Benchmark Survey 2004 - The...

© Professional Planning Forum 2004 Call Centre Planning 2004

Benchmark Survey 2004

Presented by Paul Smedley & John CaseyCall Centre Planning 2004


3rd Annual Benchmark Survey

200+ replies – up 75% on last year.First year in the new web formatThe 2004 Research Continues!

Mini-surveys Innovation award case studiesSite visits and seminarsTraining materials


Broad and representative

Financial Services

30%

Other22%

Telecomms14%

Outsourcing12%

Public Sector

9%

Travel7%

Retail6%

200+ replies

2600+ Planners

130,000+ agent FTE


A wide mix of respondents

Planners36%

Planning Managers

38%

Ops Mgrs / Directors

18%

Other8%

49 % multi-site

51% single site

85% with dedicated

resourcing team


Large and small centres

0-308% 31-75

16%

76-15015%

151-25010%

251-50014%

501-100014%

1000+23%

Half are lessthan 250 FTE

Nearly quarter are above1000 FTE


Thank you for your replies!

Acush Net Europe Ltd Budget Insurance Services Cadbury Schweppes CAHOOT Capita Capita Business Services Cendant UK Mbrship Services Charles Tyrwhitt Cheshire Building Society Churchill Insurance Cigna International Citifinancial Europe plc Client Logic CMC Coventry Building Society Cox Insurance Services CPC DAS Domgen / Inkfish Echo Managed Services East Thames Housing Group English Churches Housing Group Essex & Suffolk Water Eurostar EUROTUNNEL Fexco First Choice First Direct FLEET SUPPORT GROUP Guinness UDV Ireland HBOS HBOS - Collections Home Service (GB) Ltd HSA Ikano Financial Services Insurance Advisory Service Intelligent Finance Invesco Perpetual Land Registry Learn Direct Legal & General Littlewoods Leisure LIVERPOOL DIRECT LTD Lloyds TSB Lloyds TSB Insurance Matthew Clark MBNA More Than (Royal & Sun Alliance) Motability Operations NATIONAL EXPRESS National Australia Bank Group Associa Northumbrian Water Norwich Union NPI Norwich Union IT SERVICE DESK npower O2 O2 Ireland Orange P C H A Patientline RAC Right Sort Mailing Company Ltd RS COMPONENTS Scottish Power Scottish Widows BT Ignite South West Trains TILIA SOUTHERN HOUSING GROUP Standard Life Bank SX3 TUI Thus Plc Travelex Typetalk UCI Ultraframe plc Vertex VIPnet Virgin Atlantic Vodafone UK Limited Kanoosei is Possibility Diageo Ireland Allianz Cornhill T-Mobile Stream International First Data International AXA PPP healthcare capita plc Saga Cotton Traders Ltd JP Morgan Fleming QVC Marlborough Stirling Life and Pension Services Chelsea Building Society British Gas Communications ELI LILLY Carphone Warehouse JD Williams WEST MERCIA CONSTABULARY Barclays MobistarIngenico Singlepoint Stenaline M&G British Telecom IKEA Newport City Council American Express Apollo Contact Centre Apple Europe AUTOGLASS Avis Contact Centres Ltd Axa Ireland Barclays StockBrokers Best Western BMI British Midland Bourne Lesiure BSkyB South Yorkshie Passenger Transport

A partial list of respondents


Workforce ManagementWFM systems are highly valued, but not fully used.We claim to be satisfied with WFM systems, yet, even with these systems, we still use spreadsheets and still think of changing or upgrading after a couple of years.


Workforce ManagementWhich systems do people use?

Only 14% had no WFM system

compared with 30% in the 2002 survey. 24%19%12%Other

13%13%9%Total View

14%6%14%Blue Pumpkin

14%24%22%Aspect

35%38%43%Qmax

040302Pipkins Maxima

Advantage 5%

Teleopti Contact

Centre Coach 2%OTHER 7%

Q-max 35%

Open Wave 5%

Genesys 4%

IEX Totalview 13%

Blue Pumpkin 14%

Aspect (TCS) eWFM

14% ‘New kids on the block’ presence doubled in 2 years


Benefits of WFM

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

120%

A gents c ontrol their lifes ty le

P lan 3-12 m onths ahead for H C

A nlaly s e inform ation and produc e reports

A c hieve C ons is tant S L

E ns ure s taff in right plac e daily

R educ e A dm in T im e

S c heduling F lex ibly & E ffic iently

Extremely Significantly Little


WFM SystemsValued, but still not fully exploited.

