Service Operation Management

Project
on

Design for call center for Banking sector

related to credit card department

Batch 2009-2011

Submitted by
Monisha Malhotra
A0102109017
Harmeet Sehgal
A0102109026
 Call Center
INTRODUCTION
In this report we are going to discuss the business model of a 200 employee based call
center catering to banking sector’s credit card division in the country’s Delhi & NCR
region’s customers.

Call center has tremendous impact on business. Call centers for selling goods and
services, as well as call centers for providing customer care, is going to become a
familiar part of the business of virtually every person. Call centers also pioneered the
developed of self-service via the telephone, using interactive voice response technology.
It is providing a richer and friendlier environment for self-service transactions than the
tone telephone. A Call center is an area where several customer service representative
(CSR) agents are located to man a bank of telephones and computer terminals. These
agents are specially trained on telephone etiquette, the type of customer queries, that may
arise and on how to respond to these queries in a quick and efficient manner. A Call
center can also equipped with an automatic call handling system like an Interactive Voice
Response system (IVR) so that all routine, repetitive queries can be answered by the
system with out the customer having to speak to a CSR agent.

STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE & CUSTOMER ALIGNMENT

The market of Call centers as increased rapidly in recent years, in whole world. As a
result of the same competition is also increased. By providing customer services, tele
calling, backend, technical support, transactional process etc. Call Centers help the
company to get maximum target. These services help to tune quality programs to
promote higher and steady levels of customer satisfaction
Benefits of Call Center Services:-
• Call Centers not only can keep existing clients satisfied, but they are also capable
to generate new clients for company.

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• The major benefit is that clients can speak to a person directly at first time
without any hold. Since everyone hates having to be placed on hold or told to call
back. Satisfaction of clients greatly increases because of call centers services.
• There are many companies all who do the business with clients all around the
world. Many Call Center representatives are multilingual. They may be able to
help new foreign clients. It is also possible to have a 24-hour Call Center service
to support clients that are from different regions of the world and in different time
zones. So another benefit of having a Call Center Service for business is that they
could increase the number and type of clients.
• Call centers have range of relevant equipment so they are able to provide the
required equipment to their call center operator thus cost will reduce by this way.
• Make the most out of your investment and get a nice return by investing in your
time wisely. Call Center services will hopefully free up more for you to focus on
the work you like and take more time for marketing and advertising, to improve
sales and projects.
• Call centers representative are capable to answer the calls professionally by their
intelligence and they can provide required information to callers easily.
• Call Centers can provide the status and all data of calls such as percentage of
hang-ups on answering machines is significantly greater than a live answering
service. And they also record all the calls as well.
• Some companies managed Call Center services based on the Cisco solution.
CISCO provides great features to call centers and they can trace more and more
data by using CISCO. IP-based customer interaction networks are enabling
companies to measurably improve response time and increase customer
satisfaction while at the same time reducing agent costs and improving network
efficiency.

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ADVANTAGES OF HAVING A CALL CENTER SERVICE FOR
ANY COMPANY
The benefits combined with developing company own call-handling center are truly
incredible once them. Not only will company generate new clients, but also keep existing
clients satisfied. One of the greatest benefits to having a Call Center services is that
company clients will be able to speak to a person the first time that they call. Since
everyone hates having to be placed on hold or told to call back, the use of a Call Center
service could greatly increase the satisfaction of clients.

Another benefit of having a Call Center Service for business is that it could increase the
number and type of clients. There are many companies who do business with clients all
around the world. Contempt a worldly connection, there are many established employees
who only speak one language. Many Call Center service representatives are multilingual.
They may be able to help new foreign clients. It is also possible to have a 24-hour Call
Center service to support clients that are from different areas of the world and in different
time zones.

One of the major benefits of the on-demand Call Centers is the ability to provide any
relevant equipment a Call Center operator might want thus reducing the cost of entry into
potential lucrative markets. Make the most out of your investment and get a nice return
by investing in your time wisely. Call Center services will hopefully free up more for you
to focus on the work you like and take more time for marketing and advertising, to
improve sales and projects.

Inbound calls can be professionally answered using by agent intelligence and information
can be easily given to callers. Answering machines or voice mail can be perceived as
cold and impersonal. Live telephone answering services like inbound Call Centers give
you a more professional image. Statistics show the percentage of hang-ups on answering
machines is significantly greater than a live answering service. Some companies
managed Call Center services based on the Cisco solution. IP-based customer interaction
networks are enabling companies to measurably improve response time and increase

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customer satisfaction while at the same time reducing agent costs and improving network
efficiency. (Vcare call center is an example of CISCO based/funded call center in India,
which can able to meet your requirements).

Location of Call Center:

Location is also important when choosing a call center because a client may be required
to spend a lot of time there, although this is not of absolute importance. Proximity is a
fact that depends on the campaign of a business. The call center could have satellite
centers in other states, countries, or continents. Labor may be cheaper in these areas, and
many times better.

