Call Center Management Featured Article
Call Center Management Must Manage Out-of-Adherence to Drive Results
Scheduling in the call center is nothing short of an interesting dance between agent availability, call center anticipated activity and unforeseen interruptions. With call center management working consistently to keep tasks on track, schedule adherence can easily fall out of line. When this happens, the call center is running up unnecessary costs that can be avoided with the right platforms and approach in place.
This recent Monet Software blog examined the potential affected areas when the call center is out-of-adherence. First, the speed of answer to customers is reduced, which impacts the service level and customer satisfaction. Call center management should be focused on improving this figure to protect the customer base.
Second, the workload and occupancy of the staff are affected, which has an impact on productivity and staffing costs. No one wants to work hard in an environment where others are allowed to slack off. It’s important for call center management to keep agents motivated and on the phones as much as possible. Any time spent focused on other things leaves an uneven workload that can cause resentment to build within the center.
Finally, when call center management allows agents to get out-of-adherence from the call center scheduling, telephone costs can soar. There’s a reason why agents should spend only a short amount of time on each call. The agent’s time is a cost, as well as the number of calls the agent cannot get to that require an additional agent to manage. When call center management has to increase agent numbers, the cost of recruitment, training and retention increases.
The good news is that all three of these areas are avoidable when call center management understands the impact of out-of-adherence within the call center. It’s also important to measure and quantify the effect by determining the costs associated with call center scheduling and out-of-adherence.
Consider the 200 call center agents in one location and the activities associated with out-of-adherence causes a loss of 10 minutes per day. At an average of $15 per hour wage for the 200 call center agents, the resulting cost is $130,000 per year.
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10 minutes x 5 days x 52 weeks = 2,600 minutes per year = 43.3 hours per year.
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43.3 hours x $15 = $650 per person x 200 agents = $130,000.
It’s important for call center management to take the time, do the math and understand the real hard dollar costs associated with out-of-adherence for the call center. Evaluate the necessary internal changes necessary to reduce wasted time and call center management should immediately see positive results.
For ideas and more information about schedule adherence, watch this on demand webinar: “Strategies for improved call center schedule adherence”.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell