ARCHIVED - Using External Service Delivery Key Performance Indicators

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MAF Category: Stewardship

Theme: Agent (Resource) Utilization

Once a client has successfully accessed a GoC call centre service, the client experience depends on the ability and skill of the agent. Call centre managers primarily assess the overall agent performance by consistently monitoring several measures that collectively provide an accurate assessment of the use of agent skills. Executives tend to place high value on the measure Cost per Call, which provides a good overall indication of call complexity, agent utilization, and the value of self-service via the IVR scripts. The various measures of Agent Utilization—specifically Agent Capacity, Resource Allocation, Agent Adherence, and Agent Occupancy—provide a sound operational assessment of both short- and long-term use of labour within the call centre team.

It should be noted that these measures are closely related. While Capacity and Resource Allocation provide a relatively static assessment of the overall team capacity, the dynamic Adherence and Occupancy measures show how day-to-day agent behaviour directly influences client service. Agent Occupancy is the amount of time an agent spends in direct customer service, while Adherence measures the amount of scheduled time that an agent is available to provide service. As Occupancy increases and there are fewer and fewer seconds between calls, agents will naturally protect themselves by reducing schedule adherence through, e.g. longer breaks and earlier log-outs for meetings.

Skilled call centre managers establish the right balance between Occupancy and Adherence and carefully monitor Agent Utilization on an individual basis. Departments, agencies, and other stakeholders are primarily interested in the roll-up of the entire agent team—effectively calculating Occupancy and Adherence for the call centre.

This section reviews the definitions, implementation characteristics, and vendor specifics related to Agent Utilization measures.

Cost per Call Total operational cost of the call centre divided by the number of calls accepted

This measure taken for the reporting interval provides strong trend information on overall call centre efficiency. Measures for Call Access (ref: page 16) are used as the volume measure. The working group has noted that there is inconsistency in how total operational cost is calculated, specifically related to the inclusion of facilities costs. 

Agent Adherence Percentage of a day that we can reasonably expect an agent to be logged onto the ACD Total Time Logged onto ACD (Talk, Wait, and Wrap-up) X 100  =  % Adherence Total Time Reasonably Expected to be Logged On

Adherence is a key performance indicator for individual agent performance and the performance of a callcentre as a whole.

For example, a call centre operation might plan that agents should be logged on 80 per cent of their scheduled hours of work after excluding leave and formal training. While logged onto the ACD, agents should be speaking to a client, wrapping up the call, or waiting for the next call. Non‑telephone related activities should be accomplished within a 20 per cent allowance. Examples of non‑telephone activities include other assigned duties such as callbacks and counter service, meetings, coaching time, supervisor discussions, breaks, and reading or writing e-mails.

Agent Occupancy Percentage of time agents are logged onto the ACD system and are either speaking with a client or completing paperwork related to that specific call % of Talk Time  +  % of Wrap-up Time OR 100% Logon Time minus % of Wait Time

Agent Adherence and Occupancy: Vendor Specifics

System	Source
Northern PBX (MAX 6/7)	Report Name: Agent by ACD-DN Performance (Shows performance for all queues worked by an agent) or ACD-DN by Agent Performance (provides statistics for agents' performance on a specific queue)
Centrex MAX 100	Report Name: Agent Summary Column/Data Name: WORK %
Centrex Perimeter	Report Name: Agent Performance Column/Data Name: Occupancy =  total of % of time incoming + Clerical/Variable Wrap up (Note: This report also provides an average occupancy rate for the group.)
Symposium	If agents work in more than one skill set for the period, it is not possible to accurately calculate Occupancy by application or by skill set using the standard reports supplied with Symposium.

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