Improving telecommunications call center efficiency through technology upgrades

¶ … Telecommunication Company's Calling Center

Updating Call Center Project Proposal

A call center is the heart of any major telecommunications company. It serves as a way to best serve the customer and the variety of needs each may have. As such, call centers are one of the largest operational costs in telecommunications companies. According to the research, "the annual spending on call centers is currently estimated to be somewhere between $120 and $150 billion" (Pinedo et al., 2000). Yet, if these centers are not efficient in regards to increasing productivity, often times such funding is wasted and drained from potentially funding other company initiatives and projects. Upgrading and improving call centers are a mandatory in order to compete with others in the industry. Essentially, "the modern call center invests more in technology per employee than most other departments within a company" (NAQC, 2013). However, a firm must ensure that these investments are worth it in the long run. This means predetermining the potential for ROI to justify the large costs of purchasing innovative and extensive telecommunications systems.

Problem Definition

There are a variety of problems with call centers not being as efficient as they can be. Essentially, when call centers are not running efficiently, they are wasting company funds and aggravating customers. When call service reps do not have the tools they need to increase the hourly number of calls they can handle, productivity drops drastically. One major cost resulting in such ineffective call center operations are staff shrinkage costs. These are incurred when staff are not handling the most productive number of calls per hour. What results is wasted paid hours that costs the firm money. The following chart outlines the causes and impacts of staff shrinkage costs:

(NAQC, 2013)

In order to best remedy this problem, updating call centers is a must. This means heavy spending on upfront initial investments in new telecommunications systems that are meant to increase productivity. Systems like VMware Virtual Desktop include a number of new, innovative software elements that help the average service clerk increase their efficiency and lower the time per each call. Yet, these systems are quite costly. Some run into the millions of dollars, depending on the size of the company and the overhaul needed. Moreover, not all updates are going to be enormously successful. Here, the research suggests that "there are efficiencies to be gained for the company in moving calls to lower-cost interaction methods, such as interactive voice response or e-mails, but not all customers are willing or able to use these tools. Self-service also reduces the company's chance to form a relationship with the customer" (NAQC, 2013). Thus, it is crucial that the right technologies are chosen to invest in order to maximize efficiency without loosing touch with the primary consumer base. Therefore, "a systematic process to guide diagnosis and decision-making should be used" (NAQC, 2013). This plan will help outline the value for the upgrade to justify its implementation

Value / Investment Case

Value engineering aims at reducing costs and improving functionality. In order to create a more productive call center, it would benefit the firm to include a tracking system that gives full information about the incoming caller and the full call history, similar to the ones that exist for police call centers. In order to achieve such an extensive system, there are several elements that would be needed in a telecommunications strategy package.

Computer Telephony Integration

CTI, as it is also known, focuses on linking telephone activities with computer software so that staff members are have access to a greater source of data and information without the delay of having to manually search for it. Essentially, CTI automatically sends caller information to the service rep through their computer interface and helps provide real time information on call length and content to quality managers monitoring the entire process. CTI systems are "used to coordinate the functions of the telephone system with another data system. This can be as simple as looking up the caller's phone number in a directory and displaying that name. In some cases, the whole routing and handling of the call can be altered because of data that was found about the caller" (NAQC, 2013). Measurable savings can be done by examining the branch office calling, conference bridging, and long distance calling (Rao, 2014). Take for example a firm using branch calling with about 100 calls a day and a duration of 3 minutes. That is a total of 300 minutes per day with an estimated savings of 1.10, or $330 a day (Rao, 2014)

Per year, that is 330 x 22 x 12, or $87,120 annually saved just in regards to enterprise branch calling. That same firm can save $6,000 annually in conference bridge calling and $25,000 annually for IP long distance calling (Rao, 2014). And these are just costs associated with outgoing and internal communications. Together with time savings and increased productivity there is an estimated total savings of $118,120 annually based on Computer Telephony Integration practices.

Screen Pop technology is one of the most cost efficient and productive software elements in CTI systems. Here, information pops on to the operator's computer screen so that it is available to them in real time (Pinedo et al., 2000). This saves the rep time in searching for customer data and ensures that all information regarding past and current calls are recorded on the same data file. However, "additional training is necessary to manage such a mix of tasks" (Pinedo et al., 2000). This can add additional training costs, but are only short-term costs that definitely pay out in the long run.

Contact Center Quality Management

Quality Monitoring can also be done on sophisticated systems that help ensure increased productivity in real time. With integrated systems, call monitoring can be done across media forms, including actual phone calls, but extending to e-mail and web chat as well. Here, the research suggests that "a quality monitoring system pays for itself by increasing management effectiveness improving agent efficiency, providing more focused training, reducing agent turnover and improving customer satisfaction and loyalty" (Call Recording Center, 2014). A detailed cost analysis of Quality Monitoring strategies is as follows:

