Prepared On Behalf of:

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1 C3-8 ICBC Call Center Workforce Review Prepared On Behalf of: The Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union 378 (COPE 378) December 2014 Submitted by: Penny Reynolds Call Center Workforce Consultant 815 Vaughan Road Clarksville, TN USA

2 Table of Contents Executive Overview Study Objectives 4 Assessment Approach 4 Results of Analysis 5 Staffing Requirements 8 Conclusions 20 Detailed Report Study Objectives 22 Assessment Approach 23 Results of Analysis 30 Forecasts 30 Staff Requirements 33 Staffing Scenarios 35 Stakeholder Impact 36 Customers 36 Employees 43 Senior Management 45 Conclusions and Recommendations 48 Penny Reynolds Background and Qualifications 49 Page 2

3 Executive Overview Study Objective In August 2014, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) filed a rate increase for its policyholders. ICBC s call center employees represented by the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union 378 (COPE 378) took this opportunity to file Matters of Interest documents related to the operation of the contact center serving ICBC policyholders. The evidence on the record of this proceeding shows that call volumes have steadily increased over time, and a Claims Transformation project undertaken in the recent past has caused handle times to increase substantially. These increases in both call volume and call handle times have added a substantial workload burden for the center. However, the management team has elected not to increase staff to correspond to the increased workload. The result has been a severe understaffing situation that has resulted in very long wait times for callers, high caller abandonment rates, diminished service capacity, and long-standing unreasonably high workload for the staff. This study was commissioned by COPE as an outside, independent review of call center workforce planning and management. The review is designed to assess the overall workload of the call center, including the patterns and trends associated with business factors including but not limited to the Claims Transformation Project. This analysis provides calculations of appropriate staffing levels for the center based on ICBC s established service goals for policyholders as well as reasonable staff occupancy levels. A comparison of actual staffing to required staffing is provided that shows the implications from a service, occupancy, and cost perspective. Assessment Approach Workforce management is an art and a science where call history and business drivers are analyzed to predict future call volume, handle times, and patterns of work. A workload prediction by month, day, and half-hour is then used to determine staffing requirements to meet speed of answer service goals. This base bodies in chairs staffing requirement is then adjusted to account for staff shrinkage (necessary paid unproductive time) and other scheduling considerations to arrive at an overall schedule requirement and FTE count. Page 3

4 This workforce review was performed using ICBC-provided data from the Aspect workforce management software system. This data provides a forecast workload number (based on call and handle time predictions) along with a planned staff number. The analysis reviewed the forecasts and staffing projections compared to actual staffing that was in place. The Aspect reports show actual service level numbers for the study period, along with other service-related data such as abandoned call volumes and percentages. As part of the staffing analysis, staffing calculations were independently done to verify staff requirements. This staffing analysis involved using industry-standard Erlang staffing calculations to arrive at actual staff requirements, as well as to show the whatif results if staff numbers were not in place as planned. These Erlang C calculations were used to arrive at service level, average speed of answer (ASA), and occupancy numbers to be expected with ICBC s actual staff in place. Analysis Results Arriving at the right number of staff to provide acceptable service levels while balancing costs begins with a workload forecast. Call volumes and handle times from past history are analyzed to predict future workload, taking into account any relevant business factors. Over the last two years, there was a gradual increase and upward trend in call center contact volume, as well as a major increase in call handle times caused by two business drivers the Claims Hierarchy project and the ClaimCenter transformation. The actual call volumes and handle times from are shown on the following pages. These actual numbers were compared to forecast call volumes and forecast handle times to first examine the accuracy of the forecasting process at ICBC. There was very little variance between the forecast and actual requirement numbers, showing that the workforce team at ICBC performed this part of the workforce planning process very well. The understaffing that has occurred over the past two years was apparently not a result of bad forecasting, but rather staffing decisions that were made. The Aspect IntraDay Performance (IDP) reports show Forecast versus Actual Requirements with variances between the two in a reasonable range. It is the difference between the Actual Requirements and the Actual Scheduled Staff where there is an alarming variance what was required for service delivery compared to actual scheduled staff. Page 4

5 Month-to-Month Workload Numbers are provided below that show the overall workload increases during the study period. Workload is calculated by multiplying the number of calls (NCO) by the average handle time (AHT). The first table shows month-by-month comparisons of the number of calls offered (NCO) and the second table shows AHT patterns. Note the steady increases in both from 2012 to 2013 to (Note: Data supplied only complete through October 2014) Exhibit 1A: Number of Calls Offered Number of Calls Offered Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Calls Exhibit 1B: Number of Calls Offered ,000 95,000 90,000 85,000 80,000 75,000 70,000 65,000 60,000 55,000 50,000 Number of Calls Offered Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Page 5

