Call Center Operation: Design, Operation, and Maintenance
Gives complete coverage of the critical issues involved in the design, implementation, organization, and management of a customer call center.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Call Center Operation: Design, Operation, and Maintenance
3.4 The incoming call center
3.4 The incoming call center
Incoming Calls Management Institute has developed a working definition of incoming call center management that is used in this book and was first stated in Chapter 3:
Incoming call center management is the art of having the right number of skilled people and supporting resources in place at the right times to handle an accurately forecasted workload, at a specified service level and with quality.
This definition leads to two major objectives for incoming call centers:
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Locate the right resources in the right places at the right times
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Provide a service level with quality
The capability of call centers to meet these objectives has evolved through three definable major stages:
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Service level awareness maintaining service level as calls arrive, with some correlation to service level in planning
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Seat-of-the pants management little consideration of service level in planning
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Correlating service level to the organization's mission choosing an appropriate service level and tying resources to achieving this service level
An eight-stage process for systematic planning and management
Many individual organizations have evolved through the same general stages and most now link service level to quality and the overall mission. Systematic planning and management are required to accomplish this important linkage and can be accomplished through an eight-stage process:
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Select a Service Level Objective Service level is defined as a certain percentage of calls answered in a specified time frame, measured in seconds. The level should be appropriate for the services being provided and the expectations of...
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