Call Centers remain the crucial touch point in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). To help companies win additional customers and market share, they must give customers superior service while delivering measurable business value at low cost. Optimizing operational processes – in addition to customer delivery processes – helps call centers meet these goals. This paper describes how organizations can use this approach to achieve “Top Box” performance in customer delight while significantly reducing costs and improving enterprise competitiveness.
1. viewpoint paper
>> Contact Centers eds.com
Improving Contact Centers Through Operational Processes
Contact centers remain the crucial touchpoint in customer relationship management. To
help their companies win additional customers and market share, they must give customers
superior service while delivering measurable business value at low cost. Optimizing operational
processes – in addition to customer delivery processes – helps contact centers meet these
goals. This paper describes how organizations can use this approach to achieve “top box”
performance in customer delight while significantly reducing costs and improving enter-
prise competitiveness.
2. Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Operational process view 1
Operational processes –
best practices linkage 2
The processes 3
Contact center planning 3
Employee retention
and growth 4
Operational management 7
Customer contact
management 8
Making it happen 9
Size and scope 10
Challenges 10
Technology options
and opportunities 10
Results 11
Success story: leading
U.S. newspaper 12
Conclusion 12
About the author 13
Author
Brian Hughes
Manager
EDS BPO Customer Interaction
3. contact centers EDS viewpoint paper
Introduction
Is your contact center performing in ways that maximize profitability and market share for your business? Sharply reducing costs
and improving employee satisfaction are important success factors. The ultimate goal, though, is to delight your customers – and
win more of them as a result. Yet in today’s environment, these goals seem to compete with each other. Employees fear layoffs,
offshoring and frozen salaries; managers face increasing client expectations with diminishing resources and budgets.
To meet their objectives, contact center organizations have focused primarily only on customer delivery processes such as handling
customer requests and initiating contacts. Through our work with clients, EDS has discovered that another area – operational
processes – demands equal attention. These processes are often twice as numerous as delivery processes, and thus have a
significant impact on the business. In fact, operational processes are the “infrastructure” that supports the business, client care
and customer delight.
Specifically, it’s crucial to ensure that the same operational processes and tools are used both within individual contact centers
and across all sites. By implementing such optimized, globally consistent delivery – and clearly measuring processes quantitatively
and qualitatively – you can achieve your goals.
Operational process view
Figure . Process diagram
We divide operational processes and
associated measures into four categories:
planning, retention and growth, operational
management, and customer contact man-
agement. (See Figure 1.) These categories
drive one another as a cycle.
Within each category, there are a series of
Planning
specific, linked processes with associated
tasks and steps that should be defined and
managed as a set. Investing the time to
identify the tasks and steps within each
category – and connecting or driving
Customer
Processes
performance measures from the tasks
Contact
and steps – provides the power of full
optimization.
Management
Retention
Growth
Operational
Management
4. contact centers
EDS viewpoint paper
successful contact centers that focus on The processes shown in the model should
Operational processes –
operating within budgetary allocations be a starting point for every contact center.
best practices linkage
while ensuring employee care. Top box The model is not “one size fits all,” though.
Figure 2 depicts how to link operational
customer service is still the primary driver Your organization may require additional
processes (and related customer delivery
for success, and the idea is that satisfied processes for its industry- or business-specific
processes) to achieve top box performance
employees satisfy their clients. needs. And there are alternatives for optimizing
with low cost. It also shows, at a high level,
processes. For example, your organization
how a successful contact center functions. EDS has 24 patents pending for the opera-
may decide not to implement a student
tional support processes (shown in Figure 2
intern program or an internal help desk
By formalizing, documenting and optimizing
as dark blue boxes).
staffed by high performers.
operational processes through this model,
EDS has discovered the key for creating
Figure . Operational processes — best practices linkage
Career Planning and Leadership Development
Change
Management Training (Agent, Supervisor, Manager, Client Partnership Model)
Capacity
Planning
Recognition
Project
Link to RS And
Management Compensation
occurs only Appreciation and Benefits
Workload when first
Placement staffing CC –
all other, link
to WFM Resource/ Promotion/
Contingency Job Change
Balanced Life
Planning Performance Account
Acclimation Performance
Recruiting/
Work Force Eval-Scorecard
and Management
Selection
Management Quality
Separation/
Training Program
Monitoring
Admin. Exit
Student
Intern
Performance
Part-time
Improvement
Earned
Headcount
Budget
Customer
Interaction
Management
Service
Client Financial Customer
Customer
Escalation Level (SLA)
Contact Transaction Delight
Legend: Survey
Management
Management Processing
Light blue box = Deliver (directly and
consistent touching customers)
Dark blue box = Support (necessary operations Customer
indirectly or infrequently Inquiry
touching customers) Management
Employee
Quality Assurance and Management Survey
5. contact centers EDS viewpoint paper
reducing costs, the processes listed in
The processes Contact center planning
Table 1 can also yield improvements in
Based upon EDS’ experience, organizations
Following are detailed descriptions of the
service levels and your ability to meet
can realize significant cost reductions –
four categories of operational processes. For
customers’ other requirements.
potentially up to 50 percent ROI – by
each category, we’ve included definitions of
optimizing contact center planning. While
the related processes and the benefits you
can receive by optimizing them.
Table . Contact center planning
Process name Definition Benefits
Capacity Planning • Provides profile of organizational staffing • Decreases costs through effective planning
requirements based on strategic business • Delivers costs savings of up to 10% (based on EDS
forecasts experience and EDS/A.T. Kearney contact center
• Considers staff required to offset turnover, satisfy optimization benchmarking)
increasing volumes and support new initiatives
Workload Placement • Provides management of call/contact volume • Reduces staffing costs by balancing workloads
load balancing among contact centers across sites
• Delivers savings of 5%–15% (EDS’ conservative
estimate)
Work Force Management • Enables matching work schedules to staffing • Decreases salary costs through efficient staffing
requirements based upon workload (contact • Delivers 10%–25% savings (estimate by EDS and
volume) and forecasting, including intraday our partners based on use of revised business
management processes with supporting technologies)
Earned Headcount Budget (EHB) • Enables preapproved hiring ability and account- • Improves staffing efficiency by reducing staff
ability at the site level, matching headcount with approval time, ensuring sites are staffed appro-
volume forecasts. priately and allowing sites to react quickly to new
• Facilitates local leaders managing appropriate client demands or add-on business
agent productivity at the account level • Contributes to Work Force Management savings
• Illustrates whether staffing levels are appropriate (see above)
(at the business level)
Recruiting and Selection • Enables consistent recruiting and selection prac- • Improves quality by providing qualified candi-
tices, from profiling the candidate requirements dates as quickly as possible
to preparing for the applicant to start work • Improves performance by reducing performance
• Provides several job aids and checklists, and problems and attrition
electronic résumé collection
Resource and Contingency Planning • Facilitates identification of staffing strategies to • Optimizes productivity results by developing
achieve customer expectations contingencies and alternatives for staffing peaks
• Encompasses strategic and tactical work force • Contributes to Work Force Management savings
management (see above)
Student Intern, Part-time Planning • Provides guidance for managing employees who • Reduces salary expense by ensuring staffing peaks
do not work full time or are working for academic will be covered by co-ops and part-time agents
credit and/or experience • Develops a pipeline of talented resources for
• Provides guidelines for skills development, future employment consideration
supervisor attention and management for this • Delivers 1%–3% savings (EDS estimate)
group of employees
6. contact centers
EDS viewpoint paper
Table 2 lists the processes that fall within
Employee retention and growth
the employee retention and growth cat-
Attrition rates of 40–90 percent per year
egory and the benefits of optimizing them.
make retaining and developing staff a high
priority for most contact centers.
Table . Employee retention and growth
Process name Definition Benefits
Acclimation and Training — New Agent Essential • Provides collateral and skills for orienting new • Reduces attrition and improves measurable
Skills Program agents, their customers and their jobs performance expectations by reducing ramp-up
• Can combine with sites’ current best training time for new agents
practices
• Provides employees with management support • Improves skills and personal growth
Career Planning
to identify career opportunities and plan their • Promotes employee satisfaction and increases
desired career path, and leaders with an retention
opportunity to refine leadership skills • Increases retention by improving skills and
• Facilitates coaching in identifying employees’ career goal motivation
desired career path
• Motivates contact center employees to improve
their skills, continue their education and
cross-train
• Provides an apprenticeship program for non- • Reduces attrition and improves employee satis-
Leadership Development Program (LDP)
supervisory employees so they can determine faction by offering high-potential employees an
whether a supervisory role is a career interest opportunity to learn management responsibilities
• Provides a pool of experienced candidates for with guidance
supervisory roles
• Provides training curriculum and delivery method • Equips supervisors with performance and
Training — Supervisor
for acclimating and training contact center coaching skills needed to align agents’ skills and
delivery employees at the supervisory level knowledge to organizational goals
• Continues support to further develop knowledge, • Reduces time required to reach performance
skills and abilities around a set of identified expectations
requirements • Increases average calls handled over time
• Includes training for soft skills, contact handling/ • Reduces/controls turnover
processing and systems support, as well as
selective training to introduce new initiatives
(systems, procedures and projects)
• Provides curriculum and delivery methods • Assists managers in translating broad business
Training — Manager
for acclimation and other training at the objectives into day-to-day targeted action that
manager level aligns with business needs and client expectations
Training — Client Partnership Model • Provides training in partnership and win-win • Improves customer retention and satisfaction
conflict management techniques through a proactive, consultative leadership style
• Enables leaders to introduce best practices
to their clients, and partner with them in a con-
sultative manner, so they can provide
best-in-class service offerings together
7. contact centers EDS viewpoint paper
Table . Employee retention and growth (continued)
Process name Definition Benefits
Performance Evaluation and Quality Monitoring • Ensures adherence to established processes, pro- • Reduces administrative time and expenses
cedures and customer service standards based • Satisfies customer and contractual obligations
on customer service level agreements and other
contractual obligations
Performance Evaluation (Scorecard) • Measures employee performance based on • Ensures consistent performance in meeting client
defined performance metrics obligations
• Facilitates leader’s ability to provide feedback, • Facilitates consistent and focused feedback
rewards and recognition, and coaching to employees on performance, using industry
standard metrics for contact center excellence
and client SLAs
Quality Monitoring • Facilitates monitoring and evaluating work • Optimizes agent performance through coaching
performance of agents, recording calls and data and identification of opportunities for reward and
transactions, and providing feedback to agents recognition
• Provides an objective, external viewpoint
• Improves performance against service level
standards and customer expectations
Performance Management Program • Provides a measurement and feedback program • Reduces expense and administration time
specifically focused on agent performance through a streamlined process
• Facilitates consistency between scorecards • Improves employee satisfaction through consistent
and agent performance management program and focused performance management
measurements
• Rolls up monthly performance data into an
annual performance report for agents
Recognition and Appreciation • Provides structure for developing a program to • Promotes achievement of business goals by
recognize employees’ achievements recognizing desired results
• Includes a database of creative ideas from all • Capitalizes on sharing ideas between sites
sites for activities
Balanced Life Account • Provides common procedures and tools that • Encourages agents to manage their own time off
assist employees in managing their time off effectively
• Reduces attrition by offering solutions to agents
who may need help managing their time
Performance Improvement • Provides guidelines to assist leaders in • Facilitates early recognition and documentation
consistently addressing problem performance, of problems
attendance and/or misconduct by employees • Provides uniform method to conduct improvement
plans
8. contact centers
EDS viewpoint paper
Table . Employee retention and growth (continued)
Process name Definition Benefits
Compensation • Enables contact centers to incent and reward • Supports focus on business goals
employees with more frequent merit and • Increases retention and improves morale through
performance-based increases through a pay-for- competitive pay practices and pay-for-performance
performance strategy • Ensures competitive wage structure explored
• Provides various differentials for special skills, • Continues to improve morale and attrition
accomplishments and work schedules
• Supports discussions of wages and nonwage
compensation for employees
• Can comprise base salary, bonus/incentives, stocks/
bonds and benefits in the form of health/welfare,
time away from work and retirement plans
Benefits • Provides employee benefits on par with market • Reduces expenses for employees and the business
best practices • Improves satisfaction and retention of management
• Allows employees and business to pay only for and nonexempt employees
benefits they use
• Allows benefits for part-time employees
Promotion/Job Change • Offers change in job responsibilities to provide • Enables employees to change jobs for variety or if
growth opportunities they are not performing well in one area
• Addresses upward advancement in career ladder • Ensures eligibility for promotion tied to
with increased responsibilities performance
• Retains employees and helps employees find a
satisfying work environment
Separation — Administrative Exit • Provides procedures and guidelines for managing • Ensures consistency in management of separations
voluntary or involuntary separation of an employee • Provides data on reasons for leaving — used to
reduce further attrition
• Allows for analysis and action plans for negative
trends
9. contact centers EDS viewpoint paper
processes and tools in this category enables
Operational management
consistency, quality and cost control.