6 Exhibit 2A: Average Handle Time Average Handle Time Month Jan ,095 Feb ,219 Mar ,160 Apr ,152 May 979 1,008 1,404 Jun 916 1,030 1,456 Jul 956 1,041 1,396 Aug 932 1,030 1,348 Sep 923 1,047 1,269 Oct 866 1,041 1,164 Nov 853 1,100 Dec 894 1,157 Grand Total 910 1,008 1,274 Exhibit 2B: Average Handle Time Average Handle Time 1,500 1,400 1,300 1,200 1,100 1, Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec As seen above, call handle times have increased substantially over time. While there have been some decreases in the AHT in recent months, the numbers are still well above 2012 levels and remain above 2013 levels as well. These two components of call volume and handle time are multiplied together as the base calculation of staff workload. The following table and graph show the calculation of staff workload (NCO x AHT) by month. Workload is expressed as hours of work. Page 6

7 Exhibit 3A: Call Workload Table Call Workload Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Workload Exhibit 3B: Call Workload Graph 42,000 Call Workload 37,000 32,000 27,000 22, ,000 12,000 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec In addition to the steady increase in workload over time, there are several notable changes in the data outlined above. The Claims Hierarchy project rolled out in April 2013 and there is a corresponding significant jump in workload beginning in May The next sizable jump in workload occurs November 2013 with the rollout of ClaimCenter. While an increase in calls does occur steadily over time, the major change in workload is due to the increased time required to handle calls. Page 7

8 Staffing Requirements This increase in workload would indicate a corresponding increase in staffing levels. The table below shows the following for each month: Actual Workload Hours (NCO x AHT) Required WFM Workload Hours (includes Erlang C staffing adjustment plus 10% unproductive time) Required FTE Actual Scheduled FTE FTE Variance Exhibit 4A: Monthly Staff Hours and FTE Requirements 2012 Actual Workload Hours Required Workload Hours Actual Required FTE Actual Scheduled FTE FTE Variance 2012 Jan 16,137 19, Feb 14,430 17, Mar 15,288 18, Apr 15,930 19, May 17,867 21, June 15,900 19, July 18,538 22, Aug 18,475 22, Sep 16,791 20, Oct 17,763 21, Nov 16,738 20, Dec 17,467 21, Total , , As seen in the table above, in 2012, staffing was just a bit under the needed numbers. For the most part, staffing was satisfactory and caused service level to remain fairly stable and in the range of the 80%/100 second target. With the rollout of Claims Hierarchy and ClaimCenter in 2013, staffing needs rose dramatically and were not filled as needed, as shown in the tables below. Page 8

9 Exhibit 4B: Monthly Staff Hours and FTE Requirements Actual Workload Hours Required Workload Hours Actual Required FTE Actual Scheduled FTE FTE Variance Jan 17,327 20, Feb 13,014 15, Mar 14,907 18, Apr 18,743 22, May 21,065 24, June 20,708 24, July 23,441 27, Aug 21,256 25, Sep 21,119 24, Oct 21,597 24, Nov 23,857 26, Dec 25,159 27, Total , , Exhibit 4C: Monthly Staff Hours and FTE Requirements 2014 (Jan Oct only) Actual Workload Hours Required Workload Hours Actual Required FTE Actual Scheduled FTE FTE Variance 2014 Jan 23,762 26, Feb 24,042 26, Mar 23,231 25, Apr 23,360 25, May 33,307 36, June 34,637 37, July 36,410 39, Aug 31,526 34, Sep 28,841 31, Oct 24,916 27, Nov Dec Total , , The gap between staff required and actual scheduled staff widened further in Page 9

10 Exhibit 5A: Annual Staffing Requirements Versus Actual Scheduled Hours Workload Hours Actual Required Hours Actual Scheduled Hours Variance , , ,011-11, , , ,749-40, , , ,474-79,017 Exhibit 5B: Annual Staffing Requirements Versus Actual Scheduled Hours Forecast FTE Actual Required FTE Actual Scheduled FTE Variance Exhibit 5C: Annual Staffing Requirements Versus Scheduled Hours (with Full Shrinkage) Forecast FTE Actual Required FTE Actual Scheduled FTE Variance As shown in the Tables above, there has been a serious staff shortage year over year as ICBC has not staffed up appropriately to respond to increasing workload. The service implications of this staffing shortage are evident from the actual speed-of-answer numbers shown below, along with the resulting call abandons and call abandon rates. Service Levels The fewer the staff in place, the longer the wait time for callers. It is obvious from the numbers in the table below that staffing levels dropped to unacceptable levels throughout 2013 and 2014 as evidenced by the declining service levels. Page 10

11 Exhibit 6A: Actual Service Levels Service Level Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Grand Total Exhibit 6B: Service Level Graph, Service Levels for All Hours Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec While the stated goal of ICBC is to answer 80% of calls in 100 seconds, service levels declined and remained well below the 80% mark throughout the period in question from early 2013 to the end of the study period in late Abandoned and Deflected Calls As service levels decline and customers wait longer and longer in queue, many callers become frustrated with the wait time and abandon calls. The table below shows the increase in the number of abandoned calls and the corresponding abandoned call percentage rate during recent years. Page 11

12 Exhibit 7A: Monthly Call Abandons Call Abandons Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Abandons ,000 35,000 30,000 25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 0 Call Abandons Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec The numbers here represent a startling number of callers giving up and leaving the queue. These numbers are shown as a percentage abandon rate the in table below. Page 12

13 Exhibit 8A: Call Abandon Rates Call Abandon Rate Month Jan 6% 12% Feb 2% 18% Mar 4% 7% Apr 8% 6% 9% May 7% 15% 27% June 4% 17% 35% July 10% 17% 39% Aug 9% 11% 34% Sep 10% 9% 22% Oct 6% 8% 11% Nov 4% 19% Dec 12% 21% Average Abandon Rate 6% 12% 22% With the rollout of Claims Hierarchy in April 2013, there is a dramatic rise in call abandon rates due to decreased staffing and low service levels starting in May Averaging the call abandon rate from May through December of 2013 shows a call abandon rate of 16% and that rate increases to 22% in 2014 as staff levels remain too low. Exhibit 8B: Graph of Call Abandon Rates Call Abandon Rates 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec These call abandon numbers and percentages are alarmingly high and are well above industry averages. They are extremely high for an organization like ICBC where there is no other alternative service-provider available for the caller. While it is more common to Page 13

14 see high abandons for a call center where there are many competitors and alternatives available, ICBC has a captive audience of customers with no place else to go to discuss a claim. In addition to the high level of call abandons outlined above, there are also many other callers that attempted to reach the ICBC call center but never made it into the center at all. When not enough telephone trunks are in place to bring calls into the center, the caller simply receives a busy signal. There was an extremely high level of busy signals and deflected calls at ICBC, as evidenced by the following numbers. Exhibit 9: Deflected Calls (April October 2014) Month Deflected Calls April ,254 May ,343 Jun ,517 Jul ,970 Aug ,530 Sep ,479 Oct Nov ,049 Grand Total 81,844 This is a very high number of calls to be rejected at the front door of the call center, receiving a busy signal and being forced to retry the call at a later time. There was indeed a reduction in deflections in August of 2014 that coincides with additional telephone trunks being added in the form of another T1 facility, but as the most recent November data indicates, there are still many customers being denied access to the center, even to get in and wait in the queue. Day in the Life Perspective In addition to the annual and monthly perspectives outlined above, a more granular view of the numbers is provided that illustrates staffing and service scenarios for sample days throughout the study period. This review provides more of a day in the life illustration of the call center situation from both a customer and an employee perspective. Page 14

15 The service level numbers outlined in the tables above represent an average statistic for a month at a time. While there are periods of lower call volumes when service is at reasonable levels, there are also many periods where service really suffers. Obviously customers don t call every day and assimilate all these experiences into an average one. At any given time, and especially on busy days like Mondays, customers may face an unreasonable service situation due to the chronically understaffed center. Customer Service Impact For example, on a Monday morning in late October (late in the study period when ICBC says the service problems have taken a turn for the better as the ClaimCenter transformation upheaval has settled), customers encountered the following staffing and service situation. (Note: These numbers were taken from ICBC s Intra-Day Performance Reports. This sample is taken from October 27 at 10:30am, a typical Monday in the study period, with some days being better than this and other days worse than this scenario.) Exhibit 10: Sample Hour Staffing and Service Scenario Calls Offered Calls Abandoned Calls Handled Actual AHT Required Agents Scheduled Agents Service Level % In this 10:30 am scenario, staffing for the actual number of calls offered (NCO) would have indicated a workload of 108 hours or erlangs (191 x 1021/1800) with 114 staff required. With only 105 staff in place, long delays would have been experienced and 22 of the 191 calls abandoned. The remaining 169 calls with the 105 staff in place generated a service level where only 13% of callers for the hour were handled in under 100 seconds (rather than the 80% goal). From a customer service point of view, understaffing results in longer delays. While a small amount of understaffing will naturally occur from time to time as workload fluctuates throughout the day, too many missing staff can have a significant impact on wait times. The relationship between staffing levels and wait times is not a linear one. There is an exponential worsening as the understaffing number grows. With the workload scenario outlined here (191 calls, 1021 AHT), the following shows the impact on service as staffing numbers vary. Page 15

