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Calabrio Shorts is a fun-sized podcast that covers all sorts of topics around the contact center industry. No topic is off-limits as we cover frequently asked questions, industry trends and definitions, and yes, we will have fun doing it.
Dave Hoekstra: Hello Calabrio friends.
Welcome to another episode
of Calabrio Shorts.
I am very excited.
We have a great topic to talk about today,
and it's something that contact centers
deal with quite frequently, especially for
newer people in the contact center space.
One of the biggest problems that
we have is really learning how
to balance the different k p.
Have to come from a contact center.
Everybody wants to do everything
bigger, faster, smarter,
quicker, and cheaper, right?
Those are always the big things that
contact centers have to deal with.
And what we've done today, I've
brought in one of my, one of
my friends and a great guest.
We have all the way from Dubai,
Hussein Kimel who's here.
He's a principal strategic consultant
here at Calabrio, who spends a lot of
time working with Calabrio customers
and prospects in helping them.
And how these different pieces work.
So what we want to talk about today
is really understanding the balance
between speed, quality, and cost, right?
Those are fun to topics
that come up quite a bit.
Hussein, great to have you here with
us today, and I really appreciate it.
First of all, let's talk about
what do we mean by when we talk
about cost, speed, and quality?
What where are we really what are
those things that we have to worry.
Hussein Kamel: That's a good question.
Thank you, Dave, first of
all for having me today here.
So when we talk about that,
let's take for example let's
break it down into real metrics.
When we talk about, for example, speed in
the contact center, we're talking about
service levels, lower abandoned rates,
basically taking transactions faster.
When we're talking about doing
things better, we're talking
about csat, improving customer
satisfaction, or mps how you manage.
Proving our quality.
And then when we're talking about
doing things we're talking about
cost and doing things cheaper.
Then we're looking at efficiency metrics.
We're looking at average handling time.
We're looking at occupancy, we're
looking at utilization, not looking
at our cost per transaction.
If we measure that and what we
realize with customers around
the world is ver metrics tend.
Come in the flavor of the month.
Yes.
So you got metrics where we're
focused on service level.
Right now everything is service level.
So if we need to, if we need to
train some people on a new product,
no, we're, instead of taking a
day, we'll do two hours and we're
gonna water it down because service
level is the most important thing.
And then you got customers who are
calling and then getting a negative
customer experience because, We're
not dealing with agents who are fully
trained on doing the job, and what
that entails is you get more calls
because we're calling again and again
and you find yourself in this spiral.
So that, that is an example.
Same thing for example, if we obsess over
costs, over handling time, suddenly our
target is two minutes and we're doing.
Three minutes.
So we started all obsessing about,
about, about doing two minutes, asking
our agents to cut calls shorter.
And what does that do?
It ends up with customers not being
given the time they require properly.
It ends up with customers calling again
and then hence getting getting more calls,
getting a snowball of calls, and then
I impacting costs in a negative way as.
So the idea is we don't
usually manage one separately.
We manage all our metrics holistically
whenever we're doing something, we
have to think of all the parts moving
at the same time rather than just one.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah.
The analogy I often use is it's like
backstage at a play and you've got the
pulleys on the wall and the sandbags,
and you've got everything and yeah.
Oh, if I move, pull this one up
oh, why is this one going down?
What, what is going on?
Yeah.
And that's, I, we've seen all,
you and I have been doing this a
long time, and we've seen numerous
contact centers struggle with this.
A really good example, I
th I like what you said.
Oh, all right, let's
focus on service level.
All right let's really focus on that.
And what happens is you focus on
service level for a few months and
yeah, the service level looks great
and it's really, and then someone
from finance runs in and says whoa.
Our cost per call is going out of control.
And then we say, oh, okay,
let's focus on cost per.
For the next couple months.
So you focused on cost for call
and guess what goes back down?
Service level.
So I really like how you said you
approach it holistically and work
through those different pieces.
What, what can organizations do
to look at things holistically?
What can they, where can they spend
their time and focus to make sure
that they're doing things right
as opposed to the flavor of the.
Hussein Kamel: So there's
a very good point.
And the thing is, what you need
to do is first of all, drive
all your KPIs at the same time.
Whenever we're taking a decision,
we are looking at our service level.
We're looking at how it's gonna
impact quality, how it's gonna impact
csat, how it's gonna impact handling
time, all, all at the same time.
And that's, in the end of the day, it goes
back to getting the fundamentals right.
It go it truly comes down to
getting the basic, the basics right?
And it goes down to to, to fundamentals.
For example, get getting a good
forecasting process where you
are accurately forecasting the
staffing you require because based
on that you can accurately hire.
And if you have a.
Count.
You don't have to be reactive.
The worst problem you can have at the
center is have the wrong head count.
Is we require 300 people and we got 200.
And guess what is it?
You can we get out of it?
Yeah.
But on now, it's gonna be six months down
the line before we can train the gap.
And they're productive
enough in the meantime.
So one, one fundamental is get
getting the forecast cast right.