Operational management is the third
Table 3 lists the processes that fall within
category that yields high results. Imple-
operational management and the benefits
menting and maintaining standardized
of optimization.
Table . Operational management
Process name Definition Benefits
Change Management • Provides a framework, methodologies and • Reduces costs by enabling contact centers to
training for managing operational and system focus on and effectively manage change
changes • Reduces attrition through a controlled approach
to managing change
Project Management • Provides a formalized process and training to • Reduces costs through a consistent, prescribed
manage a project within the contact center project management methodology
Client Contract Management • Manages contracts between business and • Develops consistency between centers that
provider of services provide service to the same client
• Can be between multiple contact centers within • Builds client satisfaction
a business and the associated business units, or
between the business and a service provider
Service Level Management • Establishes, manages and monitors service level • Ensures contractual obligations are met,
measurements for customer satisfaction (e.g., facilitating long-term relationships with clients
80% of calls resolved in 30 seconds) • Improves customer satisfaction
Quality Assurance and Management • Provides a framework and structure for implementing • Improves consistency and quality through
Customer Operations Performance Center (COPC) compliance with COPC standards
standards and certification when required
Employee Survey Administration • Provides a process for measuring employee • Reduces attrition and improves employee and
engagement and satisfaction by effectively customer satisfaction
managing the Voice of the Employee survey • Facilitates development of plans to address
process negative responses
10. contact centers
EDS viewpoint paper
These customer contact management
Customer contact management
processes are listed in Table 4.
Customer contact management, the fourth
category of operational processes, includes
customer delivery processes.
Table . Customer contact management
Process name Definition Benefits
Customer Interaction Management • Defines and manages customer interaction • Ensures contractual obligations are met through
to create and enhance the desired customer quality scores and resolution on first contact
experience • Improves customer satisfaction
• Includes training on tone of voice, empathy, • Reduces customer attrition
timeliness, etc.
Financial Transaction Processing • Uses organizational infrastructure and change • Builds consistency between centers that service
management strategies to fulfill customer requests, the same client
perform research and execute required transactions
Customer Inquiry Management • Addresses working with customers to handle • Provides quick resolution in a customer-focused
inquiries and service requests, ordering and manner
problem resolution • Immediately routes contacts that need additional
• Supports incoming and outgoing contacts expertise for resolution
• Identifies appropriate routing strategy to eliminate
customer frustration
• Ensures request resolution by performing required
services or redirecting to appropriate resources
Escalation Process Structure (internal) • Provides process for agents to seek advice on • Provides process to evaluate trends and develop
requests without sending all escalations to plans to address deficiencies
supervisors or managers • Reduces need for management escalation and
• Provides an internal help desk driven by service improves customer satisfaction through efficient
levels, available 100% of the time, staffed with resolution of requests
leadership development program candidates • Facilitates tracking of complaints to offer
and/or high performers continuous improvement opportunities
• Provides job growth opportunities for high-
potential agents
Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management • Establishes, manages and monitors service level • Ensures contractual obligations are met, facilitating
measurements for customer satisfaction (e.g., long-term relationships with clients
80% of calls resolved in 30 seconds) • Improves customer satisfaction
Customer Survey • Provides survey instruments to obtain valid • Facilitates performance benchmarking
opinions and fulfillment data from customers • Enables leaders to address deficiencies and build
on their interaction experience new offerings
• Improves customer satisfaction
Customer Delight • Establishes and monitors metrics for customer • Facilitates quantitative and qualitative measurements
satisfaction based upon performance management related to customer satisfaction
objectives and quality monitoring
11. contact centers EDS viewpoint paper
provides the flexibility for organizations business-specific needs. Most important,
Making it happen
to adjust procedure tasks and steps based it enables your contact center to achieve a
EDS recommends a structured, four-stage
upon regional laws and regulations, culture of high performance while control-
approach for optimizing operational
contractual deliverables, or industry-/ ling costs.