A great number of companies are using call centers because of the great deal of
technology these companies possess. Since technology upgrades are so expensive for
small businesses, many find that call center outsourcing is a better choice financially.
Clients with special requirements, custom applications, including dealer locator and
mapping software and multiple database hosts require the flexibility of a client/server
network infrastructure. Technological advances allow the call center to provide a faster,
cheaper and more made-to-order work. This lets agencies offer real time interaction with
clients. As more call centers deploy new technology, the standards for customer service
and performance will increase, thereby benefiting the customer. Call centers that do not
employ state-of-the-art technology will be at a loss, as their ability to meet the increasing
demands of their clients fails and clients will go elsewhere.

Call Center location should be:

1. Local and long distance carriers support and availability of current technologies.
2. Possible use of existing equipment.
3. Potential for redundancy in network.
4. Current telecommunications infrastructure.
5. Distance from corporate computing systems.
Our call center will be setup in the Ghaziabad Region as it the cheapest area in terms of
commercial property rates in the Delhi and NCR region. The setting up of call center in

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this region would also help in providing easy transportation services to the employees
and also would be convenient for them to be locate in nearby places since it is one of the
most fastest developing areas and provides all basic amenities to them. It is also nearby
to the most convenient and fully connected by Delhi Metro Train network which is most
popular and cheap source of transportation.

ADVANTAGES
• Flexibility in assigning the right resources.
• Reduced labor costs.
• Availability of expert resources.

Brick & Mortar

Since we are about to setup a call center with a seating capacity of 200 employees, we
are required:
• Land and Building with constructed Office area of carpet area of about 1,00,000
sq feet
• Desktop units : 210 Units
• Main Server : 1 Units
• Telephone and High Speed Internet Line with LAN connectivity
• VOIP hardware
• Seating arrangement for all the employees, staff and helpers
• Training room and facility
• Transportation facility like cab, bus, etc.
• Parking Facility for vehicles
• Security and maintenance staff
• Water and Electricity supply

TECHNOLOGIES
The following are the various technologies that companies can deploy to web-enable
their call center operations in order to service their On-line customers.

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 • Contact Information
• Call Back
• Live Web Chat
• Voice Over IP (VOIP)
A. Contact information:
On most web sites there is a ‘Contact Us Page’, which usually consists of e-mail
address and phone numbers for a company. Customers can access this information
and either sends e-mail to the company or call they’re traditional call center using the
numbers provided on the site. Electronic mail messages can be tracked and
answered using specific e-mail handling software.
B. Call Back:
In a Call Back request, a customer fills out an On-line form on a web site in order to
request a return phone call. The form information is converted to a message and is
sent to the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) of the Call center. This message is
then placed in a queue and a call back is triggered when the next agent is available, or
at a time specified by the user when the call request was entered. However, call back
requests are not very different from disconnecting from the dialing a phone number
found on a web page.
C. Live Web Chat:
Live Web Chat is based on IP technology. This technology allows a customer on a
web site to click on the live help button and be connected to an agent at a call center
who can answer a customer query by sending text messages to the customer. Such
systems allow calls to originate only from the Internet, and offer keyboard chat as the
sole communication method.
D. Voice Over IP:
In IP-centric technology option, the call center agent can work with one appliance
instead of two. The Multimedia PC provides both information and communication,
eliminating the need for a separate telephone. There are three common approaches to
VOIP based call centers.
• PC to PC:

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 In this approach both the customer and agent have multimedia PCs and
then the customer clicks on a button on a website and is connected to an
agent using VOIP .The agent can speak with the customer and answer all
the customer’s queries.
• PC to Phone:
When a customer visits a website and clicks on the chat button, the call is
routed over the Internet using VOIP and is then passed onto the PSTN
network and is routed on to an agent in traditional call center, who can
talk with a customer using a telephone. The customer has to have a
multimedia PC to be able to interact with the agent.
• Phone to PC:
In this approach a customer can dial a call center number and then the call
passes over a PSTN network and is then converted to IP and is then
converted to IP and routed over the Internet to the appropriate agent who
can answer a customer’s query. In this approach the agent in a call center
has to have a multimedia PC to be able to interact with the customer.

FUNCTIONALITY:
The advantage of establishing a call center with Computer Telephony Integration
(CTI) is that there is a coordinated transfer of customer information and the
telephone call to a CSR .CTI is the most exciting development in the field of
computers and communication. This technology marries the flexibility and
ubiquitous nature of the telephone with the power of the computer to open up a
whole new vista in voice and data communication.

This means that the IVR (interactive voice response) System would understand
that a particular customer has requested a live agent assistance and hence would
transfer the call to a free CSR agent as also initiate a “Screen pop” of customer
information on to the CSR agents terminal. This feature ensures that the agent
knows whose call is going to come in next even before the phone rings. This

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 agent can then answer the call in a personalized manner and complete the
communication.

