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How does the existing process work?
Process management and design is a fine art and if you ask anyone who has gone for ISO certification it can be one of the hardest parts in dealing with customers. You need to balance customer requirements against company procedures. At the same time keeping the process simple, understandable, useable and customer friendly. In the first instance attention needs to be paid to the customer facing side of the equation after all they are at the end of the day your revenue generators.
Whilst it is understandable that a call should be as quick as possible at the same time the KISS Keep It Simple Stupid) principle applies. Rushing through customer records causes mistakes. Implied questions lead to misunderstandings. Staff under pressure to keep calls short skip sections. All these are a direct result of your existing process and service levels (more about them later).
Once you understand your processes this leads you on to...
Does the process 'Bog Down' at any point?
This is fairly simple to understand. Is there a reason a customer ALWAYS has to be transferred to another agent / department or be called back. As I've said above is there one change you can make that will simplify the process?
When are Calls Arriving?
Understanding your callflow is the most fundamental piece of information you can have. Whilst there are plenty of callflow and workforce management software packages available for an SME in the first instance these are probably not required. As part of the brown paper process callflow should be mapped and compared to existing staffing levels at any given time of the day.
The graph below indicates call abandonment based on an agent being able to handle 4 calls in a half hour period. It takes lunch breaks into account but not any other breaks and assumes calls arrive at a constant rate. Whilst we know this is not true for the purposes of illustration it's a good enough model.
The graph below indicates what happens when you move the staffing levels by 1 in peaks and troughs.
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