processes. (See Figure 3.) This approach
Figure . Four-stage approach for contact center optimization
Stage Objective
Prioritize the management processes that create
customer, employee and shareholder value
Define,
Measure, Benchmark the high-priority operations
Analyze
Develop gap assessment for the high-priority
management processes
Define three reasonable solution alternatives that
align with operations strategy and bridge the gaps
Define
Solution
Determine the “best fit” solution from
among the three alternatives
Build the implementation plan
for the “best fit” solution
Plan
Implementation
Build and present the business case
for implementation
Build a transition plan, focusing upon
gaps and organizational change
management activities
Implement new processes with a
strong training and
communications program
Implement
Solution Measure change and identify
barriers to success
Remove barriers to success
Ensure mandatory yearly audits
to verify compliance
Measurable Improvements in
Customer Delight, Employee
Satisfaction and Productivity
12. contact centers
EDS viewpoint paper
Size and scope Technology options and opportunities
Process challenges include:
• Lack of formally documented and
All contact centers, regardless of size or People are obliged to spend time and
defined processes
number of sites, should focus upon optimizing money maintaining a new car engine to
• Undefined or underdefined accountabilities
the operational processes we’ve described. ensure it a longer, more efficient life; in
for the processes
The center’s relative size and complexity the same way, companies should invest in
do, however, help determine how long the technology that makes it easier to maintain
• Unidentified process owners and
optimization project takes and what and improve the redesigned processes.
subject-matter experts
resources are required.
• Inability to obtain appropriate time and Numerous software programs and vendors
attention from the process subject-
In most cases, a single-site, single-customer, support a majority of the operational
matter experts
single-language contact center can complete processes. Organizations need to determine
the job in only three–six months and with their “pain points,” the amount of support-
Technology challenges include:
two–six dedicated resources. A multiple-site ing technology they can afford, and their
• Lack of systems and tools to support
center that supports many customers and highest-priority items.
the processes
languages might need nine–12 months and
One of the biggest impacts can come from a
• Lack of skills to develop appropriate
10–20 resources. In all cases, project duration
work force management system. Automating
systems and tools
depends in part on contact center readiness –
many aspects of work force management –
how close the sites are to optimization and
To manage these challenges effectively, such as forecasting, planning and scheduling
how ready they are to embrace change.
it’s essential to ensure that rigorous components (with shift allocations) –
organizational change management and significantly reduces manual errors and
project management practices are in place time to reforecast.
Challenges
and followed.
Other technology options include quality
Challenges fall into three categories –
assurance and scorecard evaluating software,
people, processes and technologies. The
as well as systems that support the appropri-
most challenging aspect of any project is
ate training and education environment.
managing people through the change.
Each organization should evaluate its
People challenges include:
needs, priorities and budget allocations.
• Resistance to change
This will help determine which supporting
• Lack of sponsorship for the change
tools and technology to invest in first.
