Trying to highlight the importance of Accurate Handling Times to colleagues and managment
Hi All,
Currently working on the challenge of us getting accurate handling times within the call centre for all our different tasks.
The system we are using does give us a ATT (Average Talk Time) and also it gives us a 'Wrap' Total time however the system doesn't differentiate on what type of call that wrap links to, I.E Sales, Complaint, Customer Service/support and seems to include a lot of false data with agents not using the correct codes (an ongoing training plan hopes to rectify this)
The other issue which i'm battling is that the managers have always been told to make people available as much as possible, this means agents will finish a call and make themselves available straight away for the next call and come back and complete tasks at quiter times or in their idle time. I've pointed out this is massively unhelpful as we then don't know the actual time it takes to handle a call. Completing the task in idle is great at quiet times, but when we become busy and call after call it obviously casuses a huge problem because we don't have the correct resource and everyone is unavailable in wrap all of a sudden and the idle time never happens.
Historically I think they've always had so many people that this is not a problem, now we are growing fast we're going from being 'over staffed' to actually needing to be smart with resource.
Of course the more people available means that there is more idle/wait time between calls for agents to complete tasks. however I'm currently stuck trying to get the point cross that we need the agents to actually use their wrap codes even at quiet times (when wrap/ACW is needed) so that I can at least try and work out accurate handling times.
The problem is we do this and with home working we then see agents 'taking excessive amounts, possibly taking the mick' and/or everyone is then in wrap not enough agents available to handle the calls causing management to panic (the exact problem i'm trying to fix and understand) and we go back to making people available and hoping its quiet later in the day (sometimes we have no quiet times and end up with agents having to take time of the phone to 'catch up').
The ideal situation is we are trying to get agents to complete all their notes with the client on the phone, so the client knows things have been done and actioned. (For example they will see the confirmation come through while they are on the phone) but this can't always be the case.
Can anyone think of a way to try and explain this perhaps better than I have been to management so they understand the importance of getting the correct handling times so that we can resource effectively for times when our agents will be call after call and don't have the joy of idle time to complete notes.
Our agents are multiskilled and will work across several phones lines and will also complete emails between calls (email handling times don't pause for calls or while agents are completing after call work, causing yet another handling time headache)
I've completed time in motion studies but very tricky now with home working and I found to much variance between the staff I sat with at the time. And with covid effecting the type of contacts/clients we receive I'd need to a time in motion nearly every couple days just to react to the new challenges.
Any advise how I can best approach this and perhaps make it more understandable for colleagues who are not used to resourcing and the importance of these kind of metrics and way of thinking
Currently working on the challenge of us getting accurate handling times within the call centre for all our different tasks.
The system we are using does give us a ATT (Average Talk Time) and also it gives us a 'Wrap' Total time however the system doesn't differentiate on what type of call that wrap links to, I.E Sales, Complaint, Customer Service/support and seems to include a lot of false data with agents not using the correct codes (an ongoing training plan hopes to rectify this)
The other issue which i'm battling is that the managers have always been told to make people available as much as possible, this means agents will finish a call and make themselves available straight away for the next call and come back and complete tasks at quiter times or in their idle time. I've pointed out this is massively unhelpful as we then don't know the actual time it takes to handle a call. Completing the task in idle is great at quiet times, but when we become busy and call after call it obviously casuses a huge problem because we don't have the correct resource and everyone is unavailable in wrap all of a sudden and the idle time never happens.
Historically I think they've always had so many people that this is not a problem, now we are growing fast we're going from being 'over staffed' to actually needing to be smart with resource.
Of course the more people available means that there is more idle/wait time between calls for agents to complete tasks. however I'm currently stuck trying to get the point cross that we need the agents to actually use their wrap codes even at quiet times (when wrap/ACW is needed) so that I can at least try and work out accurate handling times.
The problem is we do this and with home working we then see agents 'taking excessive amounts, possibly taking the mick' and/or everyone is then in wrap not enough agents available to handle the calls causing management to panic (the exact problem i'm trying to fix and understand) and we go back to making people available and hoping its quiet later in the day (sometimes we have no quiet times and end up with agents having to take time of the phone to 'catch up').
The ideal situation is we are trying to get agents to complete all their notes with the client on the phone, so the client knows things have been done and actioned. (For example they will see the confirmation come through while they are on the phone) but this can't always be the case.
Can anyone think of a way to try and explain this perhaps better than I have been to management so they understand the importance of getting the correct handling times so that we can resource effectively for times when our agents will be call after call and don't have the joy of idle time to complete notes.
Our agents are multiskilled and will work across several phones lines and will also complete emails between calls (email handling times don't pause for calls or while agents are completing after call work, causing yet another handling time headache)
I've completed time in motion studies but very tricky now with home working and I found to much variance between the staff I sat with at the time. And with covid effecting the type of contacts/clients we receive I'd need to a time in motion nearly every couple days just to react to the new challenges.
Any advise how I can best approach this and perhaps make it more understandable for colleagues who are not used to resourcing and the importance of these kind of metrics and way of thinking
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