rev 2 Six Sigma Project Charter Name of project: Decreasing percent of transferred out calls by 50% Green belt: Submitted by: Joy May e-mail: joy@purdue.edu Date submitted: May 2, 202 I. Project Selection Process Item Yes No Comments Key business issue Linked to a define process Customers identified Defects clearly defined x x x x My project was selected based upon the percentage of transferred out calls that are being done from our office. Tools used: Phone reports, Value Stream Map, p-chart, Fishbone Diagram, C&E Matrix, Potential X Matrix, Impact/Effort Matrix II. Project Description Project Title Decreasing percent of transferred calls Date Charted Target Completion Date Actual Completion Date 5/2/202 0/7/202 Project Leader Team Facilitator Team Champion Joy May Joy May Joy May Estimated Cost Savings Actual Cost Savings Costs of implementing project Time $0 Team members Joy May, Janet Reed, Susan Albertson, Kathy Budreau, Misty Tarrh, Sandi Reese, Robin King, Jennifer Swingle Problem Statement There are numerous phone calls that we receive in the Bursar s Office that are not able to be answered by our staff. Therefore, they need to be transferred to the correct office. Some callers are transferred numerous times. Project Goal and Metrics For those with questions to call the correct office initially or to determine how else the caller s questions can be answered to decrease the amount of calls needing to be transferred out.
rev 2 Describe the challenges and support required Determining how callers are initially being connected to our office. Determining who in what office is transferring the callers to our office. Determining what training needs to take place for transfers not to occur. Making sure the report is as accurate as possible. Project Schedule D. Select the output characteristic. Date:5/2/2 % of transferred out calls Criteria: Is there a measurable output? yes Is there a performance standard for the output? no Does variation currently exist? yes Is there a process associated with the problem? no Is the solution unknown? yes D2. Define the output performance standard. Date:5/2/2 Currently, the transfer out % is anywhere from 20-36%. The goal of this project is to decrease the amount of transferred out calls by 50%. D3. Describe the process. Date:5/2/2 Required tools: Detailed process map/value Stream Map See attached. M. Validate the measuring system. Date: Required tools: Attribute Agreement Analysis When trying to do an Attribute Agreement Analysis, I find it is not possible. There are too many aspects that affect the reason why a call needs transferred, there is no possible way to narrow it down to a few people and a few reasons. Many situations are unique. M2. Establish current process capability for the output. Date: Required tools: Control chart See attached p chart. I retrieved a year s worth of phone reports, which reports the phone calls that are transferred from all lines within the office. At this point, that is the numbers I am using as ACD direct lines were not in use by all phone answerers. I have programmed all ACD phones with the correct ACD transfer line to get more accurate reports directly related to ACD lines in the future. M3. Determine project objectives. Date:5/2/2 Decrease the amount of transferred out calls by 50%. 2
rev 2 A. Identify and list all potential causes (inputs). Date:6/9/2 Required tools: Brainstorming, Fishbone diagram During our Brainstorming, we put together the fishbone diagram. The group determined everything that we could think that would affect each area of the diagram in relation to problems when answering phones. A2. Screen potential causes. Date:9/6/2 Required tools: Cause and effect matrix I sent the list of things that affect answering phones out to those that answer phones and had them put the items in order of importance. From there, I determined my top causes of transferring calls to other offices. A3. Determine the f(x) key input variable(s) Date:9/5/2 Required tools: Potential X matrix I took the top 0 from each phone persons list and took the 3 that were on all lists of the top ten. Called wrong number Caller unsure what to ask Anger level of caller I-. Establish operating tolerances for key inputs and output. Date:7/23/2 Timing was a factor for trying to fix the called wrong number issue, which was the most found top reason as to why we transfer calls out of the office. There is a main Purdue website revamp currently underway. I am working with other departments and Marketing and Media to see if we can direct callers to the correct place by the main Purdue website. I am also going to look into the Operator department and see how they are deciding who they transfer callers to if the caller calls the operator for direction to the correct department. I met with the group of those who answer phones to do an Impact/Effort Matrix to determine some different ideas to implement to meet the goal of decreasing transfer out calls by 50%. I have implemented the High Impact/Low Effort and am working on the Low Impact/Low Effort suggestions. I-2. Re-evaluate the measuring system. Required tools: Gage R&R/Attribute Agreement Analysis Date:9/5/2 I started out my project looking at all transferred calls both in and out of our office. After doing research and talking with others, it was determined that the only thing we can really affect is the amount of transferred out calls, the transferred in calls, we have no control over. Therefore, I changed my project from all transferred calls to focus just on transferred out calls. The measuring system will still be the phone reports. 3
