Term Project – Call Center Operations

Term Project – Call Center Operations 1 Term Project – Call Center Operations Term Project – Call Center Operations Agenda 2          Overview Call Center Statistics (October), Definitions & Forecast Process View of the Call Center Call Center Competencies, Architecture, Three Key Measures & Little’s Law Call Center Flow, Delays, Queues & Process Attributes Flow Rate-related Measures of Call Center Capacity Flow Time-related Measures of Customer Delay Inventory-related Measures of Customer Queues Performance Improvements & Managing Capacity Term Project – Call Center Operations Overview 3     Time Warner Cable Los Angeles – Bought Adelphia – Exchanged properties with Comcast – Now provides cable, internet & telephone services to over 2 million customers. Time Warner Advanced support is local – Teamed up with outsourced partner to provide basic support for all three products. Basic support includes: billing, basic repair, changes to the accounts & general questions. Outsourced partner provides basic support from 3 call center locations: USA, Canada & Argentina. Term Project – Call Center Operations Overview 4      Call Center in Argentina supports English & Spanish-speaking customers. There are 36 agents employed in the center – 12 are Spanish only – 24 are bilingual On average, the call center handles 40,000 calls per month. However, over last 2 months handled calls were 36.5% over forecast. Service level suffered over past 2 months too – In October, only 32.4% of calls were answered within appropriate time limit. Term Project – Call Center Operations Call Center Statistics (October) and Definitions 5 DATE FCAST NCO % O/U FCAST ABA SVL% ABA% ASA (Seconds) Hold (seconds) Hand (seconds) 10/1/2006 952 1,385 45.5% 595 12.9% 43.0% 664 82 510 10/2/2006 1,473 1,877 27.4% 560 14.0% 29.8% 481 90 500 10/3/2006 1,362 1,688 23.9% 241 31.8% 14.3% 205 86 489 ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ 10/30/2006 1,473 2,008 36.3% 386 38.1% 19.2% 285 75 476 10/31/2006 1,263 2,237 77.1% 238 46.5% 10.6% 156 73 447 41,168 54,494 32.4% 11,118 37.7% 20.4% 241 74 462      NCO – number of calls offered ABA – number of calls abandoned; ABA% - percentage of calls abandoned SVL – service level ASA – average speed of answer Hand – average handle time Term Project – Call Center Operations Forecast 6   Past 2 months, Argentina used naïve forecast: – (Based on the last year historical data) – Forecast didn’t take into the account recent product changes & integration projects – As a result  October call volume was 32.4% over forecast. We are suggesting to use Moving average forecast. Ex:  MA103 = (A10+ A9+ A8)/3, using last months data is (54,494+56,221+50,221)/3=53,636  Therefore, F11=53,636. November forecast should be for 53,636 calls. This would allow Argentina to staff appropriately. Term Project – Call Center Operations Process View of the Call Center 7 Inputs      Process Outputs Inputs/Outputs – customers calling for service/customers completed the call Flow Units – customers Network of Activities and Buffers – answering customers’ calls Resources – customer service agents (CSA), phone automated system (PAS), etc. Information Structure – account management system, reference materials, etc. Term Project – Call Center Operations Call Center Competencies and Architecture 8    4 Dimensions for measuring the competence of the call center: – Process Cost – Process Flow Time – Process Flexibility – Process Quality. Argentina call center focuses on the low cost. – Call center provides high-quality Spanish support. Argentina call center process architecture is defined by the types of resources (CSA, PAS, etc). – Call center falls somewhere along the spectrum between two extremes (flow shop and job shop). – Flow shop fits better, as call center uses specialized resources that perform limited tasks & produce large volumes with high precision and speed. Term Project – Call Center Operations Three Key Call Center Measures 9 Flow Time = Time Customer spends: – In automated phone system – Waiting in the queue for an agent – Talking to an agent. Ex: October Average PAS time is 46, Queue average waiting time is 32 & handle time is 462 seconds. T=540 seconds  Flow Rate = Number of customers that flow through a specific point in the call center process per unit of time.  