skill levels—at the right time in the right way, organizations are also delivering a consistent, clear
understanding of corporate objectives and vision. The result: thousands of customer interactions that delight the
customer and improve retention as well as corporate profitability. Optimizing agent performance can quickly deliver
incredible returns beyond customer loyalty. That is what this book is all about.
ISBN 0-9719652-6-9
By Matt McConnell and Dr. Jon Anton Price: $15.95
e-Business Customer Service: The Need for Quality Assessment
With the advent of e-business technology, we suddenly find ourselves with completely different customer service
channels. The old paradigms are gone forever. This books details how to measure and manage e-business
customer service. The book describes the key performance indicators for these new channels, and it describes how
to manage by these new rules of engagement with specific metrics. Managing customer service in this “new age” is
different, it is challenging, and it is impossible to migrate from the old to the new without reading this book.
ISBN 0-9630464-9-7
By Dr. Jon Anton and Michael Hoeck Price: $44.00
Enabling IVR Self-Service with Speech Recognition
Everyone is talking about speech recognition and its many applications. The hype is loud and clear. However, in
reality, most contact center practitioners are still on the sidelines watching and waiting to hear more about the
success stories and the realistic applications of this marvelous new technology. In this book, the authors report on
actual case studies where speech recognition has been successfully applied to enable self-service through the IVR.
Readers will learn: a) who the major players are in speech recognition, b) how to determine what applications are
best suited for speech recognition, c) what results they can expect from speech recognition implementations, d)
which companies have successfully applied speech recognition, and e) where they will find the biggest financial
pay-back for speech recognition.
ISBN 0-9719652-9-3
By Dr. Jon Anton and G.P. Paul Kowal Price: $34.95 Copyright © 189 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report
From Cost to Profit Center: How Technology Enables the Difference
This book is a series of case studies in which we collected performance metrics before and after implementation of
specific technology solutions for call centers. In each case study we saw varying levels of improvement, and were
then able to quantify the financial impact in terms of ROS, and in some cases, in terms of earnings per share. For
call center managers contemplating the addition of new call center technology, this book will be an asset in better
understanding the impact of technology in enabling higher performance.
ISBN 0-9719652-8-5
By Dr. Jon Anton and R. Scott Davis Price: $44.95
How to Conduct a Call Center Performance Audit: A to Z
Call centers are an important company asset, but also a very expensive one. By learning to conduct a performance
audit, readers will be able to understand over fifty specific aspects of a call center that must be running smoothly in
order to achieve maximum performance in both efficiency and effectiveness of handling inbound customer calls.
ISBN 0-9630464-6-2
By Dr. Jon Anton and Dru Phelps Price: $34.99
Integrating People with Process and Technology: Gaining Employee Acceptance of Technology Initiatives
This book contains valuable information regarding the “people” side of technology initiatives. Many companies buy
the best hardware and software, and spend thousands of dollars implementing technology only to find out that the
employees resist the changes, and do not fully adopt the new, and possibly, improved processes. By understanding
how to manage people during change, managers will see a much quicker ROI on their technology initiatives.
ISBN 0-9630464-3-8
By Jon Anton, Natalie Petouhoff, & Lisa Schwartz Price: $39.99
Listening to the Voice of the Customer
With the help of this book, the professional skills you need to measure customer satisfaction will lead
you to different approaches until you have found the one that best fits you, your company, and your
organization’s culture.
ISBN 0-915910-43-8
By Dr. Jon Anton Price: $33.95
Managing Web-Based Customer Experiences: Self-Service Integrated with
Assisted-Service
The time to grow your call center into a multi-channel customer contact center is now. This book has the power to
help you increase customer satisfaction through the implementation of Web self-service. The value of this book can
be calculated in terms of calls deflected from your call center, increased customer retention, an ultimately in a
healthy return on your investment. In this book, the authors take you step-by-step through the best practices that
lead to a successful self and assisted-service strategy.
ISBN 0-9719652-4-2
By Dr. Jon Anton and Mike Murphy Price: $35.95
Minimizing Agent Turnover: The Biggest Challenge for Customer Contact Centers
Some agent turnover can be functional, but most turnover is dysfunctional and can be very expensive. This book
explores the types of turnover, including internal versus external; and documents the typical causes of agent
turnover. Most importantly, this book describes a methodology for diagnosing the root causes of your agent
turnover, and suggests improvement initiatives to minimize agent turnover at your customer contact center.