Table VI: Quality Monitoring system

Before

After

Total Amount

Increased first contact resolution rate

710,000

695,800

$85,626

Increased management productivity

$42,108

$29,484

$12,624

Reduction in call handling time

$1,006,833

$996,765

$10,000

Reduction in training costs

$6,945

$6,366

$579

Reduced agent turnover

$73,606

$70,977

$2,629

Total savings by using quality monitoring

$111,458

Table XI

Before

After

Total Amount

Increased first contact resolution rate

710,000

695,800

$85,626

Increased management productivity

$42,108

$29,484

$12,624

Reduction in call handling time

$1,006,833

$996,765

$10,000

Reduction in training costs

$6,945

$6,366

$579

Reduced agent turnover

$73,606

$70,977

$2,629

Decrease in unproductive training time

$118,231

$94,585

$23,646

Loss of unrealized customer revenue due to poor service

$1,344,000

$1,008,000

$336,000

Total potential savings

$471,104

(Call Recording Center, 2014)

Cost Analysis

Clearly, upgrading a call center with these three elements does help reduce long-term spending by increasing the productivity of each and individual service rep along with the monitoring process. The long-term benefits need to be measured against the short-term investment costs. As such, the following cost analysis structure shows how VMware Virtual Desk software would drastically increase productivity and show strong ROI even within the first few years of implementation.

(Nucleus Research, 2014)

Feasibility

As seen in the cost analysis, VMware Virtual Desktop will return an ROI of 73% within 1.4 years of implementation. Yet, to ensure the project is feasible, one also has to look at constraints and potential risk factors as well. Not only are initial costs a constraint, as these systems are expensive to tailor to a company's needs, but they can come with a number of risks after implementation. Some additional constraints include the ability to train staff. For example, if current staff are not at the experience or skill level needed to run more complicated programs, it may require additional funds to provide more extensive training or to hire on new staff members with higher pay rate expectations. Additionally, the size and skill level of the internal IT department could also be a constraint. Extensive training and cooperation will be needed with the system provider to ensure that the first few years run smoothly.

Risk Log

No 1

Risk

Impact (1-4)

Mitigation

Responsible

Status

1

Performance Not Acceptable

3

Load & Performance Preparations, Reevaluation of individual actions, recalculation of call center rep. time schedules

Quality Control Manager

2

Security Breach

4

Inclusion of third party security service provider

IT manager

3

System Crash

4

Ensure call center reps are trained on manually conducting call answering until the system can be restored.

Customer Service Manager

4

Internal and External Interface Testing Identification

2

Prioritize conversion schedule and focus on decoupling activities to avoid confusion

IT Manager

5

Test Coverage Accuracy

2

Automated testing across all nodes and interfaces replicated on different business days

IT Manager

Procurement

VMware Virtual Desktop is a system that is competitively priced without sacrificing the quality of the features and efficiency for improving production. For a firm of this size, it would be about $1,123,940 total cost in USD. The costs can be broken down into different elements as follows:

Even with such a high price tag, the system has the ability to improve current productivity and ensure potential room for expansion into a more international context. According to the research, "VMware would enable the technology team to centrally manage all virtual desktops around the world and ensure appropriate redundancy, security, disaster recovery, and isolation as needed" (Nuclear Research, 2014). Essentially, it would allow the firm to expand its call center operations without adding much more additional costs because the system can easily be used for multiple locations across great distances. It is this element that is most lucrative in terms of how procuring the system may add long-term value to the firm's operations.

Planning

Planning with uncertainty would require two major phases for this project. Essentially, the first phase would model out the implementation process to allow for a more tailored experience and expectations of performance enhancements. Here, "Phase I: The static design phase dealing with medium term aggregate planning" (Pinedo et al., 2000). Ultimately, this stage uses historical data to interpret the needs of the firm in order to tailor for the implementation process.

Then, "Phase II: The dynamic operational phase with short-term staffing and control policies" (Pinedo et al., 2000). This phase would begin during implementation and follow through until its completion, providing opportunity to ensure that the system is working smoothly for all parties involved.

Report and Control

A project of this size would require ongoing analysis and evaluation of the project. Performance management of call center staff through quantitative metrics would be aided by the actual system providing quantitative data for performance appraisal. For the current system, real time data can be accessed by quality control managers at any time. Time spent on calls can be measured to really test to see if that time is being reduced with the help of the complicated telecommunications system. When there are certain issues that show not as much cost savings, a redesign of particular software design systems can generate more success. The following graph can serve as a guide for desirable performance metrics in the post-implementation evaluation period:

(NAQC, 2013)

Review and Learning

Using VMware Virtual Desktop, a ROI of 73% can be returned within a 1.4-year period. Here is a review of the analysis of cost performance and potential risk factors.

No 1

Risk

Impact (1-4)

Mitigation

Responsible

Status

1

Performance Not Acceptable

3

Load & Performance Preparations, Reevaluation of individual actions, recalculation of call center rep. time schedules

Quality Control Manager

2

Security Breach

4

Inclusion of third party security service provider

IT manager

3

System Crash

4

Ensure call center reps are trained on manually conducting call answering until the system can be restored.

Customer Service Manager

4

Internal and External Interface Testing Identification

2

Prioritize conversion schedule and focus on decoupling activities to avoid confusion

IT Manager

5

Test Coverage Accuracy

2

Automated testing across all nodes and interfaces replicated on different business days

IT Manager

Finally, a time line for the project will be necessary to ensure that its implementation is ongoing without delay. If the project begins on June 1st, implementation and training can be finished in the first few weeks of July. The following Gnatt Chart breaks down the individual steps and their time periods further: