Authors
Mia Stephens
JMP
Objective
The scenario relates to the handling of customer queries via an IT call center. The call center performance is well below best in class. Identify potential process changes to allow the call center to achieve best in class performance.
Background
The particular scenario relates to the handling of customer queries via an IT call center. Prior to initiating a call, a customer may or may not have attempted to resolve the issue through alternative contact mechanisms, such as FAQs via a Web site. Due to customer demand, this call center does not operate the traditional answering service, whereby the details of the call and issue are logged and then passed onto a service engineer capable of solving the problem. Instead, the first call is taken by a service engineer who becomes responsible for finding a solution.
The Task
Benchmark analysis (not presented here) indicated that the company had lower customer satisfaction ratings than best-in-class competitors and that higher levels of customer satisfaction are driven by call center performance with respect to the speed with which calls are answered and problems correctly resolved. Further, customer satisfaction is the top driver of product revenues, and it is estimated that 8 percent revenue growth is possible if the company matches call center performance of best in class.
The performance goals to match best-in-class performance are:
- -Time to answer should be no more than two minutes.
- -65 percent of calls must be solved in one iteration (or cycle) with a maximum service time of 1.5 hours;
- -85 percent of all calls must be solved with no more than two iterations with a maximum total service time of five hours; and
- -99 percent of all calls must be solved with no more than three iterations with a maximum total service time of 15 hours.