laura grimes small contact centers: forecasting and scheduling · the powerful pooling principle...

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©2013 International Customer Management Institute (ICMI). All Rights Reserved icmi.com I 800.672.6177

Welcome to…

Small Contact Centers: Forecasting

and SchedulingFebruary 27, 2013 2:00‐4:00 PM EST

CEO, Harrington Consulting Group

Presented by:

Laura Grimes


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Agenda

• Characteristics of small contact centers

• Take advantage of the laws of contact center

• Create a planning culture

• Play what if with Erlang C

• Understand agent capacity

• Analyze the impact of growth

• Take steps to improve the predictability of your workload

• Identify creative and effective scheduling approaches


Contact Center Management Is...

…the art of having the right number of skilled people and supporting resources in place at the right times to handle an accurately

forecasted workload, at service level and with quality.

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Characteristics of Small Contact Centers


DO MORE WITH LESS

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Polling Question 1

• Which of the following are challenges in your small contact center? a. Meeting service levels

b. Insufficient funding

c. Agent morale swings in peaks and valleys

d. Being valued by others in the organization

e. Demands on management and agents to “wear many hats”

f. Inability to afford more efficient technologies

g. All of the above

h. Other (share your response in chat)


Advantages of Small Contact Centers

• Agents often feel more cohesive with the team and have a greater sense of responsibility– Strong sense of teamwork among associates and departments

– Everyone gets to know each other

• Ability to quickly disseminate information to the entire staff– Personal communication vs. memos

Article: Advice for Managers of Small Call Centers Part 1 and 2

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Advantages of Small Contact Centers

• There’s more planning involvement with other departments

• Ease of gaining employee feedback and input from the entire workforce

• Mission of the center is typically clearly understood

• The center can quickly react to real‐time changes


Take Advantage of the Laws of Contact Center Nature

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Review of Contact Center Dynamics

Three driving forces

1. Random call arrival

2. Psychology of queues

3. Caller tolerance


The Seven Factors of Caller Tolerance

1. Degree of motivation

2. Availability of substitutes

3. Competition’s service level

4. Level of expectations

5. Time available

6. Who’s paying for the call?

7. Human behavior

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Immutable Laws in Contact Centers

• For a given service level, larger agent groups are more efficient than smaller groups

• For a given call load when service level goes up, occupancy goes down


Erlang C Module

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Immutable Laws in Contact Centers

• All other things equal, pooled groups are more efficient than specialized groups

• Larger agent groups will have a higher occupancy than smaller agent groups


Small vs. Large Contact Centers

Service Level % 80%Answered in: 30 secs.

Staffing Req Volume AHT ASA Occupancy Rate11 50 5:00 34 7621 100 5:00 16 7930 150 5:00 15 8390 500 5:00 16 93

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The Powerful Pooling Principle

• Any movement in the direction of consolidation of resources will result in improved traffic carrying efficiency

• Resist the temptation to further subdivide queues or groups unless absolutely necessary

• The impetus should be on cross‐training and pooling as much as possible


Create a Planning Culture

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Vicious Cycle of Improperly Staffing

Less than desirable results

Mgmt/sprv time spent explaining the results

Activities with long-term value get pushed aside

Handle times go up, quality & satisfaction slides, turnover goes up, etc.

Results get even worse… focus on short-term over long-term

Efforts poured into real-time reactions


The Planning and Management Process

1.Choose SL/RT

Objectives2.

Collect Data

3.Forecast Workload

4.Calculate Base Staff

5.Calculate System

Resources

6.Calculate Shrinkage

7.Organize

Schedules

8.Calculate

Costs

9.Repeat for Higher and

Lower Levels of Service

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Polling Question 2

• What is your primary accessibility metric for inbound telephone contacts?

a. Service level

b. Average speed of answer

c. Abandoned calls

d. Other

e. We don’t have an accessibility metric


Service Level

Definition

Calculation

Source

Value

X% of contacts answered in Y seconds; For contacts that must be handled when they arrive

4 “standard” calculations – included in handout

ACD reports

Accurate measure of customer experience; key for budgeting and resource planning

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The Right Service Level

• Meets caller’s needs and expectations

• Maintains acceptable abandon level

• Minimizes agent burnout and errors

• Maximizes revenue

• Is agreed upon and supported by senior management

• Is regularly reassessed

No “one size fits all”


Polling Question 3

• What contact types do you handle?

a. Phone

b. Email

c. Face to face

d. Mail

e. Web Chat

f. Fax

g. Callback

h. Web Callback

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Response Time

Definition

Calculation

Source

Value

100% of contacts answered in N days/hours/minutes; For contacts that can be handled at a later time

Volume (RT AHT)

ERMS; manual tracking methods

Accurate measure of customer experience; key for budgeting and resource planning


Typical SL and RT Objectives

Emergency Services

SL objectives that are comparatively ‘high’

SL objectives that are comparatively ‘moderate’