Software for Call Center

The call center software play a very important role in the overall process. This software
is also known as CRM software. The main purpose of this software is to route all calls
immediately to the ideal agents. It is also responsible for the management of interactions,
provide detailed reports, helps in assisting customer communication and reduce hold
time. Call center software is effective enough in enhancing the efficiency that too by
reducing cost. The major advantage of this software is that it reduces the call holding
period. This is done by routing the calls quickly to the agents. It really helps in gaining
the confidence of the customers and attracts them towards your excellent service. We
should always choose software that helps in attending maximum calls and cuts down the
operating costs.

The call center software you chose should be effective enough in providing the details of
the number of phone calls that are attended, the hold period, the identification of the
agent who attended maximum calls and the number of callers who were put on hold. All
these things help in the development of the call centers and improve the services
provided by them.

Software Selection Process:

There are various things that should be given importance while selecting their software.
Some of them given below:
• Nature of call center
• Number of agents and their location
• Technical support
• VoIP is assisted or not
• Software should be user friendly
• Caller identification and connection should be instant

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• There should be room for future development

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 TYPES OF CALL CENTERS

Call center

Captive call centers Out sourced call centers

Call center for

various vertical
segments like Call centers for a Call center for
specific industry any industry
Baking
Transport
Telecom

Delivery channel Location based

based classification
classification
Features based
classification

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SETTING UP OF CALL CENTER

The main elements involved in setting up a Call Center are Telecom links:
• Call Center infrastructure
• Call Center solutions
• CRM software

US
PSTN

Data link
Mode
mmm
IPLC Links mm
Router LDC LDC Router

Local
loop

Telephone links

CC
server

The Telecom network is used to connect the caller to the Call Center agent. A call
originates in the US PSTN, is routed over the network to the USLDC, which then puts
the call through on the IPLC to the Indian LDC. The modem is used to convert the
analog voice signals to digital signals and vice versa. The local loop is used to carry the
call from the Indian LDC (I.e. VSNL) to the Call Center .At the Call Center, the Router
splits the telephone link and feeds it to Call Center server, and sends the data to the
Ethernet switch on the LAN.

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The IPLC link the options are satellite or cable more than two satellites hops voice
quality. If the Call Center is with in the coast, Optical Fiber is able, is better. Since
through satellite causes poor voice quality.

Call centre setup

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TECHNOLOGY & COMPONENTS OF CALL CENTERS
When choosing an answering service, ask the sales representative who the account
manager is that will be handling the account. The call center service should provide an
account manager that can respond to the concerns and setup issues one might encounter.
Some answering services will refer their clients to a customer service center. One should
choose an answering service that will assign a specific account representative who will
be familiar with the specific details of the particular account.

When attaining the services of a call center, one can see estimates for per minute and per
call. Many call centers quote prices based on per minute foundation because clients may
not realize the time it will take to make a call. This is because many callers are not to the
point, and calls can become more than taking and recording information. Having calls
answered by a live person is more costly than using recordings and voicemail boxes or
combining live operators with automated functions. Automated services can help in
saving money on per call fees. Sales representatives have experience with setting up
various applications and should be able to automate one’s account and still present a
professional system that meets the needs of the company. Having a basic understanding
of the answering service process and relying on a knowledgeable answering service sales
representative can help businesses choose an answering service to meet the needs of the
business while staying within budget.

When looking to attain more business, database management is a friend to most

companies. Call centers have a great asset in their ability to build custom databases or
refine an existing database. Databases allow a company to track client’s information and
consolidate data from different sources. The companies can then create profiles of
consumers, allowing them to market items to individuals based on their specific
preferences. With the proper usage, this information can be used to run a targeted
outbound campaign. Many companies now hire third-party database management firms,
call centers with database management capabilities, or staff to perform analysis
functions. This includes modeling, forecasting, and profiling. With this pertinent

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information at their fingertips, many businesses can easily generate major revenue for
their company. The Components of a call center are as follows:
• EPABX
• Computer telephony integration (CTI)
CTI is used to retrieve information about a caller or the purpose of the call and to
forward that information automatically to provide much more personalized
service to the caller. Here the “systems” gathers the customer identifier either by
a service called Automatic Number Identification (ANI) that delivers the callers
number to the Call Center with the customer responses to the IVR prompts or by
the switch itself and then in the proactively pops the customer information on to
the agent’s desktop as the call arrives at the agents phone.
• Integrated Voice Response
o Callers to access information after the Call Center are closer for the day.
o Callers to choose how to conduct business either using the IVR or by
talking with an agent.
o Callers to have an option to exit from a long wait queue, allowing them to
conduct business on the IVR or leave a message so that an agent can call
back later, during a slow period.
o Agents to transfer callers at the end of a transaction to perform routine
perhaps private account inquire, or to conduct post-call customer
satisfaction surveys.
• Other Major Components:
o Customer relationship management software
o Work force management software
o E-mail interaction management software
o Integration with the following:
 Customer Database
 Billing hosts
 Product Databases
 E-mail servers

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  Chat servers
 Web servers
Key Components:
A full functional Call Center should have the entire key components listed below:
• ACD (Automatic call Distributor)
• Predictive Dialer
• CTI (Computer Telephony integration)
• Web Integration
• IVR / FOD (Fax On Demand)
• Voice logging and messaging