The second fundamental is getting
your hiring and training, right?
You hire the right people,
we have the right profiles.
Who if you're hiring for tech,
Technical work, make sure we
have the technical knowledge.
If they're hiring for people, doing
email, make, test, their, test, their
typing skills, but they have a certain
speed, if you're hiring people who
are supporting gaming devices, make
sure we're gamers, stuff like that.
So that, that helps a lot on the
calls, because what's gonna happen
is as these people get hired and they
go for a training program, then once
they're on the floor, They are able
to respond to customers promptly.
Their learning curve until they
reach a certain level of efficiency
and a certain handling time will be
as short as necessarily possible.
That is basically the best
practices that we can do.
If you get the fundamentals
right, everyth.
Else falls into place.
What happens sometimes
is, we wanna cut corners.
You know what we have, we're
flooded with calls and guess what?
We're gonna, we're gonna
shorten the train duration.
It's not gonna be few weeks anymore.
It's one week and we
gotta be on the phone.
And that's what causes everything
to spiral of control because then
you have on train agents who end up.
Taking a lot, a very long time
to answer calls who, who don't
know how to answer calls.
So we go and ask their colleagues and
put, make their cus colleagues take
longer time because we ask them to
get, put themselves on hold to help
them when you're getting more calls
because customers are calling again.
So everything spirals out of control.
And really the solution is back to basics.
Get the fundamentals right.
I always say that think in,
in this business, think inside
the box, get the basics right.
Matt will definitely keep you safe
Dave Hoekstra: Only on collab
shorts where you hear someone
tell you to think inside the box.
But it's a, but it's a great point, right?
How many times have you seen it
where an organization has come to
you and said, We need to cut costs.
We need to cut costs.
We're spending too much money.
And you say, okay, great.
Where are you willing to sacrifice?
And they're like we're not willing.
We can't, we have to deliver
a good customer experience.
Okay and that's really what it's about.
It's the compromise between different kpi.
And the different
philosophies that really help.
And I feel like we've talked a lot
about the problem, but we don't know
maybe some specifics on solutions.
So if an organization said to you,
Hussein, we need to cut costs.
Where would you start?
You'd
Hussein Kamel: start with
understanding exactly what is the
element of cost that is hurting you?
So let's say for example, we're
talking a contact center and
we're saying we need to cut costs.
We cannot afford to run this
operation at 300 people.
And we need to for
example, be more efficient.
Then the first thing is understand, okay
if, for example, we have a call that takes
three minutes, how can we cut it down?
And most people think, oh we'll
just tell the agents to do that.
We'll just tell the team,
the managers, just be faster.
Be faster, faster.
And that's exactly how things break.
Now.
Now, whenever we have a problem and I
wouldn't even talk about cost, I talk
about cost, about quality or any problem
generally, whenever there's a problem.
What you need to do is use a,
structured problem solving methodology.
And I don't wanna pick out names.
Stuff like in something simple
like six Sigma, like other kind
of the, these processes where you
have a methodology where first
we're able to define a problem.
Okay, what is this?
What is exactly the problem?
The problem is our handling time
is freeness where we're supposed
to be two and we cannot afford
to be doing this on the long run.
Okay.
What is the financial
impact and then how do.
Start analyzing.
How do you start analyzing numerically?
What is happening exactly.
Why are we doing that?
Can we change things in
the flow of the call?
For example, can we automate things?
Can we get the customer if, for
example, on a call, generally a
verification takes half a minute
because Can I have your name, sir?
Can I have your details?
Let's get the I, let's do it on the ivr.
Make the call shorter.
If there are other processes that that
if our tools are slower, let's try
and find better tools, faster stuff.
So
Dave Hoekstra: I've got a, I've
got a great example of that.
I, in my history I, one of the
call Sonos, I worked at the handle
time was spiraling out of control.
And it was because the QM department
and operations weren't really in sync.
The QM department had it as part of.
Their call form that the customer not
only had to verify every single piece of
the customer's demographic data so name,
address, email address, phone number,
but they had to spell it back to them.
It was like, oh, your email address is
Joe, Stevens and is that j o e s t e v e?
Oh Lord, m s g m k i l See oh m.
And it was like, yeah, okay.
So we increased our accuracy of our.
In the system, but we like
two 2.5 x our handle time.
Yeah.
Because of it.
And it was like, hey,
this is a really easy fix.
But the question that then became,
we can't completely get rid of this,
but how do we speed up the processes?
Like maybe we don't have them
spell back the common word cuz
they were marking people off for
not spelling the word street.
In the address, right?
And so that's a great example of we
our data quality was bad, so we changed
our QM process to, but we never thought
about the handle time implications and
therefore the handle time implications
made our calls longer, which therefore
led to our service level dropping.
And our overall customer
experience was poor.
And it was like these, this is
the snowball effect the wrong
way, but the snowball effect
the right way is the same idea.
It's like you said, all right, let's,
there usually when an organization
has to stop and look at their process,
there's a, there's low hanging fruit.
