CHAPTER 3 IDENTIFICATION OF MOST PREFERRED KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR IN INDIAN CALL CENTRES

Transcription

1 49 CHAPTER 3 IDENTIFICATION OF MOST PREFERRED KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR IN INDIAN CALL CENTRES 3.1 INTRODUCTION Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is means for assessment of an organisations current position and useful in future strategy and planning. KPIs can identify the aspects of functioning where an organisation is going wrong, enabling management to make the necessary corrective measures for turning the things around. A customer's perception of a company is developed not through one-off interactions, but usually through the whole lifetime experience of their dealings with that company. Thus, the potential costs in terms of customer loyalty and customer advocacy of suboptimal quality performance also depend on the consistency of the agent-customer interactions. In this chapter, identification of the key performance indicators, prioritizing them through the AHP model and finding the most preferred is presented.

2 SELECTION OF STUDY AREA For many years it was New Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra that dominated the Indian IT-BPO landscape. That is until Tamil Nadu, staked its claim to the IT-BPO pie and is fast carving a place for itself as a preferred investment destination for the industry. By providing sops such as 100 per cent additional FSI to IT parks, a wide range of investment and capital subsidies to IT companies setting up units in the state, facilitating SMEs to attend national/ international trade shows by providing 30 per cent of the stall rent payable as subsidy and rolling out e-governance initiatives to deliver special services required by citizens, Tamil Nadu has been catalyzing the growth of the IT-BPO industry on its turf. Also around people graduate from the state, creating a huge pool of talent that can be leveraged by IT and BPO companies. Chennai, the biggest economically balanced growing metropolitan city of India, provides space for BPOs is chosen as an area of this research work. 3.3 IDENTIFY THE KPIs OF INDIAN CALL CENTRE Through literature review, the exhaustive lists of key performance Indicators are identified such as, abandonment rate, adherence to schedule, agent turnover, agent utilization, attentiveness, available time, average handling time, average hold time, average talk time, average time before abandonment, average time in service, average speed to answer, average work time after call, benefit cost factor, call centre calls per year, call per hour, calls per day by an agent, call value, clarity in communication, cost per call, customer relationship, customer retention rate, customer satisfaction, errors and rework, first call resolution, forecast call-load to

3 51 actual, idle time, number of agents, percentages of call closed, perceptiveness, quality service, resolution time, response speed, responsiveness, scheduled staff to actual, service level, time in queue, total calls, total talk time, total working hours, waiting time and wrap time. A brainstorming with the executives of call centres, is organized to analyse the prepared list of KPIs. Based on this analysis, a short listed version of KPIs, applicable to Indian call centres are prepared as below a. Benefit cost factor (BCF) per call]. Ratio between the call value and the cost per call. [Call value / Cost Cost per call Ratio between the total costs incurred to the company and the number of calls resolved by the company. Call value Ratio between the revenue generated from the calls resolved and the number of calls resolved. b. Customer satisfaction (CS) Score of service satisfaction that is evaluated by the customers for having used the call centre by the connection with call centre agent.

4 52 c. First call resolution (FCR) Percentage of calls resolved on the first contact over the total number of calls closed by the call centre agents. d. Average handling time (AHT) Average of total time an agent spends on a call from start to finish, which usually includes customer hold time, talk time and wrap up (note taking or other action to close a call). e. Abandon rate (AR) This is the ratio expressed as percentage between the number of abandoned calls and the total number calls received. f. Calls per day per agent (CPDA) Average of total calls per day an agent handles. g. Agent utilization (AU) working time. The percentage of time an agent involved in calls over total h. Attrition Rate (ATR) the organization. Percentage of agents leaving over the total number of employees in