MANAGING THE CALL CENTER

Managing the Call Center in the networked economy calls for the latest technology to
access up-to-date information enabling the company to establish, build and mange
customer services. The most important challenge is to train the agents to manage the
customer relationships.
• Manpower challenge
• The technology
• Predictive Dialing
• Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)
• IVR
• Software

CHALLENGES IN CALL CENTER MARKET

• Maximum up-time
• Rapid application deployment
• Dial-in and remote connectivity
• Management and integration
• Mixed desktop platforms and configurations

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 • Legacy desktops with new applications
Advent of distributed Call Center
Call Center Training

In call centers, employees are the product. Quality employees are engineered through
efficient training. Great training ensures employee retention, saves money from having to
hire new employees, and increases employee morale and customer satisfaction. The most
important aspect for managing a successful call center is to teach the representatives of
the call center all the skills that they might need for perfect customer service calls. Such a
program is termed as a Call Center Training program.

A Call Center Training program usually covers the critical aspects of customer
service. The program teaches the participants about the importance of a customer focused
attitude, representing the corporate mission, building rapport, and using positive
language. The Call Center Training program usually also covers the critical skills of
questioning, listening, and confirming in order to determine customer needs and increase
call efficiency.

A Call Center Training program teaches the essential skills for showing value,
confirming satisfaction, uncovering additional service opportunities, and closing the call.
During a typical training program the participants learn needed skills for handling
challenging calls, preventing them from escalating, and bouncing back after stressful
calls.

It all begins with the operations manager, sometimes also known as a call center
manager. They are responsible for all departments within the call center, as well as
relations with all outside contacts such as maintenance, vending, payroll, human
resources, or any other company the call center works with.
There is usually someone else responsible for a particular department, however it is the
operations manager’s responsibility to work with them and ensure the department is run
efficiently and effectively.

The operations manager will usually decide how much time is spent to train customer
service agents and management teams which will set the tone for the quality of customer
service offered to customers.The shift supervisor is the person that communicates
between the operations manager and the team managers, ensuring everyone is on the
same page. They will produce reports that are needed and make sure all team managers
report directly to them in regards to problems with things such as attendance, call times,
and customer satisfaction rates.

A shift supervisor will also oversee the adherence to policies and procedures set in place.
They may also deal with clients and take the role of the operations manager when
needed. Of course, a shift supervisor should never be to busy to take customer calls when
escalated for both positive and negative reasons.Team managers spend their time on the

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call floor, coaching the customer service agents in a positive manner when it comes to
attendance, quality, policy adherence, and following procedure. Customer service agents
would report directly to the team manager in all aspects of their work including calling
them when they will miss a day, or coming to them when they have an issue they cannot
correct or handle on their own.

Team managers will also ensure that agents are comfortable and in a positive frame of
mind while at work. Essentially, a big part of a team manager’s job is to be a cheerleader
of sorts. As a shift supervisor completes reports for a shift, a team manager will complete
reports for their team on a daily basis to be sent to the shift supervisor.

This position is one that you will have to stand out as a positive role model, knowing that
what is said and done by a team manager is what sets the tone for everyone else.

Training is an important aspect of running a quality call center, as customer service

agents will not appropriately represent a company without it. Within a training
department, there is usually a training manager that oversees trainers on a daily basis and
reports daily achievements and problems to the operations manager.

Trainers will participate in training new hires on how the job is done, the policies and
procedures, expectations of the company, and how to successfully provide excellent
customer service. A trainer has a very important role to play because they are the first
interaction a newly hired customer service agent will have with the company.

Their style of training and the way they interact with people will determine how agents
feel about the job in itself. Trainers will also be responsible for ongoing training when
procedures or products change, and also ensure that everyone is up to date on things they
may have forgotten.

Quality assurance is monitored within a call center, to ensure customers are receiving
the best possible experience when calling in. Quality teams will consist of a manager
within the department who reports to the shift supervisor, and a team of agents who listen
to customer calls and score them on a number of things.

The quality department is there to make sure customers are receiving the correct
information, and treated with respect. Quality reports are used to help coach a customer
service agent on issues they may be having when taking phone calls, and will help
determine the overall proficiency of the entire call center.

One of the most important things a quality department does to keep themselves on the
same page is to calibrate calls with each other. Meeting once a week or so, they will
listen to the same call together and score it to ensure they are all scoring at the same rate
and for the same reasons.

Without an IT team, the call center simply cannot run. They are the ones to keep the
equipment including phones and computers running smoothly so calls can be answered in

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a timely fashion. The IT department will usually report to the operations manager, but all
departments will report to the IT team with problems that need to be addressed.

IT teams are housed within the call center so things can be fixed pretty quickly, so this
team has a lot on their shoulders. The size of an IT department is subject to the
equipment used by a call center, but will usually consist of at least 2 people.

Last but certainly not least is the bread and butter of the call center. A customer service
agent is what makes a company. Without them, there is nothing to operate, as they are
the ones whom are relied on to represent the company and take care of any customer
contacting the company.