16 Exhibit 11: Sample Staffing and Service Scenario NCO per Half-Hour AHT Erlangs Staff Service Level in 100 sec Average Delay (in sec) % % % % % % % % % % % 87 94% % 64 93% % 48 92% % 37 92% Staff Occupancy In this example, staff would have resulted in a +/- 10% range around the desired service level goal of 80%. However, once the staff number drops below those levels, the service level drops by bigger and bigger percentages (56%, 44%, 30%, and 13%). Note the corresponding actual average delay for these staffing levels increasing in this exponential pattern going from an 87 second delay with 114 staff as required to delays of 121, 177, 277, 503, and 1429 seconds as staff numbers decrease. (Note: Staffing calculations and the service implications are discussed and explained in detail in the Detailed Report that follows.) While customers do have some tolerance for delays, especially if they have no other alternative for service, when delay times reach these high numbers, many callers will abandon. As noted in Exhibits 7 and 8 above, ICBC customers abandoned calls at an alarming rate. Almost all call centers shoot for abandon percentages in the low single digits and ICBC met these standards for the most part in However, by not reacting to the overall growth in workload with corresponding staff increases, delay times were unreasonable in 2013 and 2014 and proven unacceptable to customers by the very high call abandon rates. ICBC has responded to these claims of poor service by stating that service level is not what customers care about and rather have focused on First Call Resolution (FCR) as the primary driver of customer satisfaction. While it is true that call resolution is key to customer satisfaction, having a contact handled in a reasonable timeframe is also an important factor in customer satisfaction and loyalty. Page 16

17 As shown below, despite claims that FCR is high, customer satisfaction has dropped during the study period. While there are many factors that contribute to customer satisfaction, the delay time that prevents timely access to claims processing has to be a contributor to the lower satisfaction ratings. Exhibit 12: Customer Satisfaction Ratings Claims Service Satisfaction Customer Approval Index Employee Perspective Keeping customers happy is the key to running a successful business. The other key to success is keeping employees happy. Happy employees treat customers better and a stable, predictable work environment supports high levels of staff productivity and quality of work. There are many factors that contribute to employee satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the workplace. These factors include physical work environment, schedule flexibility, supervisor relationships, growth opportunities, and others all contribute to job satisfaction. One of the critical factors that contribute to job satisfaction in the call center is the dayto-day work environment and the level of workload to be accomplished within the day. Therefore, staff occupancy (often referred to as agent occupancy) is one of the most important metrics in the call center. It is a useful measure to senior management to ensure that the center s personnel resource is being utilized effectively. It is also a measure from the employees perspective to show whether or not there is a reasonable level of work distributed to the staff. Occupancy is simply a measure of how busy the staff are processing work (active on call or in after-call work) compared to sitting idle waiting on the next call to arrive. While it is desirable for this agent occupancy number to be high (since they are after all being paid to do the work), it is important that it is not too high or the staff will be overworked with not enough breather in between calls. The desirable range of staff occupancy for most call centers is 85% - 90% and most centers staff so that occupancy will not exceed 95% even during the busiest times of day. Page 17

18 When looking at the previous Exhibit 11, it is clear that the understaffing situation at ICBC has caused unreasonably high occupancy levels. In this example, the required staffing level of 114 staff would result in an occupancy level of 94% -- a high level by industry standards even if the desired staffing were in place. Given that there were actually many fewer staff in place than required for this and nearly every other half-hour period of the day, occupancy levels were most often at 100%. In other words, there were more hours of work to do than staff hours in place to handle the on-demand work. This means that when an agent was finished with a call, there was almost always another call waiting, so there was no recovery time not even a few seconds in between calls. When occupancy levels are consistently above 90%, it creates a difficult and taxing work environment. When occupancy levels reach 100% as they did on the sample day outlined in the table that follows, the workload burden is oppressive. The frontline staff are faced with call after call with little to no breather to recover and prepare for the next call. When this high occupancy is sustained over more than a few half-hours (as it is here), performance starts to suffer. High occupancy rates almost always lead to higher handle times, decreased schedule adherence, and a decline in call quality. The table below shows the actual staffing and service for a sample day with the occupancy number added as the final column. Page 18

