The Challenge

More than 750,000 consumers call into this retailer’s contact centre every month for after-sales support. The company wanted to improve service delivery and reduce costs, yet it was struggling to maintain its target abandonment rate of less than 5%. It partnered with TTEC to develop a multiphased approach to optimise contact centre operations through process improvement and workforce management.

Our Solution

First, a review of all aspects of the business was conducted to determine how best to achieve the results needed for this location. The team examined volume forecasting, scheduling, call procedures, quality monitoring, training, and knowledge management. After the assessment, a schedule was created for implementation of the various components needed to address the full range of issues. TTEC then brought together a cross-functional group to facilitate improvement workshops. The sessions addressed three critical issues: reducing call handle time, improving the quality monitoring process, and preparing for a new processing structure.

The company adopted our workforce management (WFM) system to improve the forecasting and scheduling of resources within the contact centre. In its previous WFM process, the difference between forecasted volumes and actual calls could vary by as much as 20%, and its customised schedules did not adequately match incoming call patterns.

Our team reviewed call patterns to more accurately predict call volume, looked at average handling time to determine the total call load for each time period, and examined the centre’s shrinkage, service level performance, and associate utilisation.

The Results

With the analysis complete, the company was able to develop a clearer picture of its current resource requirements. This formed the basis of new associate schedules that better matched capacity and call volumes, even in this high-variation environment.

The contact centre optimisation yielded impressive results. Associate lead time for quality feedback was reduced from eight days to 24 hours. Offline work was consolidated and the company identified an annual savings of €1.7 million in overtime and an additional €1.2 million in excess staffing expense.