There is a lot of responsibility for an agent to deal with on a daily basis as far as keeping
within policy and procedure guidelines while sometimes dealing with irate customers and
still keeping a smile on their face.

In all honesty, of all different aspects of a call center, customer service agents are known
to have the highest turnover for many different reasons. To lessen the turnover in a
company all departments must operate effectively with each other to provide the agent
with essential needs such as support and ongoing training.

Some of the primary benefits that are derived from implementing skills -based training
program are many:

• Skills can be measured and consequently reps can be coached to improve their
skills.
• Monitoring can be focused to measure specific skills that emphasize core
customer service metrics.
• The customers receive a consistent experience each time they call - regardless of
the call center they reach.
• Improving service skills contributes to customer retention

Some strategic training techniques that can be implemented are:

• Make them versatile

Every call creates an opportunity to increase revenue. The goal is to resolve every
issue on the first call. This promotes customer’s faith in the company and
generates instances to make a sale. Call center employees need to first be trained
in all-around customer service, and then trained in a specialized area pertaining to
their specific position.

• Dynamic training
Every individual is different, so why is training for everyone the same? Different
employees will need to augment their skills in varying areas. Training needs to be
more segmented in order for employees to fully develop their potential.

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 • Coaching
Mentor programs, peer coaches, and team building exercises strengthen
employees. Older agents can supplement the knowledge and knowhow of newer
workers. Team building experiences increase the employees’ awareness of
working with one another and relating to others in general.

• Simulate
It is both unwise for the call center and nerve-wracking for new employees to
immediately take to the phones. Create a simulation system where “bogus” callers
can be communicated with in relation to “real-life” situations.

Implementation of these concepts can decrease the turnover rate of employees and
increase call center revenue. It is important to pay most attention your employees; they
are the cornerstone of the business.

Revenue Model
One of the biggest challenges facing contact centers today is supporting the
management’s goal to shift the contact center from a cost center to a profit center. This
can often be akin to pushing water uphill for center managers who are under-resourced
and lack an understanding of the basics associated with up-sell, cross-sell and ‘save’
campaign effectiveness.

• Putting things in perspective

There is a progression and hierarchy associated with the implementation of a revenue
generation process within any call or contact center. This progression or process must
begin by identifying where the center is, what the drivers for change are, the pre-
requisites, the sequence in which those activities must be accomplished, and what the
impact is of those activities have on the success and profitability of the revenue
generation initiative. Broadly stated the drivers would include:

• Staffing:
o Adequacy of current staff

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 o Availability of current staff

• People:
o Skills & Competencies related to sales versus customer service
o Level and type of training received
o Competence or proficiency level

• Process:
o The complexity of the processes required
o The speed of process completion
o Replication and error rate of the process

• Technology:
o Database access, vision and robustness
o Scripting and sales support tools
o Virtual agent

• Offer:
o Relevance to customer Affinity to customer
o Perceived value & relationship

These broad areas will each perform at differing levels dependent upon the combinations
of the above in relation to “offer percentage” (the percentage of callers that receive an
offer) and “conversion percentage” (the percentage of callers that agree to an additional
transaction). The offer percentage in most contact centers is controlled by the agent or
CSR: they determine if it is appropriate to extend and offer to a customer. The latter point
will be influenced by the offer, the affinity to the customer, and the perceived value by
the customer.

Reorganize

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The organizational processes in most cases have been designed to process orders
and sales in a one-off fashion removed from the call/contact center. There may be
no processes in place to manage add on orders or shipments within the fulfillment
operation. In some cases, no policy exists for partial shipment rules (ship partials
versus hold for complete). The processes are adequate and effective for the
business as it has operated but are not optimized, nor necessarily aligned with
supporting an up-sell cross-sell environment.

Technology in most organizations has not been designed to support up-sell and
cross-sell initiatives. Often it is campaign centric and not customer centric. The
systems have been designed to support mass selection of names for mailings or
other campaigns and not on an individual basis. The result is the database can
often not display much detail regarding the actual customer: their history
likes/dislikes or affinities. Similarly most inbound customer service support
applications feature access to customer records for billing and account status
inquiries, not to offer or support specific scripting for offers etc.

Implement for improvement

As staff selection improves: skills, competencies and sales ability the base values
for staffing and people improve. The addition of specific and detailed sales skills
training, role-playing, and use of the existing technology improves the values for
training. As does refining and aligning the operational processes to support up-
sell and cross-sell activities also improves the process values. With the
skill/competency improvement, the center will see improvements in both the offer
percentage and the conversion percentage.

The conversion percentage in most centers converting from a customer service

environment will be in the 3-5% range and suffers from a low offer percentage as
well. In these centers, the decision to offer or not to offer an up-sell/cross-sell is
usually left to the discretion of the agent. It is common that their fears, concerns,
lack of training, knowledge of the customer, and support negatively impacts their

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 perception of up-sell cross-sell programs and leads them to find reasons to rarely
offer the up-sell. A structured, planned and consistent approach can move the
center up the effectiveness curve and begin to achieve superior results is required.