ISBN 0-9630464-2-X
By Dr. Jon Anton and Anita Rockwell Price: $39.99
Offshore Outsourcing Opportunities
For call center executives wanting to explore and understand the benefits of offshore outsourcing, the authors have
brought together ‘under one cover’ a comprehensive guide that takes the reader through each step of the complex
issues of outsourcing customer service telephone calls to agents in another country. With the pressure of today’s
competitive climate forcing companies to take a hard look at providing higher quality customer services at lower
costs, this book is a “must read” for every call center executive.
ISBN 0-9719652-3-4
By Dr. Jon Anton and John Chatterley Price: $34.99 © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 190 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Services and Products Listing
Optimizing Outbound Calling: The Strategic Use of Predictive Dialers
The content of the book is organized in such a way as to assist the reader in understanding the complete end-toend process of automated outbound call dialing. Specifically, the reader will find the following steps described in
detail: a) preparing a needs assessment, b) selecting and contracting a predictive dialer supplier, c) implementing a
predictive dialer solution, d) applying change management principles to ensure “buy-in” by existing agents, d)
handling and using dialer reports, and finally, e) benchmarking dialer improvements to ensure attaining the
anticipated ROI.
ISBN 0-9719652-2-6
By Jon Anton and Alex G. Demczak Price: $39.99
Selecting a Teleservices Partner: Sales, Service, and Support
This book tackles one of today’s hottest topics: Customer Contact Outsourcing. Companies are in a quandary about
the myriad of teleservices questions they’re faced with, such as deciding to outsource, cost / benefit analysis, RFP
development, proposal assessment, vendor selection, contractual requirements, service level performance
measurement, and managing an ongoing teleservices relationship. With the authors help, readers will find this
complex issue straightforward to approach, understand, and implement.
ISBN 0-9630464-8-9
By Jon Anton and Lori Carr Price: $34.99
The Four-Minute Customer: Getting Jazzed about Your People and Quality Management in Your Call Center
This is a very unique book directed at developing and maintaining “Top Reps” that are uniquely motivated to deliver
the highest possible quality of caller customer service at your center. Learn what it takes to find and lead the best of
the best. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Instead, learn how to manage the best in class customer contact center by
attracting and keeping Top Reps at your organization.
ISBN 0-9630464-1-1
By Michael Tamer Price: $34.99
Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanizing Your Interaction Hub, 3rd edition
With new and up-to-date material, this third edition speaks volumes about the need to reinforce the human element
in the equation. This is a straight forward guide for humanizing the impersonal, with practical to-do’s, real life
examples, and applications to delight your customers. In depth chapters include mixed messages, change and
stress management, conflict resolution, rapport building, and communicating powerfully, just to mention a few.
ISBN 1-55753-217-6
By Rosanne D’Ausilio, Ph.D Price: $44.95 Copyright © 191 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Order Form
Secure online ordering is available at: www.AntonPress.com
Billing Information: Shipping Information (if different): Name
Company
Address
Address 2
City/St/Zip
Phone
Please charge my: ___ American Express ___ Discover ___ Mastercard ___ Visa Card Number
Expiration Date
Signature
I’ve enclosed a check in the amount of
Purchase Order Number
Book Title Amt* Qty Total Books Total
Shipping and Handling
For all U.S. addresses, $5.00 for the first book, $3.00 for each additional book.
For all International addresses, books must be pre-paid and must include a shipping and
handling charge of $25.00 for the first book and $10 for each additional book.
Total Amount Due**
*Call for volume and pre-order discounts available: (805) 614-0123 Extension 21
**State sales tax will be added where applicable
For other books, tapes, and videos visit our online store:
http://www.antonpress.com
Send all orders to:
BenchmarkPortal, Inc.
3201 Airpark Drive, Suite 104
Santa Maria, CA 93455-1817
For quick service, fax your order to: (805) 614-0055
For questions about your order, please call: (805) 614-0123 Extension 21 Copyright © 193 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. GLOSSARY OF TERMS Copyright © 195 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Glossary of Terms A
Abandon Rate: This is the percentage of calls that get connected to the ACD, but get
disconnected by the caller before reaching an agent, or before completing a process within
the IVR. The abandon rate is the percentage of calls that are abandoned compared to
calls received.
