Business Challenge In early 2005 Quest Connect commissioned an independent review of the performance of its contact centre staff working onsite at a new start-up call centre.

Comparing the client’s call centre performance against a few key metrics and international benchmarks, it became apparent which areas of the business required more focus.

Understanding why the agents were spending slightly less time on actual calls relative to their total working hours would provide valuable insight into how to increase efficiency.

A further breakdown of the utilisation of the agent’s time identified that significant amounts of time were being spent on outbound calls as well as “other” time.

Quest Solution

The indications were that there was scope to re-engineer some of the business processes to allow the agents to resolve more queries online rather than having to take administrative breaks to resolve client queries.

Str ict cal l qual i ty assessment scores were evaluated over the same period to ensure that any productivity gains were not at the expense of quality.

Call quality was improving as agents became more familiar with the product and as process improvements were being introduced.

Once we had a clearer understanding of some of the call centre performance scores it was possible to look at the agent group scores.

We were very pleased to see that the productivity scores as well as adherence scores were above target.

The handling time was, on average, in the right target area for optimal resourcing.

The number of late incidents was troubling and needed to be addressed.

Understanding and enhancing contact centre performance

CASE STUDY 11

PROCESS ENGINEERING LEADING TO EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCIES

Without disclosing all details the client allowed access to data to compare Quest sourced agents from all other staffing agencies.

Business Results

Through a trusting partnership, this data allowed Quest Connect to gain more relevant and focused insight and understanding of the client’s environment and the issues that the client was facing in relation to the performance of the agents provided by us.

Inspired with this knowledge, Quest Connect was able to develop an innovative and unique action plan of HR tasks to improve the fit of agents being put forward, the onsite performance of the agents and the delivery of value to the client.

All of the tasks could then be focused on what was relevant at that time and optimise the time spent talking with clients whilst increasing quality scores and improving the ownership of query resolution.l

In addition:

Call categorisation: Calls were categorised appropriately, with an understanding that calls in different categories would take differing amounts of time to handle.

Skill-Based Routing: We were able to route different types of calls to the CSR pool most adequately trained to handle them.

Staff based on volume: We used a combination of Call Volume, Call Duration, Time-to-Answer etc. to estimate the staff required at any given hour.

Monitor, Record and Review: We employed process improvement specialists that helped identify what went right and what could be improved on the calls.

Quest Services Offering

Quest is a Full Circle Staffing Solutions Company (FCS² ™) with the most comprehensive service offering in the industry that includes: Field Marketing | Managed Service Provider (MSP) | Outsourced Staffing Solutions | Permanent Placement Solutions | Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) | Specialised Staffing Projects.

Contact us now to find out how choosing Quest will be one of the best business decisions you make.

Visit www.quest.co.za for more information.

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