76% of WFM users says the system is VERY critical to success of centre, but only 24% feel they exploit it’s full potential.93% recommend WFM, but only 68% recommend the supplier they use.Little change since our 2002 survey!

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1

WFM Very Critical toBusiness

Exploit Full potentialof system

Recommend WFMto other business

Recommend yourWFM to other

business

2002 2004


80% are very satisfiedPerhaps we are too easily satisfied?

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Functionality ofproduct

Reliability ofsystem

Support / advicefrom vendor

Overall

Satisifed Dissatisfied

•Overall about 80 % are very satisified with their WFM system, but….

•80% satisifed –but a lot of gripes and not doing a lot of things…..


Constantly consider changeMany users plan to change vendors.

Nearly half of experienced users consider changing WFM systems.Almost all plan upgrades after 5 years. Most give a system 2 years to prove itself.Why?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1-2 years 2-3 years 3-5 years 5+ years

Thinking of changing Thinking of upgrading


WFM is not a quick hitRegular change or upgrade cycle

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

< 3

months

3-6

months

6-12

months

1-2 years 2-3 years 3-5 years 5 years+

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

How long using current system? Thinking of Changing


What drives dissatisfaction?A third are dissatisfied after 3-5 years.

0 %

5 %

1 0 %

1 5 %

2 0 %

2 5 %

3 0 %

3 5 %

4 0 %

1 -2 yrs 2 -3 yrs 3 -5 yrs 5 + yrs

Functionality o f Product

Reliability o f system

Support/advice from vendor

Overall


The need for work-arounds.People with WFM still use spreadsheets!

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Reporting

Long term

Forecasting

Holidays/t ime off

Sickness

Adherence

Scheduling

Breaks


The Challenge …

We are still not using the full potential of WFMStill using the old manual/spreadsheet methods.Only a quarter of us are fully utilising the new systems.Few using WFM to help agents control lifestyle.

Are we too unambitious in what we expect from WFM? 80% claim to be satisfied with WFM, yet half of us are thinking of changing systems two years in - why?What can we learn from the innovation awards?What does it take to make step changes?


The Planning Team

How many planners do we need?What impact do we make?We discuss development and training but do we provide enough?How common are problems with buy-in from team leaders or marketing?


Size of the Resourcing TeamCall centres come in all shapes & sizes.

Average ratio is 60 agents to 1 specialistsWas 107 in 2003.Half the teams have five or less specialists.Nearly 10% have 50+ specialists.Ratios also vary greatly.

Size of Resourcing Team

110%

213%

313%

46%

59%

66%

73%

84%

93%

104%

10-2011%

21-509%

51-1003%

100+6%


Making a difference86% recommend planning role as career

19%54%23%5%Sickness

21%50%25%5%Attrition

3%46%45%5%Employee morale

2%19%52%28%Prod. or cost

2%7%48%42%Service Levels

Not at allLittleSignificantHuge

80%+ see they have impacted on service level, productivity or cost.

80%+ see little or no impact they’ve made on attrition or sickness.


Training & DevelopmentUseful but there’s not enough of it.

23%58%19%How useful was any training you’ve had?

21%40%35%4%Is the budget for your training adequate?

3%22%48%27%Are development needs discussed in reviews?

3%50%39%3%How extensive has it been so far?

3%42%54%How important is it to you?

Not at allSlightlySignificantExtremely

We discuss development needs but don’t necessarily provide it.

Training is important to professional specialists.

Current training is not extensive and budgets are insufficient.


Buy-in and supportTwo difficulties are wide-spread …

41% say not enough buy-in from Team Leaders

57% say little or none with Marketing.

In some companies this extends to IT and Finance.