Benchmarking comes in many different forms. One of the most common is the
automated process that asks participants to answer questions via an automated
system and compiles the results on an automated basis. While this allows for a
large number of participants and easy analysis, the results may be misleading.
For example, if the question posed is “What is your average speed of answer,” the
answers given by individual respondents may be the goal that a call center sets for
itself, its actual results for a defined period of time, or some number that may be
untrue but makes the company look a little better compared to others. Likewise,
“What is your agent starting salary?” may generate answers that are just the base
salary or may include some or all benefits. If all participants are not answering
the questions from the same frame of reference, the results can be essentially
useless. In addition, if the survey respondents come from a variety of industries,
sizes of operation, and maturity of market, does it make sense to draw
conclusions from the averages of the answers they all provide to guide your
company.
Benchmarking can also be done within a single company’s operation. Perhaps
one site is compared to another in terms of performance, or a call center uses
prior years as the basis of comparison to determine if progress is being made in
some operational area. These benchmarks are more likely to use the same
interpretation of questions and data, although there is still room for variations if
the company is not careful.

FINANCIALS & BUSINESS VIABILITY

The budget of a call center is often cut down because of additional expenditures that the
project may have encountered on the way. Call centers have to work out their
expenditures according to the money designated for a campaign. Because of rising
inflation, the cost of production in outsourcing call centers shoots up. However, the unit

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cannot hike up their price tag on call center services because the competitive market
would not allow that. If they offer the same services at a raised price, it will only mean
that the clients will go for outsourcing call centers that meet their own budgets.
Ultimately, it all comes down to how the financial aspect of the call center department
can be handled for maximum optimization of financial resources. There are some
vulnerable areas that bear the brunt immediately.

The first aspect that receives a snip is the training module. Call centers feel that when
financial back-up is not really able to take care of all the expenses, they cut short the days
designated for training. Getting the agents on the call center floors means that the
production starts off. Days spent in training don't offer any productive input in terms of
numbers. If the call center outsourcing units decide that the agents will not be trained for
the usual cycle, they are taking a risk. Untrained agents on the inbound call center can be
harmful for the brand reputation of the client. They may not have the answers for the
callers. They may hunt around for information, keeping the caller on a long hold time.
That is not how an ideal call center outsourcing unit is run.

The next department that gets a taste of the budgeting efforts is the inbound call center
team itself. The agents working here are downsized and shifted to the outbound call
center team. That is how the call center combats with a workforce that they cannot pay
for. This is not how call centers should function usually. The inbound call center desk
needs a requisite number of agents at all times. None of the calls coming to this desk
must be missed. At the same time, a lack of agents would mean that the ones on the job
will rush their way through the calls. Callers need some time to understand and absorb
the instructions. If the outsourcing call center agents hurry things, the caller may make
mistakes and that will result in further complications for the call center.

Performance Measurement & Control in a Call center

Three Steps For Creating Effective Call Center Measures And Reports:
So how is the call center doing?

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This question can be answered in many different ways – too many different ways. There
are reports from the telephone system, scheduling system, voice response system, and
other technology tools. Productivity statistics, quality monitoring measurements, sales
revenue, customer satisfaction surveys…the list goes on and on. The volumes of reports
that are generated create a "data for the sake of data" atmosphere that eats up valuable
time and resources, often without clear goals in mind. Unless measures are tied to the
day-to-day effectiveness of the call center and the overall mission of the company, there
is no sense in gathering and analyzing data.

Step 1: Define your goals.

Rather than trying to organize and process the reams of data that piles up in databases, on
desks, and in filing cabinets, be selective. Focus on what is really important to your
needs. Consider all the sources and types of data generated and decide which ones
directly impact the business needs and goals of your organization. Do you want to
provide better customer service? Improve processes and work flows? Increase revenue
and decrease costs? Keep the list manageable. Focus on three to five really important
measurements that will truly reflect the success of your center. The list will be different
for every call center. If yours is a revenue-generating center, for example, you may want
to monitor abandon rate, service level, and sales volume. A help desk or technical
support line might be more concerned with "done in one" resolution and customer
satisfaction. Use phone stats as well as other sources of data to provide a holistic view of
the call center’s objectives.

No golden rules.
It is important to decide which measures matter to YOUR call center, to YOUR business
goals and to YOUR customers. There are no magic industry standards to strive for. If you
run a customer contact center that provides car insurance quotes to potential customers,
you don’t want to keep them waiting too long - they could spend that time looking
through the yellow pages for your competition’s phone number. However, if you’re
giving away free samples of a new product, your callers may accept a slightly longer

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hold time. What matters is setting logical, realistic targets that are specific to your
environment.

Beware of conflicting objectives.