ACD: Automatic Call Distributor. A device that forwards incoming calls to the next
available agent or answering position.
Adherence to Schedule: A measure of whether agents are “on the job” as scheduled.
This percentage represents how closely an agent adheres to his/her detailed work
schedule as provided by the workforce management system. 100% adherence means that
the agent was exactly where they were supposed to be at the time projected in their
schedule. The scheduled time allows for meetings with the supervisor, education, plus
answering customer phone calls. The question, “how often do agents deviate from their
schedule” is answered by this metric.
After Call Work Time: This is the average amount of time an agent spends on
performing follow-up work after the agent has disconnected from the caller. The data for
after call work time is taken from the ACD and should be calculated by individual and
group, daily, weekly, and monthly.
Agent: A general term for someone who handles telephone calls in a call center. Other
common names for the same job include, but are not limited to: operator, attendant,
representative, customer service representative (CSR).
Agent Turnover: The total numbers of agents that left the center during a specified
period divided by the sum of the number of agents at the beginning of the specified period
and the number of newly-hired agents during the same period, less the total number who
left during the specified period.
ANI: Automatic Number Identification. ANI is a service of telecommunications carriers,
which identifies the telephone number of the calling party. It is commonly used for
billing, call routing and database synchronization. There are several specific technologies
that fit under the umbrella of ANI, including caller ID.
Auxiliary Time in Percent: This is the average amount of time per shift, in percent,
that an agent is logged into an Aux state. This should include all authorized off-line time,
i.e., time set aside for handling e-mails, training, or other job-related tasks.
Average Attendance in Percent: This is a percentage representing how often an agent
is NOT absent from work due to an unplanned absence (not to include excused absences,
i.e., vacation, FMLA, jury duty, etc.). Take the total number of unexcused absences and
divide it by the total number of absenteeism opportunities and subtract that number from
100.
Average Cost per Call: This is the sum of all costs for running the call center for the
period divided by the number of calls handled in the call center for the same period. This Copyright © 197 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report would include all calls for all reasons whether handled by an agent or technology, such as
IVR.
Average Handle Time: An internal metric that is the sum of talk time, hold time, and
after call work time.
Average Percent Occupancy: This is the percentage of time that an agent is in their
seat connected to the ACD, and either engaged in a call or ready to answer a call as
compared to the total number of hours at work.
Average Sale Value per Sale: When agents are taking orders, it becomes important to
know the average sale value of individual sales. This number is determined by taking the
total sales in dollars during a period of time, let’s say a week, and dividing this by the
total number of sale calls handled during the same period of time.
Average Speed of Answer (ASA): This is the total queue time, divided by the number
of calls handled. This includes both IVR-handled calls as well as calls handled by a live
agent.
Average Talk Time: Total number of seconds the caller was connected to an agent.
Average Time in Queue: This is the average wait time that a caller endures. This
differs from average speed of answer because this calculation includes only calls that
actually had a wait time. This metric is also known as average time of delay.
B
Best Practice: Best practice is the best performing metric in a category.
Budget: The annual call center budget is the total annual dollar amount allocated for all
expenses associated with the operation of the call center for which the call center
manager is accountable. The annual budget should include all fully loaded direct and
indirect costs for budgetary line items such as labor, benefits, and incentives for agents,
management, training, and support personnel; HR costs (e.g., recruiting, screening,
training); telephony expenses (toll, trunks, equipment); technology purchases/installation
(hardware, and software); technology maintenance (hardware, and software) network;
furniture, fixtures, decorations, etc.; utilities (gas, water, power, UPS backup);
maintenance (repair, janitorial, upkeep); supplies; overhead expenses and charge-backs
for shared corporate costs (e.g., legal, risk management, payroll administration, IT
support, security, accounting, grounds keeping, real estate, floor space, common areas,
etc.) as applicable.)
C
Calls per Hour: The average number of calls that an agent handles per hour, and is
equal to the total calls handled during a working shift divided by the total time (in hours)
logged into the telephone system.
Cost per Call: This is the sum of all costs for running the call center for the period
divided by the number of calls handled in the call center for the same period. This would
include all calls for all reasons whether handled by an agent or technology, such as IVR. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 198 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Glossary of Terms You can also just calculate the cost per call for agent-handled calls. The number of calls
received will be captured by the ACD. The total cost of the center can be obtained from
your accounting department.