SL objectives that are comparatively ‘low’ 80/60, 90/120 or 80/300

80/20, 80/30 or 90/60

90/20, 85/15 or 90/15

100/0

Example Service Level Objectives

Customer E-mail

Fax

Voice mail

Letter by mail

Example Response Time Objectives

Low end of range

Two days

Two days

Next day

> One week

High end of range

SL type planning

Three hours

Within one hour

Same day

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Planning Process

• Create a simple flow chart of your planning process

• Identify weak links and disconnects in the process

• Identify ways to create a more collaborative environment

• Identify the impact of outside influences such as a new marketing campaign


Play “What if” with Erlang C

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“What If”

• Talk time goes up by 20%

• You under or overestimate call volumes by 50%

• Two people don’t show up for work

• Three agents are out for training

• Produce tables and charts that show a range of possibilities

• Will identify what you’re up against and what the tradeoffs are


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“What If”

Reps SL % In 20 Seconds

ASA Occ. Trunk Load

8 38% 184 89% 11.8

9 65% 54 79% 8.2

10 81% 21 71% 7.2

11 90% 8 64% 6.9

12 95% 3 59% 6.8

13 98% 1 54% 6.7

14 99% 1 51% 6.7

Avg. Talk Time: 240 Sec; Avg. Work Time: 15 Sec; Calls: 50


Understand Agent Capacity

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Planned Hours(40 per week)

Unavailable(Absent)

(4 hrs/wk)

Available(36 hrs/wk)

Non-productionUtilization (including

all breaks)(11 hrs/wk)

Scheduled forPhones

(25 hrs/wk)

Non-adherence(2.5 hrs/wk)

Manned (login) time(22.5 hrs/wk)

Idle time required tomeet service level

(3.8 hrs/wk)

Call Handling andWrap-up

(18.7 hrs/wk)

Talk Time(13.7 hrs/wk)

Hold Time(1.7 hrs/wk)

After Call Work time(3.3 hrs/wk)

Becomes larger, the smaller the

center

A Call Center Agent’s Capacity


Agent Capacity

Remaining Hours

Activity Reduction

Hours Remaining

Weekly Scheduled Hours 40.0 0.0 40.0

Absent (annual, sick) 17 days/yr.

40.0 2.6 37.4

Paid Breaks (2 @ 15 min. per day)

37.4 2.5 34.9

Non-Phone (meetings, coaching) @ 1hr/week

34.9 1.0 33.9

Non-Phone (email, updates) @ .5hr/week

33.9 2.5 31.4

Telephone Adherence 90% 31.4 3.1 28.3

Required Occupancy 70% 28.3 8.5 19.8

Total on Phones, Hold and ACW

19.8

Many contact centers schedule other activities during idle time – Key is to make sure the other activities do not cause agents to leave their desk, log

out or break.

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Polling Question 4

• Are you currently using occupancy as an individual agent metric?

a. Yes

b. No

c. Other


Occupancy

Definition

Calculation

Source

Value

Percentage of time agents spend handling calls vs. waiting for calls to arrive.

For a half-hour: (Call volume x AHT in seconds) / (number of agents x 1,800 seconds)

ACD Reports

Critical for budgeting and resource planning. It’s the statistic used in the Erlang C calculation that is at the core of call center scheduling.

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Occupancy

• Occupancy is an uncontrollable outcome based upon number of calls, AHT and SL objective

• For a given call load when service level goes up, occupancy goes down

• For a given SL, larger agent groups will have a higher occupancy due to more calls to handle


Occupancy

• Smaller agent groups will have a lower occupancy and more idle time

• Consistently high occupancy can result in;– Higher agent turnover

– Higher errors and rework

– Lower quality

– Lower customer satisfaction

– Lower adherence to schedule

– Lower service levels

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Analyze the Impact of Growth


Impact of Growth

• Use charts or documents that illustrates the projected costs and time‐frames of growing the contact center in increments

• Identify required lead‐times and key decision points associated with;

– Additional workstations

– New or upgraded equipment

– New facility

– Additional staff

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Variance Report

Article: Call Center Budgets: Volume Related vs. Fixed


Take Steps to Improve the Predictability of your Workload

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Polling Question 5

• How do you currently do workforce management (forecasting and scheduling)?

a. Workforce management software application

b. Excel spreadsheets

c. Real‐time/on‐the‐fly

d. Static schedules (no interval workforce planning in place)

e. Other


Plan, Plan, Plan

• It’s all highly predictable!• You must do it ‐ no one is exempt!• Collect and clean the data• Identify your contact drivers• Gain input from departments that impact your workload • Forecast workload from 30,000 foot to ground level

– Yearly–Monthly–Weekly– Daily Interval

Large contact centers must achieve +/- 3%-5% accuracy.

Small contact centers must achieve +/- 5%-10% accuracy.

Article: Workforce Optimization and Advance Resource Management for Smaller Centers

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And then plan some more….

• Forecast the workload

– Call volumes, AHT by queue, email volumes and AHT, all “other” workload

• Forecast agent availability

– Presence – sick, vacation, STD,

– Utilization – training, coaching, meetings, etc.