The goals you set for your call center should be a means to an end: mainly the high level
business and operational needs of the organization. Although the big picture is key here,
don’t forget to examine the individual goals in detail. Think each measure through – what
is involved, what the end result will be, and the resources and skills necessary to
accomplish them to be sure they do not conflict with one another.
For example, if decreasing costs is a primary business goal, you may meet this need by
targeting a shorter average handling time. However, if customer satisfaction is also a
primary goal, a conflict may arise. These two measures may drive different behaviors.
Reps who are tasked with handling a high volume of calls may not take the extra time to
develop a warm and fuzzy rapport with callers or may "accidentally" hang up on
customers in the quest for an acceptable AHT. To avoid the pitfalls of conflicting
objectives, don’t focus on measurements as the only objectives. Make the high level
business and operational needs the primary objectives and use measurements as a guide
to get you there. People do what they are incented to do, and you must give them clear,
obtainable targets to work towards.

Principles for Effective Measures

There are five main principles to effective measures:
1. Simplicity: Measures should be easy to communicate and comprehend. Your
associates and supervisors need to really understand what the measures are and
what they mean.
2. Drive the right behavior: Measures are a means to an end. Make sure reps don’t
confuse measurements and objectives, and that the measure don't drive them to do
the wrong thing.
3. Measurable: The data needs to be available and correct to accurately calculate the
measure.

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 4. Accountability associated with control: avoid holding someone accountable for a
measure for which they cannot control the outcome.
5. Support high level business goals: Remember the big picture. Your measures
should "roll-up" to support the entire organization.

Action step: Prepare a list of the business goals for your call center. For each business
goal, write down the measures in the call center which have the most impact on that
business goal. Identify any potential conflicting measures, and select those that you
believe will most influence the success of your call center and drive behavior toward the
overall business goals. Assess each measure against the principles listed above.

Step 2: Create methods for measurement.

Once you’ve identified which measures are most important to the business goals and
mission of your organization, the next step is to decide how you will measure. This is
more complicated than it sounds. You can’t rely on industry standards, as there are no
industry standards. Just peek at a glossary, pick up an industry rag, or visit a vendor web
site - everyone defines and calculates differently.
Take turnover as an example. Most call centers have some idea of their turnover, and
how it compares with their "industry standard." But exactly how are these numbers
calculated? Do you count positive (promotions) and negative (resignations) aspects?
What about folks who don’t make it through training – do you count them too? Are your
answers the same as everyone else’s? Probably not. You need to determine how you will
define your measurements to best serve your needs.
What is everyone else doing?
Every call center is different, with unique goals and targets based on different
experiences and expectations. Because of this fact, you can’t go out and find a statistical
survey and expect to find all the answers. But it is useful to be aware of what other call
centers are doing – what works, what doesn’t work, what they’ve learned and would do
differently. Several benchmarking studies are available that will help you understand
what other call centers are measuring, and how they are performing. Pay attention to the
lessons that relate to your own business goals, and forget the rest. There is no need to be

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a slave to someone else’s 80/20 service level if those numbers aren’t based in the reality
of your call center. If your callers are happy with 80/30 or 80/40, stay with it. Don’t
strive to achieve a goal that doesn’t matter – it only costs money.

Bad data in, bad data out.

The key to good measurement is consistency. Review business policies and procedures
that guide contact handling, processes, and the associated measurements to make sure
everyone is working the same way. Common call handling procedures are important.
Consider the use of the not ready state. Rep A completes a call and immediately makes
himself available to accept a call. Rep B however, completes a call and then sits in the
not ready state the queue builds up a little, and then makes herself available to accept a
call. This procedural difference results in very different availability statistics for the
individuals, and skews the group averages. To maintain consistent measurements, reps
must be trained on the correct processes and procedures, be given obtainable targets to
aim for, and be given periodic performance reviews. Without proper and consistent use
of tools and procedural guidelines, the associated measurements are meaningless.
How you measure is just as important as what you measure. Remember to calculate in a
standard fashion, and strive for consistency in all processes and procedures to create
measurements that are useful to your call center.

Action step: For each measure you have selected, clearly define how the data will be
collected. Assess the accuracy of the source. Ensure that procedures are in place in the
call center to ensure that the measure accurately reflects the actual performance and that
you will not be mislead by the results of the data. If the data is coming from a system
(e.g., ACD, IVR, CIS, etc.), then you will need to meet with the technology support
group in your center to fully understand the data from this system. Ask a lot of questions
and make sure the data is representing the measure you need.

Step 3: Putting measurements to work.

Measurements themselves are not a goal, but rather an indication of how your business is
functioning. With careful analysis of the measurements that reflect the business goals of

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your organization, you can learn a great deal about how your call center is doing. Don’t
measure for the sake of measuring, but rather create a plan to review and use the
information that is generated.