Cross-Sell: A cross-sell occurs when an agent recognizes that the caller might be able to
use a product from the same company, but in a totally different product line within the
company. For instance, an agent at a banking call center who is opening a savings
account for a caller might recognize the advantage for the caller to purchase a CD from
the bank at a higher interest rate.
CTI: Computer-Telephony Integration refers to the linkage of a telephone switch (ACD,
PBX) and computer systems to enhance call processing. Common applications include
screen pop, simultaneous voice and data transfer, and IVR.
Customer Access Channels: Customer access channels are the multiple ways that
customers can reach out and contact a company. A few of the obvious access channels are
telephone, e-mail, fax, normal mail, kiosk, and face-to-face.
Customer Centric: Placing the wants and needs of the customer as the central focus of
all business practices within the firm. Seeing your business through the “eyes of the
customer.”
Customer Lifetime Value: The imputed dollar revenues or profits (depending on
formula) generated by the customer for as long as the customer remains with the firm.
Customer Retention: Keeping a customer as opposed to losing the customer to the
competition. A percentage of this figure would be the tenure of the average customer with
the firm as computed by the sum of the time of all customers with the firm divided by the
number of customers.
Customer Satisfaction: This is a state of mind that a customer has about a company in
which their expectations have been met or exceeded over the lifetime of the product. This
leads to company loyalty and product repurchase.
Customer Share: The percent of those who purchase the item of interest from a given
firm. Computed as the number of customers who purchase the item from a given firm
divided by the numbers of customers who purchase the item from all firms combined.
Customer Value Segment: Customer value segmentation strives to segment customers
based on their financial value to the company. This value is usually based on a
combination of the total amount of money that a customer spends with the company, and
the profitability of that revenue stream. The best example would be the frequent flyer
programs that the airlines have. United, for instance, has the following value segments
with its frequent flyer program: a) regular frequent flyer, b) premium frequent flyer, and
c) 1K frequent flyer.
D
DNIS: Dialed Number Identification Service. A carrier service for 800/888 and 900
numbers that forwards the number dialed by the caller to the called party. Copyright © 199 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report E
Effectiveness Index: The index is calculated by statistically combining into an index
those metrics that are indicative of effective performance. This is considered to be quality
and is impacted by customer-focused processes.
Efficiency Index: The index is calculated by statistically combining into an index those
metrics that are indicative of efficient performance. This is considered to be productivity
and focuses on the cost of operating the business.
External Metrics: These are usually characterized as “soft” numbers as they are the
collected attitudes, opinions, and emotions of customers or other interested parties. The
data may be collected by survey, focus group, or interview methods. This represents the
customer perspective.
F
Focus Group: A personal, simultaneous interview among a small group of individuals. It
depends more on group discussion than individual responses for the data generated.
H
Help Desk: The term typically applied to an “internal” call center that handles primarily
calls from employees about technical problems with their computer, monitor, printer, and
the like.
Hold Time: This is the average number of seconds that an agent places customers on
hold during a call. Most ACDs can provide this number as a total number of hold seconds
and then you can compute the average hold time.
I
Internal Metrics: These are generated by computers internal to call center technology
(PBS, ACD, or VRU) or through departments such as Accounting, Finance, or Human
Resources. Internal metrics are commonly perceived as “hard” numbers. Examples
include average handle time, queue time, and abandon rate. This is generally not
representing the view the customer has of your company.
IVR: Interactive Voice Response. Technology that allows a customer making an inbound
call to interact with the data systems by responding to a menu of options. Responses are
typically entered by pressing the keys on the telephone keypad; however, voice
recognition is becoming more commonly integrated into the process, thus providing a
more useful tool.
IVR Opt Out: Measure in percent, this is the number of callers who during their call to
your center initially attempt finding solutions via the IVR, but then elect to speak with a
live agent. This is not the same as those who choose to speak to a live agent as an initial
menu option. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 200 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Glossary of Terms M
Moment of Truth: MOT is a critical interaction between the customer and the product
or service or employee that determines whether the customer will continue to purchase
from the vendor.
O
Order Taking and Tracking: This is a specific function of customer service and it
means that this call center specializes in just taking orders and tracking orders.
Outbound Performance Metrics: These are all the measurements that indicate the
performance of an outbound telephone agent. Examples might include calls/agent/shift or
sales/agent/shift.