– Random – occupancy, schedule adherence


Staffing Variance

Service Level ASA % Queued

Agent Occupancy

8:30 9:00 5.7% 67% 36 36% 88%9:00 9:30 22.6% 99% 1 2% 68%9:30 10:00 8.6% 48% 95 56% 92%

10:00 10:30 8.8% 94% 4 8% 76%10:30 11:00 13.2% 11% 655 90% 99%11:00 11:30 0.0% 80% 14 24% 85%11:30 12:00 5.4% 89% 7 13% 80%12:00 12:30 19.5% 17% 437 85% 98%12:30 1:00 16.1% 98% 1 3% 70%

11.0% 60% 129 33% 84%

Bottom line impact if staffed to forecast

Why Forecasts Are Important

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Average Handling Time

Definition

Calculation

Source

Value

Average talk time + after call work- Calls x AHT = workload- Forecast AHT to interval level

Average talk time + Average after-call work

ACD Reports

Accurate AHT forecasting critical for resource planning, budgeting, scheduling training needs


Forecasting and Scheduling

• Forecasting accuracy will always be challenging because of the small volumes

• Key is to determine how close you can get and then develop schedules based on the range.

• Historical‐based forecasting typically works well

– Based on information available from the existing telephone system

– Forecasts and results can be easily tracked and trended

– Determine expected variance range

– Develop schedules based on outcomes

Article: Workforce Optimization for Small Contact Centers

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Identify Creative and Effective Scheduling Approaches


Whiteboard Exercise

• What scheduling alternatives do you currently offer?

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IntervalProjected Volume

Projected AHT

Projected Staff

1 100 300 21

Variance Range

Staff Minimum

Staff Maximum

12.0% 18.5 23.5

Scheduling in Small Contact Centers

Scheduling based on variances in small contact centers:

• 19 reps….that have to be on the phone

• 2 more reps….that probably have to be on the phone

• Another 3 reps….that may need to be on the phone



Agent schedules in small contact centers should reflect the “have,” “probably” and “may” needs

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Schedules in small contact centers typically have more flexibility than perceived

– Get creative in assigning tasks and training

– Create more flexible shifts

– Conduct training or meetings outside of traditional hours

– Train back office personnel to act as backup

– Reward agents who are open to daily adjustments to schedule changes

– Allow more agent options for breaks and lunches

– Develop job share agreements/Swat teams

– Take on work from other departments


Example Schedule

From Easy Start Call Center Scheduler by ICMI, Inc. www.icmi.com

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Developing Schedules


Required Phone Staff 3.2 2.5 3.5 4.0 8.9

Net Phone Variance -2.2 -1.5 -1.5 -2.0 -6.9

8:00

8:15

8:30

8:45

9:00

Agent One E E E E PT

Agent Two P P P P P

Agent Three E E P P P

Code Description 8:00

8:15

8:30

8:45

9:00

P Phones 1 1 2 2 2E E-Mail 2 2 1 1 0A Absent 0 0 0 0 0F FMLA 0 0 0 0 0

PT PTO 0 0 0 0 1PB Paid Break 0 0 0 0 0UB Unpaid Break 0 0 0 0 0T Training 0 0 0 0 0M Meeting 0 0 0 0 0C Coaching 0 0 0 0 0

PC PC Backup 0 0 0 0 0O Other 0 0 0 0 0

Total 3 3 3 3 3

Developing Schedules

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Required Phone Staff 3.2 2.5 3.5 4.0 8.9

Net Phone Variance -0.2 0.5 -0.5 -1.0 -6.9

8:00

8:15

8:30

8:45

9:00

Agent One P P P P PT

Agent Two P P P P P

Agent Three P P P P P

Code Description 8:00

8:15

8:30

8:45

9:00

P Phones 3 3 3 3 2E E-Mail 0 0 0 0 0A Absent 0 0 0 0 0F FMLA 0 0 0 0 0

PT PTO 0 0 0 0 1PB Paid Break 0 0 0 0 0UB Unpaid Break 0 0 0 0 0T Training 0 0 0 0 0M Meeting 0 0 0 0 0C Coaching 0 0 0 0 0

PC PC Backup 0 0 0 0 0O Other 0 0 0 0 0

Total 3 3 3 3 3

Improving Schedule Coverage


The Goal – The Envelope Strategy

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

9:00

9:30

10:0

0

10:3

0

11:0

0

11:3

0

12:0

0

12:3

0

1:00

1:30

2:00

2:30

3:00

3:30

4:00

4:30

5:00

5:30

Time of Day

Ag

ents

Rostered Staff Assigned

Rostered Staff Required

Quality improvement; non-customere-mail; special projects.

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Whiteboard Exercise

• What is your biggest takeaway from this session?


Summary

• Characteristics of small contact centers

• Take advantage of the laws of contact center nature

• Create a planning culture

• Play what if with Erlang C

• Understand agent capacity

• Analyze the impact of growth

• Take steps to improve the predictability of your workload

• Identify creative and effective scheduling approaches

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International Customer Management Institute (ICMI)121 South Tejon Street, Suite 1100

Colorado Springs, CO 80903USA

800-672-6177719-268-0184 fax

[email protected]

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