19 Exhibit 13: Service and Occupancy for Sample Day ACTUAL FORECAST ACTUAL FORECAST ACTUAL FORECAST REQ SCHED ACD STAFF Time NCO NCO AHT AHT STAFF STAFF STAFF VARIANCE SL% OCC % 7: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : This high occupancy rate has been in place for a very long time at ICBC and is likely a factor contributing to decreasing scores in Employee Satisfaction surveys. While ICBC does have a policy where employees are provided with a stretch break every hour in which a regular break is not scheduled, it is unclear from the data provided whether or not these are actually used. Since schedule adherence is a big factor on the frontline reps performance scorecard, taking unscheduled breaks would put them out of adherence and they may choose not to take these breaks in order to meet other goals. (Note: It is difficult to review use of these stretch breaks since there is not a specific code associated with logging out for this activity.) It is important to also point out that if indeed the breaks were taken, that would remove even more staff from the call-handling picture, making the occupancy even higher than noted in the table and more of a burden to those left on the phones. Page 19

20 Employee Engagement scores have declined from 54% in 2012 to 33% and 34% in 2013 and While the data is not specific as to what the causes of dissatisfaction are, the oppressive workload generated by the understaffing these last two years is likely a significant factor in the decline. Management Perspective ICBC s response to the call center understaffing is that the company s focus was not on service level but attention to first call resolution (FCR) as a more important measure of service and quality. While it is true that FCR is the metric most closely correlated with customer satisfaction, FCR and service level are not mutually exclusive. Ideally, ICBC should be concerned with both, as both of these speed and quality are important to the customer. It is certainly desirable to focus on FCR. However, it is unclear from the data provided here whether ICBC s actual FCR results are as stellar as noted. The results reported are good, but only represent about one percent of customers perspectives. And more importantly, even if the results are excellent and customers are happy with call resolution, it does not mean that it is acceptable to ignore the speed of answer. Management s other concern is operational cost. While running a successful call center operation means managing by the numbers and watching the personnel resource cost closely, labor decisions that result in too high a level of understaffing can have many direct and indirect costs to the operation. Longer delays translate into a higher cost of telecommunications from a trunking and usage perspective. High occupancy generally leads to longer call handle times, decreased schedule adherence, lessened call quality, higher absenteeism, and eventually burnout and turnover all of which will eventually translate into higher costs. The biggest cost to ICBC may be the long-term damage that can be done to ICBC s service reputation with these long service delays. Customers that call only to reach a busy signal or then to enter the queue and wait there very long periods of time begin their interaction on a negative note that may be very hard to turn around, even with great service and high call resolution. Page 20

21 Conclusion and Recommendation ICBC has failed to staff its contact center appropriately to respond to the changes in contact volume and handle times brought about by normal business growth and internal process and technology changes. Despite what appears to be a solid forecasting and planning process that results in a reasonable staffing and schedule requirement, ICBC has elected not to staff to required FTE levels. The result of this understaffed situation is a service level way below the stated goal and a high level of abandoned and deflected calls. ICBC customers are not being well served when their calls are either deflected due to insufficient resources or they are forced to wait for long periods to have their calls answered. The understaffing situation is hard on the employees as well. Too few staff in place translates into very high levels of occupancy hour after hour. This creates an unreasonable work environment and can impact many aspects of performance in a negative way. While in the short run, the decision not to add staff can be viewed as a cost-saving measure for the corporation, understaffing has many direct and indirect costs. Longer wait times create more telephone usage time which is a direct cost to the company, especially when many calls are abandoning and returning only to tie up phone lines multiple times. High occupancy rates can cause staff to have higher handle times in the short term and can contribute to decreased schedule adherence and absenteeism in the long term if not corrected. And finally, the impact of poor service on customer satisfaction can have longterm impacts and costs. It is recommended that ICBC re-examine its staffing levels and add requisite staff to correspond to current and planned workloads. With the appropriate number of staff in place, ICBC will see a return to desired service levels, a reduction in abandoned calls and deflections, and a more reasonable workload for its staff. The forecasting and planning process in place appears to be a sound one. With the upheaval and learning curve of the ClaimCenter project mostly over, it is recommended that ICBC create a solid forecast for 2015 and 2016 and move to immediately staff up to fill the current personnel gaps in order to accomplish stated service goals from a customer perspective and reasonable occupancy goals from an employee view. Page 21