Outsourcing: Contracting with an outside company/vendor to handle some or all of your
company’s inbound and/or outbound telephone calls or contacts.
P
Peer Group: Peer group does not necessarily connote competitors, but most often are the
call centers that have the same profile of activities that you have. For instance, a peer
group might be all call centers handling mostly inbound calls that are mostly business-tobusiness in a call center of over 100 agents for a company with annual revenues of over
one billion dollars.
Percent Abandoned: See Abandon Rate
Percent Agent Utilization: Agent utilization is a calculated metric reflecting the
percentage of an agent’s shift where the agent is logged into the system, engaged in
active “telephone mode” which involves “talk time (ATT)”, “hold time (AHT)”, and “aftercall-work time (ACWT).” Utilization equals the product of average call handle time (talk
time + hold time + after call work time) and the average number of inbound calls per
agent per shift (ACPS), divided by total time the agent is connected to the ACD and ready
to handle calls during a shift, i.e., occupancy in minutes. Utilization = ( ( ATT + ACW )( ACPS ) ) X 100
Occupancy _ in _ min . Percent Attendance: Actual number of shifts worked divided by the planned number of
shifts times 100.
Percent Blocked Calls: An internal metric that is the number of callers who received a
busy signal and, hence, could not get through to the ACD.
Percent Calls Handled on the First Call (aka, First Time Final): This is the
percentage of calls that were completely resolved during the course of the first inbound
call initiated by the customer, and therefore do not require a call back.
This information is often hard to find or inaccurate. Some clients calculate it based on the
coding an agent does at the end of a call. If this is the case, the information will be in the Copyright © 201 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Health-Plan/Health-Care Industry Benchmark Report ACD. However, this type of calculation almost certainly overstates the percent, since it
only subtracts those callers who an agent is certain will call back later; many callers
whose issues have been coded by agents as having been resolved will almost certainly call
back later and therefore the number is lower. The best way to calculate first time final is
to analyze call data over a period of time. This is made easier if the client has a CIM
package.
Percentage of Calls Placed in Queue: An internal metric, which is simply the number
of calls placed in the queue divided by the total of all calls received by the center.
Percentage of Calls Transferred: An internal metric that is the percentage of total
calls transferred from the original agent to someone else.
Q
Queue Time: This is the average wait time that a caller endures. This differs from
average speed of answer because this calculation includes only calls that actually had a
wait time. This metric is also known as average time of delay.
R
Rejection: The customer’s state of mind such that disengagement from the current
relationship has already been decided and has been or soon will be implemented.
Negative word of mouth is likely to occur.
S
Service level: This is a broad-based term that is used to measure productivity; however,
its use is not exclusive to the productivity of call handling. In contact centers it commonly
defines X amounts of output in Y amounts of time. For example 80 percent of calls
answered in 20 seconds.
T
Talk Time: This is the average amount of time an agent spends on performing follow-up
work after the agent has disconnected from the caller.
Total Annual Budget: The annual dollar amount allocated for all of the expenses
associated with the call center including (but not limited to): telecommunications
expense, salaries, incentives, equipment, and supplies.
Total Calls Offered: An internal metric for all calls presented to the center including
blocked, abandoned, and handled. This includes calls handled by technology.
Touch-point: Touch-point is a “buzzword” for customer access channels.
U
Up Sell: To sell a higher value product to an existing customer. For example, to lease a
more expensive copier to an existing customer. Also, see Cross Sell. © Copyright 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. 202 This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. Glossary of Terms V
Value Creating Gap: This represents a performance gap where your call center is doing
better than your peer group.
Value Destroying Gap: This represents a performance gap where your call center is
doing worse than your peer group.
Voice Response Unit (VRU): See IVR.
W
Word of Mouth (WOM): What a customer hears about a product, service, company, etc.,
usually from friends or family. Also rumors from unspecified sources.
Wrap Up Time: See “after call work time.”
Misc
80% of Calls Handled in xx Seconds: This is the number of seconds in which 80% of
your calls are handled. Copyright © 203 2005 BenchmarkPortal, Inc. This report is for internal Aspect use only. Distribution of this Report outside of Aspect is strictly forbidden. ...
View
Full
Document
This note was uploaded on 02/22/2012 for the course CSR 309 taught by Professor Staff during the Fall '08 term at Purdue.
- Fall '08
- Staff
- Jazz
-
Click to edit the document details