5 PRIORITISING THE KPIs The hierarchy structure of the AHP is shown in the Figure 3.1. The criteria (KPIs) are prioritized using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) AHP Model The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) developed by Thomas L. Saaty (1994) is a method which combines subjective judgment and system approach properly. Steps of the model are as follows 1. Define the problem and determine its goal, 2. Identify the criteria and structure the hierarchy from the top, 3. Having made all the pair wise comparisons, determine the consistency. Details of the AHP are given in Appendix 3. Judgment consistency is checked by means of consistency ratio (CR). If the value of CR is less than 0.1, the judgment is considered as consistent. The AHP allows group decision making, where group members can use their experience, values and knowledge to break down a problem into a hierarchy and solve it by the AHP steps. Brainstorming and sharing ideas and insights often lead to a more complete representation and understanding of the issues. Goal of this AHP model is to evaluate the call centre performance through KPIs (which are criteria in AHP) is depicted in the Figure 3.1.

6 54 BENEFIT COST FACTOR CUSTOMER SATISFACTION CALL CENTRE PERFORMANCE FIRST CALL RESOLUTION AVERAGE HANDLING TIME ABANDON RATE CALLS PER DAY BY AGENT AGENT UTILIZATION ATTRITION RATE Figure 3.1 AHP for call centre performance The pair wise comparisons are collected by Satty s scale questionnaire. 250 questionnaires are circulated among the heads of the call centres and 103 responded Pair wise comparison matrix of criteria (KPIs) The pair wise comparison matrix of criteria to measure performance of call centres is presented in Table 3.1.

7 55 Table 3.1 Pair wise comparison matrix of criteria (KPIs) KPI BCF CS FCR AHT AR CPDA AU ATR BCF CS FCR AHT AR CPDA AU ATR SUM Source: Primary Data Normalised matrix of criteria (KPIs) The normalised matrix of criteria to measure performance of call centre is computed and the results are presented in Table 3.2. Table 3.2 Normalised matrix of KPIs KPI BCF CS FCR AHT AR CPDA AU ATR Relative weights BCF CS FCR AHT AR CPDA AU ATR Source: Primary Data

8 56 The average of the entries in row i of normalised matrix is calculated. This represents the relative degree of importance for the i th criterion (i.e., weight of the criterion). It shows that the customer satisfaction has the highest priority followed by benefit cost factor, first call resolution, calls per day by agent, attrition rate, abandon rate, agent utilisation and average handling time Consistency ratio The consistency ratio is calculated based on pair wise comparison matrix and normalised matrix and the results are presented in Table 3.3. Table 3.3 Consistency ratio Particulars Value No of Criteria ( n ) Consistency measure or Eigen value ( λmax) Consistency index (CI) Random Index (RI) Consistency Ratio Source: Primary Data Since the computed consistency ratio is less than 0.10, it is revealed that the degree of consistency is satisfactory. Hence, the decision of the respondents is consistent.

9 57 Out of 103 responses, 78 responses reveal that the degree of consistency is satisfactory. The priority weights of key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the overall performance of the call center in the order of preference are as given in Figure 3.2. BENEFIT COST FACTOR CALL CENTRE PERFORMANCE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION FIRST CALL RESOLUTION AVERAGE HANDLING TIME ABANDON RATE CALLS PER DAY BY AGENT AGENT UTILIZATION ATTRITION RATE Figure 3.2 AHP structure with priority weights As per the priority weights, the KPIs are prioritized as follows. Customer satisfaction is the most preferred KPI. Based on the priority weights, the KPIs are ranked as Table 3.4.

10 58 Table 3.4 KPIs priority ranking KPI Rank Customer satisfaction 1 Benefit cost factor 2 First call resolution 3 Calls per day by agent 4 Attrition rate 5 Abandon rate 6 Agent utilisation 7 Average handling time 8 From the result it is identified that the most preferred KPIs is customer satisfaction. 3.5 SUMMARY The KPIs suitable to Indian call centres are identified from the exhaustive list of KPIs. The most preferred KPI is found through the AHP. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) shows that the customer satisfaction has the highest priority followed by benefit cost factor, first call resolution, calls per day by agent, attrition rate, abandon rate, agent utilisation and average handling time.