22 DETAILED REPORT Page 22

23 Study Objective In August 2014, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) filed a rate increase for its policyholders. ICBC s call center employees represented by the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union 378 (COPE 378) took this opportunity to file Matters of Interest documents related to the operation of the contact center serving ICBC policyholders. The evidence on the record in this proceeding shows that call volumes have steadily increased over time, and two projects (Claims Hierarchy and ClaimCenter) undertaken in the recent past have caused handle times to increase substantially. These increases in both call volume and call handle times have added a substantial workload burden for the center. However, the management team has elected not to increase by enough staff to correspond to the increased workload. The result has been a severe understaffing situation that has resulted in very long wait times for callers, high caller abandonment rates, diminished service capacity, and long-standing unreasonably high workload for the staff. This study was commissioned by COPE as an outside, independent review of call center workforce planning and management. The review is designed to assess the overall workload of the call center, including the patterns and trends associated with business factors including but not limited to the Claims Transformation Project. This analysis provides calculations of appropriate staffing levels for the center based on two factors -- ICBC s established service goals for policyholders as well as reasonable staff occupancy levels. A comparison of this requirement compared to actual scheduled staff is provided that shows the implications from a service, occupancy, and cost perspective. Workforce management is an art and a science where call history and business drivers are analyzed to predict future call volume, handle times, and patterns of work. A workload prediction by month, day, and half-hour is then used to determine staffing requirements to meet speed of answer service goals. This base bodies in chairs staffing requirement is then adjusted to account for staff shrinkage (necessary paid unproductive time) and other scheduling considerations to arrive at an overall schedule requirement and FTE count. These schedule numbers are then analyzed based on actual service delivery (for customers) and occupancy levels (for employees). Assessment Approach This workforce review was performed using ICBC-provided data from the Aspect workforce management software system and other ICBC generated reports. The Page 23

24 following steps are involved in the workforce management process and were reviewed as part of the analysis: 1. Forecast Workload The first part of any staffing plan is to build a reliable forecast. This forecast takes into account past call history to analyze and predict future call volume and handle times. The most common approach in call center forecasting is time-series analysis. This method uses past history to determine the overall trend in the call data, as well as to break apart and identify seasonal, month-to-month patterns based on the business. ICBC uses the Aspect ewfm workforce management system, which is based on this time-series analysis approach. A base forecast from time-series analysis would then be adjusted based on known business factors. In ICBC s case, the most obvious business factors would have been the rollout of Claims Hierarchy in April 2013 and ClaimCenter in November While call volume was not necessarily impacted in a major way by these changes, the average handle time of calls was significantly increased and the forecast handle time and overall workload reflected these anticipated changes. A comparison of forecast call volume and handle time shows that workload forecasts were reasonable for the study period. While variation above and below the actual numbers are to be expected, for the most part forecasts were within a reasonable range. This variation was examined with a percent difference calculation as well as looking at a standard deviation calculation. Forecast Staff Hours Actual Required Hours Percent Variance This accuracy in forecasting is important to note, as it is not the underlying cause of the understaffing that has been apparent over the past two years. When some call centers experience understaffing, it is due to an insufficient and flawed forecasting process that has failed to predict the workload and need for staff. At ICBC, the forecasting process and results are sound and point to a requirement that was simply not filled at the scheduling phase of the workforce planning process. Page 24

25 2. Calculate staff and schedule requirements. This data provided a forecast workload number (based on call volume and handle time predictions) along with a planned staff number. The analysis reviewed the forecasts and staffing projections compared to actual staffing that was in place. The Aspect reports show actual service level numbers for the study period, along with other service-related data such as abandoned call volumes and percentages. As part of the staffing analysis, staffing calculations were independently done to verify staff requirements. This staffing analysis involved using industry-standard Erlang staffing calculations to arrive at actual staff requirements, as well as to show the whatif results if staff numbers were not in place as planned. These Erlang C calculations were used to arrive at service level, average speed of answer (ASA), and occupancy numbers to be expected with ICBC s actual staff in place. To better understand the staffing numbers and the relationship between workload, staff requirements, scheduled staff, and resulting service and occupancy, it would be useful to explain the staffing calculation process. Step 1. Calculate workload. First, a workload calculation is shown here based on call volume and handle time for a sample half-hour of a day in the study period. 10:30am 11:00am 191 calls, AHT 1021 seconds 191 x 1021 = 195,011 seconds 195,011 seconds/1800 seconds per half hour=108 hours Staffing will be based on 108 hours or erlangs. Step 2. Determine base staff requirement (bodies in chairs). The first basic rule of contact center staffing is that there must always be more staff in place than the hours (erlangs) of work to do. That is because telephone calls arrive randomly within the hour and not in a formal, back-to-back fashion. This random arrival necessarily means that there will be periods where staff are idle waiting on calls to arrive, while at other times during the hour calls will be stacked up and waiting. This inefficiency caused by randomness is built into the Erlang C staff calculation approach that takes into account random arrivals and the queuing for the next available agent setup. Page 25

