twelve solutions

In this section, we will discuss a new customer service tip each month, stating its benefits and possibly comments by customer service representatives. Our tip for this month is starting with the right ATTITUDE.

While we go about our daily lives, we discover that service is an integral part of us and we are either in a service offering or receiving position. We frown and are upset when service given to us does not meet our standards and we are happy when it’s fantastic. However, the receiver determines what constitutes good customer service at every point in time.

Whenever we find ourselves in a service offering position, we need to listen attentively and assist the service requestor in a way he or she would leave happy and satisfied.

Recently I walked into a restaurant to pick up a few pastries, feeling happy about the upcoming weekend I went to the counter to make my purchase. However, my upbeat manner was shot down with a surly look from the attendant; and I thought what had I done to deserve this ATTITUDE.

The difference between good customer service and bad customer service often times simply lies in the ATTITUDE! To offer good customer service, we must be prepared to keep an upbeat attitude, and do away with any negative attitude. Someone with a positive attitude will attempt to help, even if they don’t have all the answers. They will search for an answer or find someone who can help. Someone with a negative attitude will treat a request for help as an intrusion, interference or simply as a bother taking them away from what they were doing.

So how is your attitude today? Are you being helpful or frustrating? Let’s take time to reflect on this and think about how we can improve. The bottom line is we are responsible for whatever attitude we exhibit, and only when we choose to change can we be different and stand out as stars.

In this edition, we take a look at a critical factor in call centre management that is often overlooked – occupancy. Occupancy can be defined as the amount of time call centre agents are actually occupied on customer contacts during a shift. It is usually measured as a percentage of the call centre agents total shift time spent busy in talk or wrap up. Occupancy is often used as a statistic in calculating call centre productivity and is a critical factor in call centre staffing.

The question to ask here is why should CC Managers measure occupancy rates in their environment? Low occupancy rate is an indication of an overstaffed call centre or poor scheduling scenario, and with call centre agent costs consuming over half of the call centre budget, Managers need to keep track of the resources. Likewise, an extremely high occupancy rate will indicate likelihood of high abandonment of contacts, and high pressure on call centre agents bringing on exhaustion and a downslide in quality standards.

For centres that have implemented skill based routing, it is important to track occupancy per skill group so as to determine a course of action when it gets overboard – possibly cross train other groups to allow for failover during peak periods. Understanding the work pressures being faced by call centre agents is a good reason for tracking the occupancy ratio.  

Measuring agent occupancy is the reverse to service level. To improve service level, we’ll need to increase headcount effectively ensuring everyone is less busy thereby reducing occupancy. Likewise, to improve occupancy levels, we could reduce the head count, thereby increasing workload per person and creating less idle time. However this will impact negatively on the service level.

While there are no agreed industry standards, many call centre managers are of the opinion that a centre’s occupancy should not exceed eighty five percent (85%). This should ensure that your agents are not under pressure the whole shift and are therefore able to meet agreed quality standards.

One key way to ensure that the occupancy levels are at the right level is staffing (scheduling) accurately. Random call arrival in the call centre creates peak and off peak periods during a workday thereby making scheduling accurately more of an uphill battle for call centres. The trick therefore, is to schedule covering all the periods as adequately as possible without overstaffing whilst ensuring that agents are not under-utilised.

So while preparing that budget, make sure you’re monitoring the occupancy ratio as you analyse your service level and evaluate scheduling and staffing needs