Inventory = Total number of customers present within call center boundaries. Ex: Argentina call center is 24/7 & call patterns are very different. Therefore, to simplify calculations we will use I=27 customers  Term Project – Call Center Operations Little’s Law 10   Throughput = Average number of customers that flow through the call center per unit of time. Little’s Law - Average inventory (=) Throughput (x) Average flow time. – I=RxT Ex: We identified: T = 540 seconds (9 min) I = 27 customers. Therefore, R = I/T R = 27/9 R = 3 customers/minute Term Project – Call Center Operations Call Center Flow, Delays and Queues 11 Capacity Rp = c/Tp Customer Arrival Rate Throughput Ri R = Min (Ri, Rp) Number: Ii + Ip =I Time: Ti + Tp =T In: Customer Queue + Service =Process Term Project – Call Center Operations Call Center Process Attributes 12 Inflow Rate Ri = Average rate of customer arrivals per unit time. – In the Argentinean call center, Ri = 5 customers/minute Processing Time Tp = Average time required by agent to process the customer. – Tp = 462 (agent) + 46 (PAS) = 508 seconds  c = Number of agents in the resource pool – c = 36 agents in Argentina  Process capacity (Rp) = Total processing rate at which customers are processed by agents in the resource pool.   – Rp = c/Tp or Rp = 36/8.47 = 4.25 customers/minute Buffer capacity (K) = Maximum number of customers that can wait in queue. – K = 120 (there are 10 lines that can hold 12 each at any given time) Term Project – Call Center Operations Flow Rate-related Measures of Call Center Capacity 13   Throughput rate (R) = Average rate at which customers flow through the call center process – R = min (Ri, Rp) – In our case, Rp is smaller, so R = Rp = 4.25 Capacity utilization (ρ) = Average fraction of the resource pool capacity that is occupied in processing customers – ρ = R/Rp – In our case, R = Rp and ρ = 1 » Our resource pool is constantly busy processing customers.  Safety capacity (Rs) = Excess processing capacity available to handle the customers inflows. – Rs = Rp – Ri – In our case, Rs = 4.25 – 5 = -0.75 » All the available capacity is busy processing arrivals. Term Project – Call Center Operations Flow Time-related Measures of Customer Delay 14     Average waiting time (Ti) = Time that a customer spends in queue. – Ti = 32 seconds. Average theoretical time = Average processing time of a customer. – Tp = 462 seconds + 46 seconds (automated system) = 508 seconds Average flow time in the process (T) = Average time that a customer spends waiting in queue & being served – T = Ti + Tp or T – 508 + 32 = 540 seconds or 9 minutes Flow time efficiency = Proportion of time that a customer spends being served rather than waiting in queue – Tp / T = .94 Term Project – Call Center Operations Inventory-related Measures of Customer Queues 15  Average queue length = Average number of customers waiting for service – Ii = R x Ti – Ii = 4.25 x 0.53 = 2.25 customers waiting for service  Average number of customers in service = Average in-process inventory – Ip = R x Tp – Ip = 4.25 x 8.47 = 35.99 customers in service  Average total number of customers in the process – I = Ii + Ip – I = 2.25 + 35.99 = 38.24 customers in the process Term Project – Call Center Operations Call Center Flow, Delays and Queues 16 Capacity Rp = c/Tp Arrival Rate Throughput Customer 5 customers/min Customer 4.25 customers/min Number: 2.25 + 35.99 = 38.24 Time: 508 + 32 = 540 seconds In: Queue + Service = Process Term Project – Call Center Operations Performance Improvements 17 The following levers improved process performance:  Decrease variability in customer interarrival & processing times.  Decrease capacity utilization (or increase safety capacity) either by – Decreasing the arrival rate or increasing the unit processing rate – Increasing the number of servers  Synchronize the available capacity with demand. Term Project – Call Center Operations Managing Capacity 18  Capacity utilization (ρ = Ri/Rp ) can be reduced by increasing average processing rate (Rp)  In order to increase processing rate (Rp = c/Tp) we recommended decreasing average processing time (Tp)  To achieve a decrease in processing time: – Identified that billing & escalated calls took longer to handle in this call center vs. similar centers. – Thus recommended & implemented 2 separate hour training segments » Billing prorates explanation » How to handle escalated calls Term Project – Call Center Operations Call Center Statistics (November) 19 DATE FCAST NCO % O/U FCAST ABA SVL% ABA% ASA Hold Hand 11/1/2006 1,973 2,093 6.08% 268 47.3% 12.8% 167 66 449 11/2/2006 1,986 2,022 1.81% 266 54.7% 13.2% 152 62 425 ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ 11/25/2006 1,368 1,513 10.60% 279 56.5% 18.4% 139 48 370 45,381 47,832 5.40% 7,080 52.1% 14.8% 153 58 410    Processing time decreased to 410 seconds – Tp = 410+46 = 456 seconds or 7.6 minutes Process capacity Rp = c/Tp or Rp = 36/456 = 4.74 customers/minute Result: Capacity Utilization ρ = Ri/Rp or 5/4.74 = 1.06 Term Project – Call Center Operations 20