A core task for a contact centre’s operational group is to meet workload requirements within service standards. The process of determining workload and resource requirements to complete these activities requires a structured process that uses both tracking and analytical tools.  Once all this information is gathered and verified for accuracy, the next step is to determine the impact created by a variance to the assumptions used.  This review of assumptions allows the operational group to complete a gap analysis that illustrates the opportunities and risks on the day of operation.  The structured procedure with all assumptions documented in forecasting workload allows for an accurate post day review.

The process of tracking and using this data to forecast workload is considered scientific since decisions were based on previous events.  But what happens when new activity is planned that no historical information is available or the workload is being generated by an element you don’t have control over (competitors, industry activity, technical issues or the environment)?  This is when the distinction between the science and art of workload management is utilized.  Science is defined as “knowledge of principles and causes” while Art is defined as “a system of principles and methods employed in performing a set of activities”.  

By tracking and understanding the drivers and their impact to your contact centre, your operational group can create and test assumptions for new activity that has previously not been experienced in your centre.  Some of these new activities may be very unique and require further investigation, both within and outside the industry your centre supports.  This new activity could be new to your centre but may not be new to another centre.  Having worked in a number of contact centres for the past fifteen years, I have found that through detailed review, it is possible to create reasonably accurate forecast of the impact of new activity.

The accuracy of the forecast is depended on the amount of historical information that is available along with the detail of the call drivers.  Contact Centre activity can be categorized into two main elements, Phone and Non-Phone.  With phone activity being the traditional tasks being completed in a contact centre with historical information being available.  The concern is that the contact centre has absorbed many non-traditional roles and therefore does not have the quality of historical information for non-phone activity as they would like.

Phone Activity:

The basic tasks of a contact centre is to service incoming phone enquires or to make outbound calls to achieve organizational goals.  These tasks account for the bulk (75-85%) of the workload in most contact centres, the level of phone activity vary based on the type and the technology implemented within the centre.  An increase in self service applications has been experienced for centres that support order entry and help desk information, the percentage of workload requiring a live agent by this channel is decreasing.  Self service applications assisting in the handling of simple call types has resulted in the centre handling more complicated and a higher value calls.  With the short calls being handled by self service applications fewer calls are being handled by an agent, but these call types traditionally are longer.  This has resulted in an increase in overall handle time then previously experienced.  

To be able to manage the workload generated from a customer phone call, an understanding of call types and the caller’s expectations of service is required.  This expectation needs to be balanced with the strategic goal (Sales, Service or Support) of the contact centre.  With the ability for a customer to make one call and have multiple questions answered, your centre’s tracking needs to capture the mix of call types a single customer enquiry may be categorized as.

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) reporting is a very valuable tool in tracking both the call type and call activity.  When this tool is leveraged with a Customer Relations Management (CRM) tool, not only is the overall activity of the customer available but so are the steps to achieve the end result.  The reporting information for both these tools could be very detailed and difficult to do exhaustive analysis unless the data can be segregated into a number of relational elements.  These technology tools allow your centre to have a more detailed view of the call drivers that can be layered in with the data captured within your telephone switch and IVR applications. 

Even without sophisticated CTI and CRM reporting packages, the core customer driver information can be derived from basic tools that are available in all centres. Most organizations have unique phone numbers for the variety of products and services they provide, along with a number of IVR applications that self direct customers to the appropriate answering group.  When the data from these two sources are combined with transaction or work orders from your Customer Information System (CIS), a very detailed profile of calling trends are created.  When this call information is reviewed with caller transaction codes which can be manually inputted by the front line staff, a logical process map is created.  This map highlights the route (and therefore the customers perception) of the purpose of the call.  IVR prompts, along with agent transaction codes illustrates the customer activity to the services or products which your centre provides.   

The same processes and tools used to identify call types can also be applied to trend call handle time.  It is important that the time required to service the customer is not generalized based on the customer’s end requirements.  Each caller has their own perception on what the service or product that will fulfill their needs should look like.  Therefore the route and IVR options select to achieve this end result could vary for each customer.  A process capture activity in controlled elements would be to create categories that document the customer experience:

(1) Initial route or number dialed

(2) IVR Transactions Selected

(3) Agent Transaction Codes Selected and

(4) Customer Options Selected.

The end result of all this tracking and analysis provides the bulk (60 to 70%) of the staffing plan to meet workload requirements.  The balance of the staffing plan is based on achieving non-phone activities along with investing in staffing non-productive time to provide the skills required to meet organizational goals.

 Non-Phone Activity:

There are a number of non-phone activity that generates a customer enquire into a contact centre.  They vary from the traditional correspondence (letters and faxes) to work order processing to electronic activity (email, Web and Chat).  Non-Phone activity also requires specific training to complete and like phone activity, most centres create skill sets to complete these activities.  Since the non-phone activity is less overall work in general and some elements of this activity does not occur frequently, smaller groups of staff are trained to service these enquires to ensure quality and consistency.  As these activities increases more staff can be trained to proved the planned service standards.  A balance between the quality, customer expectations, economy of scale (cost of activity) and response needs to be maintained between all non-phone activities.

The challenges with non-phone activity is that most contact centres have a very well defined process of completing the customer enquire but do not understand how to measure productivity for the variety of activity.  Non-Phone customer enquire requires the same end result that a phone enquire has, the driver that results in the non-phone activity is the customer profile, urgency, availability of tools and tactic in doing business.  Customers’ expectation for response time also varies based on the channel used:

With the variety of service standards for these activities, contact centres have many options available to them to prioritize the workload.  When these activities are blended, the contact centre has the ability of multi tasking agents in completing phone and non-phone activity (Email and phone calls) along with different categories of non-phone activity (Mail and Chat).  These service standards can also vary depending if the enquiry is from an internal or external customer.  The end result is that a matrix of elements is required to be tracked to determine the workload activity.

With the assistance of a multi-media switch, contact centres can now handle and track non-phone activity request using the same tools used to handle an incoming calls.  These systems track the number of items offered, the time to handle, if the activity was completed (response to customer), escalated, along with the quality of the transactions.  When multiple activities are offered to an agent, the time required to complete the transaction can be calculated based on the agent’s time in toggling between transactions. 

For contact centres that do not have multi-media switching capability, other options are available.  Many centres have developed their own distribution system where all non-phone activity is scanned/copied into a queue and the activity is time stamped to ensure service standards can be tracked.  This method will vary in cost depending on the existing tools available and the time required in transferring the activity into some common platform. 

For contact centres that have a small percentage of their overall workload being non-phone activity may not have the option in investing in these new technologies.  But there still is a need to track these activities to be able to determine workload so that staffing requirements can be determined.  To complete this task a centre needs to:

Along with productive non-phone activity, a contact centre needs to plan for its loading and shrinkage factors.  Loading factors is defined as the additional staff required to achieve service standards while staff is not available due to ongoing training, meetings, coaching and performance management requirements.

Shrinkage factors is defined as the additional staff required to achieve service standards due to elements such as sick, vacation and some form of leave of absence (i.e.: Maternity, Paternity, Jury and Bereavement)

The following chart illustrates industry averages for both phone and non-phone activity along with the % of paid hours.

Every contact centre varies in its work activity along with its loading and shrinkage factors.  This combination of activity and staffing requirements needs to be understood and planned for to ensure that the centre’s service standards are achieved.  Along with managing workload activity both loading and shrinkage factors are cycle; therefore today’s operational plan will vary to tomorrows plan.  The core elements of phone, non-phone, loading and shrinkage will occur every day.  Most of these elements can be tracked, reported, analyzed and planned using both the science and art of workload management.