13%24%56%7%Finance

5%34%47%14%IT

17%40%36%7%Marketing

2%17%50%32%Snr Mgrs

1%41%36%12%TMs

1%9%52%39%CCM

NoneNot EnoughEnoughExcellent


Who does what?Top roles of the Team Leaders

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Managing sickness/absence

Tracking adent adherence

Managing breaks or off-phone activity

Answering adhoc questions

Managing sched changes/swaps

Planning desk/seat allocation

Managing holidays/time off

Out of adherence alerts

TL's Mgrs RP team


Who does what?Top roles of the Resourcing Teams

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Creating & distributing schedules

Answering adhoc questions

Forecasting CC workload

Producing regular reports

Managing holidays/time off

Managing sched changes/swaps

Long term planning

Managing breaks or off-phone activity

RP team TL's Mgrs


The Challenge …

Roles of team leaders and resource planners overlap on key operational issues that matter to agents.Buy-in from team leaders and marketing is still a big issue in many centres. Development training is much needed and talked about, but not enough is provided.

Questions: Are we selling what we could achieve with training?How can planning impact attrition and sickness more?How do we improve buy-in .. what’s worked elsewhere?


Working PracticesStill a story of two halves

In terms of establishing flexibility for the businessAnd flexibility in meeting the needs of different lifestyles for agents.

Self-service is still hardly used Despite availability through most workforce management systemsOr the ability to manage data imports and exports.


Self-Service AdminA long way to go …. lots of potential!

57%42%6%Arrange coaching / 1-1’s

69%29%7%Book training

62%31%12%Book overtime

33%

16%

Agts

48%

25%

TL’s

43%

66%

Neither

Book hols / Time off

Choose or swap shifts

Can agents or team leaders

•Can agents or TLs manage any of these functions directly by self service admin•Need to look at WFM / No WFM – is this a feature of some packages?


Multi-skilling

Are most of your agents able to handle most calls in the centre? 65%Do some agents regularly handle a mix of call / emails / etc...? 72%Do you used skill-based routing functionality on your ACD? 75%Do you do skill-based scheduling and holiday 60%


Flexibility

Do you automate scheduling of callbacks when the queue is busy? 19%Do some agents work different number of weekly hours at different times of the month or year? 44%Are most of your agents on contracts which mean you can't easily change their hours? 53%


Lifestyle Rostering

Are your teams rostered together most or all of the time? 58%For permanent full time staff do you recruit different types of agents for different working hours? 43%For part-time or temporary agent do you recruit different types of agents for different working hours? 57%Can you schedule some shifts or staff at shorter notice than the norm? 60%Do you offer "duvet days" to staff? 11%


The Challenge …

Working practices reflect the culture of how we have been not how we want to be … they move slowly, but are showing signs of some significant trends towards matching agent life-styles with business needs.

Questions: How can we we see ‘inflexibility’ as a challenge not a blockage?How can we identify the benefits that self-service could offer us?


The Planning Heartbeat

Regular workforce management practice of daily or weekly tasks.Publish – so that people know what to expect.Use checklists to manage your own performance.


Regular short-term tasks

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Adhoc shift changes with ind agents

Update call volume forecasts

Produce Interval deviation reports

Review holiday waitlists or allocations

Meetings with team leaders

Validate adherence using historic reports

Update handle time forecasts

Change agent skillsets on ACD

Meetings with other teams in centre

Review impact of marketing

Validate shrinkage assumptions

Schedule for outbound

Schedule for email/web/chat etc

Review long term forecasts and plans

Initiate changes to working pratices

Meeting with contacts outside centre

Significantly change shift patterns

Daily

Weekly


Regular learning and review

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Adhoc shift changes with ind agents











Schedule for outbound

Schedule for email/web/chat etc




Significantly change shift patterns

Monthly


Top 7 daily tasks

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%



Arrange minor/temp shift changes





Daily

Weekly


Top 7 weekly tasks

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%



Arrange minor/temp shift changes





Weekly

Daily


Top 7 monthly tasks

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%








Monthly

Weekly


The Challenge …

Good workforce management practice requiresRegular performance of key tasksLetting other people know when you expect input from themLetting them know when you’ll give them information.Managing expectations about what is possible when!

Questions: Can we explain the benefits of doing things as we are – or is it because because it’s the way it’s always been done?How does the way we communicate and collect information drives the numbers in the planning team?


Benchmark Survey 2004

Presented by Paul Smedley & John CaseyCall Centre Planning 2004

Benchmark Survey 2004 - The...

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