26 It should be noted here that this randomness of calling can be exaggerated by many factors and one of these factors is the handle time of calls. With the same amount of workload, a scenario with fewer calls and higher handle time (like ICBC) will take more staff than more calls with lower handle time. This is due to the fact that high handle times contribute to randomness while higher volume/lower handle times look more like sequential, back-to-back work. As an example, consider a staffing situation with 1800 calls per hour and a handle time of 300 seconds, equating to 150 erlangs of work (1800 x 300 / 3600). This scenario to meet a 80% in 100 second service goal would require 154 staff. Now with the same workload, but offered as 600 calls with a handle time of 900 seconds (600 x 900/3600 = 150), the required staff would be 158 bodies in chairs. Therefore, as ICBC s handle time has increased, it has contributed to an increased workload just as part of the equation of call volume multiplied by handle time. However, it is important to note that this increased AHT has a double impact as the increased handle time makes random arrivals more apparent and further bumps up the requirement for staff. There must always be more staff than hours of work to do, and how many more staff depends on the desired speed of answer. If a call center wishes to answer the calls very quickly, more staff will need to be in place, while long service delays require fewer staff. The base staff requirement (commonly referred to as bodies in chairs ) was calculated based on ICBC s stated speed-of-answer goal of 80% of calls answered in 100 seconds. There is a wide range of service goals within the call center industry and no single industry standard for service level. However, the majority of centers have a speed of answer goal very close to 80% of calls answered in 20 or 30 seconds. ICBC s service level goal of 80% of calls in 100 seconds allows for a much longer wait time than experienced in most call centers in North America. There is no right or wrong goal for service, but it should be noted that the service level target, even if it is met, would give ICBC callers a noticeably longer wait time than callers would perhaps get when calling other call centers. Using this 80% of calls in 100 seconds, base staff requirements can be calculated. The following table shows the number of staff required to meet various service levels. This chart also shows the resulting average delay and staff occupancy with any given number of staff in place. Page 26

27 Exhibit 14: Sample Staffing and Service Scenario NCO per Half-Hour AHT Erlangs Staff Service Level in 100 Sec Average Delay Staff Occupancy % % % % % % % % % Note the non-linear change in service level and ASA. To meet the 80% in 100 seconds service level, 116 bodies in chairs would be required. While one additional person improves service level by 4%, removing a person impacts it by 5% (and then 6%, 7%, 9%, 12% and so on.) 3. Determine actual schedule requirements. The above tables show the progression and calculations from calls to base workload to actual workforce workload. This workload number includes a 10% non-productive time factor (due to the 90% schedule adherence factor) as well as the various factors and Erlang C calculations built into the workforce management system to account for the randomness of inbound calls. In addition, once the scheduling stage occurs and the need to move from a bodies in chairs base staff requirement to an actual schedule requirement, it is necessary to account for the fact that staff are not always available to take calls. There are times when staff will be on break, at lunch, in meetings, or doing other off-phone work. In addition, it is necessary to build in additional time for paid time off and any other state that takes staff away from phone duty. For the staffing numbers in this report, there are two steps of building in this nonproductive time. First, to get to an actual staff work hours required, a non-productive time factor of 10% was used, along with the standard Erlang C staffing calculations. Page 27

28 When looking at the overall actual schedule requirement for scheduling purposes, a full shrinkage amount that takes into account all non available hours was used. At ICBC, staff shrinkage is tracked for the following categories with the numbers shown in the table representing the annual hours of time going into each category for the year. Exhibit 15. Annual Staff Shrinkage Category One-on-One Absence ACD Breaks File Meeting Other Work Paid Leave New Hire Training Vacation ClaimCenter Train Total Total FTE Shrinkage % Shrinkage is incorporated into the base staff requirement to inflate the staffing number to include time for breaks, meetings, training, paid time off, scheduled off phone work, etc. This schedule requirement was then adjusted for any scheduling rules and inflexibility to arrive at the needed FTE count. In the example here, with a workload of 108 hours and a base staff requirement of 116 staff, actual staffing requirements would incorporate shrinkage in the following way: Actual Staff Requirement = 116 / ( ) = Evaluate staffing scenarios. An analysis was done comparing the required staff to actual scheduled staff. The actual staff numbers were taken from ICBC provided reports, including Aspect ewfm Intra- Day Performance (IDP) reports and the center s SuperState Excel Reports, the reports used to generate payroll that provide full information about shrinkage and FTE numbers. Page 28