Absolutely.
That is, it's sometimes it's painfully
obvious to an outsider Absolutely.
But in, but somebody who's, in the weeds
and dealing with that every single day
misses that, that, that obvious thing.
And so this is what we're trying to
do is, and I love I'm gonna start
using that, the think inside the box.
We just did a great episode with
Jim Davies on getting back to
basics in the contact center.
And this is exactly that kind of
thing is, that's funda agreed.
Fundamentally, this never changes
and the it's still about getting the
right people at the right place at
the right time and making them know
what they're supposed to be doing.
And I think that's fantastic.
We talked about cost, but let's talk
about some of the peripheral kpi.
That come into play.
What are some of the, we have the very
basics, but what are some of those
secondary and tertiary KPI that, that
organizations might be able to focus
on to help balance those two out?
Hussein Kamel: Yeah again what
you wanna do is we, so we focus
on results and so there's this
expression that I really love.
It's if nothing will, if you focus
on change, you will get results.
If you focus on results,
nothing will change.
So in the end of the day, what we
think are our KPIs such as service
level handling, time quality, our
csat, these are actually our what
we call our leading indicators.
That's what what we measure customer
experience by, or measure our
profitability by, but, Our, the stuff
that's in the trenches that enables this
is a completely different set of stuff.
And for example, your forecast accuracy
is what enables you to hit service level.
So your obsession should be your forecast
accuracy your, the level of your quality
program, how good your quality program is.
It's not about just your quality
scores and how your CSAT is, it's
also about how well are the people.
Doing quality calibrated.
And how well is your quality program
calibrated to customer experience?
Is that when customers think we're
doing better, our qualities reflected,
our quality scores internally
are reflected that way when we do
quality internally and vice versa.
When we're looking at other.
Things such as our technology up
times our speed of our applications.
So there's a whole bunch of other stuff
that, that enables our leading metrics.
And we call them, basically,
I like to think of them as
enable enablement metrics.
If you get these ones right, if you
get your training your, you are hiring.
When you do hiring, for example if you're
getting the hiring scores correctly
on different skills, you're hiring
people who can use PCs well, who are
fast on computers, who under who have
specific knowledge on specific products
and they're passing these scores.
If people are passing training at a
high level of, at a high score if three
months after training we're hitting
with certain metrics, it's, all of
these things enable you very easily
to, for everything else to fall into.
But we get lost.
It's more, it's sex it's sexier to go
and talk about service level and look
at our CSS scores and then never look
at all the other metrics that are in the
trenches that enable you to achieve that.
Dave Hoekstra: Okay.
That might be the first time I've ever
heard service level referred to as sexy,
but we will go with that idea, as we get
close to wrapping up here the thing I
want to make sure that you and I remind
people, and I pound the table about
this all the time, is that a goal's
only as good as the reason behind it.
Yep.
And when we look at all these
KPIs that you've mentioned, right?
Quality scores, CSAT scores, absenteeism,
handle time, occupancy, service level,
first call resolution, whatever.
If you have a goal and you don't
know why, the goal is the goal.
That's, no, that's place
number one to start, right?
You have to define why it is.
And then the second piece and hopefully
we're starting to see a lot more of this,
is how important the balance scorecard is.
Yes, the do not focus
on one metric at a time.
Focus on all metrics at a time.
But know that when, we have to
understand if a metric is dipping, right?
So if we start to see service
levels start to dip, but all the
other pieces are still in the.
Okay, that's, that, that's
a lot easier to fix.
But if we start to see service level
and handle time and CSAT scores and
absenteeism go the wrong direction,
there's a deeper problem at play here and
hopefully what we've tried to do is give
you guys some ideas or some thoughts about
ways you might be able to approach this.
Hussein, as I like to do with
always is when we have a guest on.
I like to give them the final word here.
So give your final wisdom from
Dubai, as it were on how, on, on what
our listeners might need to hear.
Hussein Kamel: I think the final
wisdom is comes down to keep
it simple, it's simplicity.
In the end of the day,
we're all customers.
And when you're calling a center,
when you require help, there's
two things you're looking for.
First of all, please an please
answer me and second of all,
give me the correct answer.
That's it.
Don't keep me waiting and just
fix my issue and everything else.
You just work backward
from these two points.
Dave Hoekstra: That's fantastic.
Such great sage advice.
Hussein, thanks so much for
spending some time with us
here on Collaborator Schwartz.
Really do appreciate it.
For those of you that are out
there, if you have an idea for
an episode that you might want to
hear in the future, let us know.
Just go to collabreo.com, find any
email address, and send us an email.
It'll find its way to me, but.
I appreciate that.
So my name's Dave.
I appreciate the time.
Hussein, thank you so
much for joining us today.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you Dave for having me.
Yeah, absolutely.
And for those of you out there,
we will see you down the next
episode of Collaborator Short.
So thanks everybody.
Have a great day and keep
working on those contact centers.
Thanks everybody.