Action steps:
o Chart the data.
Once the data starts pouring in, it can be a bit overwhelming. But don’t let the
reams of data and endless columns of figures get you down. Put the data into a
format that is easy to understand and use. Taking the time to chart out the
important information in a readable and workable form is worth the effort. Bar
graphs, pie charts, and comparison matrices are all much easier to work from than
the standard system-generated report. And you won’t be doing this just for
yourself – remember other folks will review the data too. These charts will
eventually show a wider audience the progress that your call center has made over
time!
o Set targets and benchmarks.
It is important to develop measures that are accurate and correct for your
environment. Moreover you will need benchmarks and targets. Each of your
charts and graphs should reflect the long-term target for your call center, and if
you have good benchmark data, show how well you are performing against these
benchmarks. You will also need to revisit your benchmarks and targets
periodically to ensure that they meet the business goals of the call center. You
also need to communicate that targets and objectives are dependent on the
business conditions and time period. Let’s say that you’re the manager of a call
center for a local utility. And based on your business objectives and customer
expectations, you’ve targeted an average speed of answer of 40 seconds. Now,
should that be the target for every hour of every day? Will you accept worse
performance during an outage? How about striving for a shorter talk time to
handle that increased volume? Different situations sometimes demand different
measurements and processes. The list below highlights some other factors that
may influence performance targets:

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 Time of day, day of week
 Season
 Marketing events
 Special focus in the call center
 Customer/product
 Media/contact type
Create situational targets and processes when necessary and be sure everyone knows
what is expected.
o Communicate your results.
Measurements are used by different people for different things, so it is important
to clearly communicate the goals and measurements to your entire team. The
following table shows some of the users of call center measurement data, and
how they might use it in real-time and historically.
Since measurements and their associated goals have such a widespread impact, it is
important not to keep them to yourself. Everyone in the center needs to know what is
expected of them, and how their efforts contribute to the overall success of the call
center. Management and supervisors may benefit from status meetings and summary
reports. Providing reps with the necessary feedback can be as simple as posting messages
on a reader or bulletin board, or as complex as elaborate reward programs. The key is to
convey the message that everyone has a responsibility for the high-level business
objectives that are reflected in the measurements. Staff in other departments need to
know what’s going on in the center, so don’t forget to tell them, too. Is the marketing
plan working effectively and generating calls? Are calls coming in on the new product
release? Is the volume dropping off now that the problem’s been solved? People in
marketing, product management/development, and other areas will understand the call
center better and work more closely with it when they are informed. Act on areas for
improvement. Sometimes the measurements do not meet the set targets. This is the time
to review your environment, processes, and procedures, and develop plans to better meet
your goals. For example, let’s say a call center manager is tracking total transaction time
and the numbers are well over the target. Process analysis might be a logical first step to
create more efficient work patterns. Once the best processes have been identified, a

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technology assessment could be in order. The automation of the new processes makes the
goal for total transaction time more realistic. A plan based on measurement analysis can
help you do it to better, smarter and faster.

BUSINESS SUPPORT & BRAND VALUE CREATION

Brand Value Creation
Consumers love brands because they offer an extra value—that is, one in addition to the
core product or service. That value becomes the major motivation for consumers to buy
or use the product.

How precisely is this value being added and incorporated into the brand? Advertising
professionals say it is advertising. Consumers love the ad—so they’ll love the brand.
Other marketing experts are suggesting that a consistent and total brand experience is the
key.

Brands are not human-like and they do not have a life of their own outside the
consumer’s mind. They are instruments, simply means to achieve ends. Emotions cannot
be glued to them. They arouse emotions when they are perceived as a source of
something beneficial. The positive emotions are direct outcomes of these anticipations.
Their various symbolizations (name, logo, font, emblem and so on) have little impact on
their own; their importance is mainly as identifiers of sources of already attributed and
anticipated benefits.

The act of branding has different meanings, which translate into different ways to create
instrumentality or usefulness beyond the tangible benefits of a product/service:

1. Creating a Conceived Linkage to a Tangible Benefit

This means to create a conceived linkage between the brand name and other
identifiers and a tangible benefit (a result in the physical world or an experience).
That benefit is provided by the product itself or any component of the marketing
mix.

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2. Forming a Mental Context
It is a concept or an organizing principle that allows the consumer to connect
unrelated facts by guiding intent or by some other common factor. In these cases,
the main benefit of the brand to its customers originates in the mental context.
3. Directing an Experience
The branding here is the creation of an expectation that allows an experience
richer than what the product alone can offer.
4. Creating a Means of Self-Presentation
Branding creates a symbol with a meaning that is well known to everybody in a
relevant group. It enables the consumer to characterize himself and is used by him
for inner communication, for interpersonal communication and for public
communication.
5. Creating a Means to Deliver a Message
The branding role in this approach is to create a symbol of another kind, its
meaning widely known as well. That kind of symbol enables the consumer to
make a very specific statement and/or express a very specific emotion.
6. Building a Social/Cultural Authority
The next branding approach is the creation of an authority that the consumers can
use as a guide. That guide helps them to understand what’s happening around
them and informs them which behavioral ways are normative, what will make
them happier and so on.
7. Creating ‘a Long Hand’
The branding creates means for the consumer and empowering him or her to act
for noble objectives and high purposes that she can’t achieve by herself.
8. Creating an Alter Ego
The brand is a way for the consumer to behave (at least on a fantasy level) in a
manner he would like to but doesn’t dare, or isn’t willing to pay the price for.

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