• Backlash against a command-and-
control approach
• Lack of compliance to change
• Undefined or underdefined
accountabilities for the change
• Inappropriate depth and breadth of
communications
• Difficulty in obtaining commitment to
change – from the contact center senior
leadership down to the supervisor level
0
13. contact centers EDS viewpoint paper
Results Direct results of implementing these Indirect results include:
processes are: • Targeted, skilled work force
Research documents significant quantifiable
• Reduced negative (or unwanted) attrition
and qualitative benefits of moving to rigorous,
• Improved planned attrition
standardized and optimized operational
• Increased revenue
• Improved client satisfaction
processes. The experience of EDS and our
• Improved service levels
alliance partners shows that full optimization
• Improved employee satisfaction
of work force management and contact
• Increased work force productivity
Figure 4 depicts the cost elements and
center planning processes can reduce contact
• Reduced shrinkage – or wasted time related objectives that drive the need for
center costs by 25–50 percent. We’ve also
process optimization – as well as the perfor-
found that high attrition (the primary burden
mance improvement goal you can achieve
on almost all contact centers) can be reduced
once the transformation is complete.
to best-in-class numbers … if all these
operational processes are implemented
and managed.
Figure . Transformation to optimized operational processes
Transform the contact center to ensure
Performance customer delight while delivering superior
Improvement business value at an acceptable cost level
Goal
Objectives Reinvest cost savings/ ROI for
Trim current operations
improvements to business
costs
Enable rapid
continuous
Deliver Standardize practices/
Reduce
Cost improvement/redesign
services tools for cross-contact-
attrition
Element to meet customer and
efficiently center leveragability
business needs
14. contact centers
EDS viewpoint paper
• With appropriate support processes
Success story: leading U.S. newspaper
(including training, quality, contingency
Recently, a leading U.S. newspaper’s
planning, scorecard and performance
advertising contact center faced a discon-
improvement processes), outbound
tinuous production cycle for the placement
contact volume increased 16% without
of employment ads in the newspaper. The
any increase in the employee base.
contact center’s operational processes were
• Return on investment is approximately
breaking down due to large production cycle
$500,000 annually.
spikes and crisis-management activities.
As a result, advertisements were not being
produced quickly with full quality reviews.
Conclusion
The newspaper kept trying to change the
To achieve excellence and maximize
operational processes to address the problems,
profitability, a contact center business
but with minimal effect. It was difficult to
depends upon its people to function as a
measure success – and all parties couldn’t
single team focused on a common goal.
agree on the best approach.
That takes consistent performance by each
individual and site. Implementing an
The contact center then teamed with EDS.
operational process model ensures consis-
Based on our joint review of current
tency and “institutionalized excellence” in
processes, we recommended process,
customer delight, employee satisfaction
procedural and technology improvements
and productivity, which in turn drive profits.
aimed at resolving the problems.
Through high-level business process
reengineering, the team provided a detailed
baseline of the current environment,
identified quick hits and made radical
recommendations for streamlining business
operations. We then implemented the
recommendations and measured their
success in the contact center environment.
The results? EDS’ services and support
helped the contact center achieve measur-
able business improvements:
• Quality reviews reduced adjustments
from 1% to less than 0.3% of revenue.
• Implementation of appropriate training,
organizational redesign and work force
management cut after-hours contact-
request processing from 98% each day
to less than 2% – eliminating the need
for any temporary staff.
• Immediate confirmation of advertising
details, information received and a
quote for advertising space improved
dramatically – from 3–5% to 99%.
15. contact centers EDS viewpoint paper
About the author
Brian Hughes
Brian Hughes manages
the process and train-
ing team in EDS CRM
Service Delivery. He
is responsible for
development, design
and deployment of
contact center procedures, processes and
best practices in workplace learning for the
customer relationship management market.
Prior to joining EDS in 2002, Brian had more
than 20 years’ experience in managing
contact centers and serving on corporate
contact center project support staffs for
two major industry leaders, JCPenney and
Alliance Data Systems. Hughes’ teams
have reduced operating costs and increased
profitability and growth while standardizing
operational activities to ensure market
competitiveness.
Contact
Brian Hughes
Manager, EDS BPO Customer Interaction
Process and Training Team
A1-1E-24
5400 Legacy Drive
Plano, Texas 75024-3199
972 604 6544
bhughes@eds.com