Green Mountain Coffee, which Isham says spends a lot of time building agent scorecards and
measuring agent performance, can use the Calabrio dashboard to review call center performance from the agent level, the team level, and based on various parameters.
Of these, the company is projecting a four-year retention rate--the industry standard for
measuring agent longevity--in "the mid-twenties," well above the industry average, which in recent years has hovered in the low to mid-teens.
As one decision maker at National Pen noted, "In my experience, email and chat are more difficult to deploy than inbound/outbound voice channels, given the complexity of
measuring agent performance, forecasting and staffing, and getting a handle on KPIs." Don't be afraid to engage experienced consultants or industry analysts to help you plan your eServices strategy.
However, Dublin-based Performix may face increased competition from call centre and CRM software companies such as Genesys and Nortel's Clarify division as they realise the value of
measuring agent performance and increase their focus on that area.
In late 2006 it decided to implement a workforce management (WFM) solution blended with a performance management enhancement package that would provide coaching forms, dashboards and out-of-the-box key performance indicators (KPIs)
measuring agent and team performance.
By defining performance standards,
measuring agent's adherence to these standards, providing honest objective feedback to the agents, and then continually reinforcing the measurement/coaching process, you create a "closed-loop" coaching system that allows you to maximize agent performance.
"Contact centers can reduce operating costs by increasing efficiency, consolidating and analyzing integrated data from multiple sites, channels and platforms, improving goal setting by
measuring agent performance and schedule adherence across an entire contact center operation, and reducing installation costs and resources required to develop and support in house cross-platform reporting and performance management application tools," said Aspect's Kelly.
Synchrony does an excellent job of
measuring agent productivity by calculating the amount of time the agent spends on any particular activity.
As a result, Performix's philosophy is, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." By not only
measuring agent performance, but also charting it, they are able to bring the ends of the bell curve more toward the center.
Every other year, the PIA affiliates managed from Glenmont (PIA of Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York) conduct the oldest and largest survey
measuring agents' opinions of their carriers' performance.