29 5. Evaluate impact on stakeholders. The assessment of staffing and service is provided to review actual versus required staffing levels and the implications from three different perspectives. These three perspectives represent the three main stakeholders of the contact center - customers, frontline staff, and the management team. As part of this Stakeholder Impact Assessment, there are several important considerations from these three perspectives: Customer Customers care about the service they receive from the call center. There are many ways to define service from their perspective, including the following: Service Level. Service level is the most common way to define and measure the speed of answer in the center. There are other speed of answer measures, including average speed of answer (ASA) and longest delays in queue, but service level is the most common approach in the industry, as well as the primary way ICBC measures and reports on service. It is described as the percent of calls that are answered in a defined wait time threshold (x% in y seconds). In addition to service level, another useful way to examine service statistics is to look at the average delay or average speed of answer (ASA). Abandoned Call Percentage. A primary indicator of whether staffing is sufficient or not is the abandoned call percentage. Most centers aim for no more than 2 5% of calls to abandon the queue. While some abandons are unavoidable, a high percent of callers leaving the queue is generally a red flag that staffing levels and wait times are unacceptable to callers. Access Availability. A crucial part of service delivery is to provide adequate access in terms of local or long-distance telephone access. If not enough telephone trunks are in place, there will not be enough pathways into the center and callers will receive a busy signal and have to retry their calls. Page 29

30 First Call Resolution. There are many industry studies that show the primary indicator of success and satisfaction is whether or not customers get their questions answered or problems resolved on the first attempt. Call centers measure First Call Resolution (FCR) in a variety of ways, both from an internal tracking approach as well as a direct query to customers. Customer Satisfaction. While there are many indicators of satisfaction as outlined above (service level, abandoned calls, and FCR), the best indication of customer satisfaction is a direct query to customers about selected elements of service. Frontline Staff Some of the issues that staff care about most are related to workload and their work schedules, with these two measures being primary indicators of satisfaction: Staff Occupancy. This is simply a measure of how busy the staff are active on a call or in related after-call work (ACW) compared to idle waiting on a call to arrive. While staff should be busy processing calls, there needs to be a reasonable breather between calls for the staff to catch their breath and recover from the last call to be ready to handle the next customer. Employee Satisfaction. The most obvious measure of employee satisfaction is direct scores and comments from the staff themselves. Senior Management The final stakeholder group is upper management who typically is keeping an eye on the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the operation. Some of the important measures of efficiency and utilization include the following: Staff Occupancy. While also listed as an employee concern, it is also a good measure that provides senior management with a view of how well the personnel are being utilized. Page 30

31 Cost Impacts. Impacts on costs driven by understaffing are discussed. These nine metrics are viewed as the top measures of success for a call center operation, providing a balanced view of customer, staff, and management concerns. In this report, the various degrees of understaffing will be examined with a look at how these primary stakeholder concerns are impacted by staffing decisions made by ICBC management. It is the goal of this report to help the Commission understand how recent staffing decisions have impacted the business, the employees, and the policyholders served by ICBC. Results of Analysis Step 1: Forecast Workload Numbers are provided below that show the overall workload increases during the study period. Workload is calculated by multiplying the number of calls (NCO) by the average handle time (AHT). The first table shows month-by-month comparisons of the number of calls offered (NCO) and the second table shows AHT patterns. Note the steady increases in both from 2012 to 2013 to (Note: Data supplied only complete through October 2014) Exhibit 16A: Number of Calls Offered Number of Calls Offered Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total Calls Page 31

32 Exhibit 16B: Number of Calls Offered Number of Calls Offered 100,000 95,000 90,000 85,000 80,000 75,000 70,000 65,000 60,000 55,000 50,000 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec The table and graph above show the gradual increase in the number of calls offered to the center. There is a gradual, steady increase in these calls, indicating an upward trend in business in general. The numbers below show the corresponding numbers for the average handle time (AHT) of calls. Exhibit 17A: Average Handle Time Average Handle Time Month Jan ,095 Feb ,219 Mar ,160 Apr ,152 May 979 1,008 1,404 Jun 916 1,030 1,456 Jul 956 1,041 1,396 Aug 932 1,030 1,348 Sep 923 1,047 1,269 Oct 866 1,041 1,164 Nov 853 1,100 Dec 894 1,157 Grand Total 910 1,008 1,274 Page 32