rev 2 I-3. Establish final capability for key input(s) and the output. Required tools: Process capability, Control chart Date:9/2/2 There are a few new processes I am working on getting implemented. Some quick wins that I have already implemented that may or may not have any affect. Other solutions are based on timing, and others are longer term. See proposal. C. Implement process controls for the key inputs. Date:9/28/2 Required tool: Four levels of control, error proofing Our level of control is a Level 2 since we are able to receive weekly reports of phone transfers, we can do weekly process checks and regular auditing to see where problems may still be lingering. Once our Line of Business code reports start to generate, that will continue to help make improvements to different areas. Follow-up to ensure effectiveness. Date://2, 4//2, 0//2 I cannot complete this section until I have established my changes and can gather enough data to see if the changes I have made have met my goal. I will look at my phone reports again in 3 months to see if the changes I have personally implemented have made a difference. Once the Purdue main website has been revamped, I will check in 3 more months. I should be able to see if the improvements made have had an effect in about 2 months. Black Belts must utilize the following additional tools: FMEA, hypothesis testing, regression, design of experiments, and one lean tool of their choice. 4
September 28, 202 Purdue University Bursar s Office 60 Purdue Mall West Lafayette, IN 47907 (PH) 765-494-523 Six Sigma Project: Reducing the percentage of transferred out calls Prepared for: Prepared by: John Higgins Joy May Description of Project: The Bursar s Office receives numerous phone calls that are not able to be answered by our staff. Therefore, the call has to be transferred to the correct office that is in charge of answering the type of question the caller has. This project is to determine ways to decrease the amount of transferred out calls specifically, as we have no control over the calls that are transferred to the Bursar s Office. The objective: To determine changes that can be made to help decrease the amount of calls the Bursar s Office is forced to transfer to another department because the question cannot be answered by our office. The Solution: I have implemented a few changes along the way in this project; things I hope are high impact/low effort. First, I made sure that all ACD phones have the same transfer out number so we are all being consistent with the phone number we are transferring to. Second, I added DFA, Registrar, and Admissions phone number to our main Bursar website. Third, I stressed to the staff that answers phones the importance of asking the caller enough questions to make sure the caller really does need another office, and that we cannot help them. The biggest change is the www.purdue.edu main website. The site is being revamped in the near future, and the 4 core departments in Enrollment Management (Bursar, Registrar, DFA, and Admissions) met with the people in Marketing and Media that are overseeing the project. We have given them significant input to make sure these different areas are represented well on the main Purdue website. It was also suggested that in the Purdue directory, a person could type Bursar and our information would come up. That is something Marketing and Media hopes to
make possible. They will also work with the different departments to improve the functionality of the Google search bar at the top of the Purdue main website. Things for future advancement: I am going to look into implementing Google Analytics with our websites. Even though we have Urchin available to us, it is not user friendly and rather difficult to interpret. Admissions has been using Google Analytics and went over some of the features. It seems to be a very user friendly, free service that is forever getting updated. It will be helpful in the future to determine where users are coming and going to find possible website improvements to make to decrease calls altogether. I have had Line of Business keys put on all the ACD phones. In the near future, those who answer phones will be trained in how to use this key. Basically, this key will track where we are transferring the majority of our calls to. This will help in determining if there is a better way to get these callers to the right place the first time. I have been working closely with Financial Aid to learn more about the Banner screens they use in their office to look up student s loan information. I hope to determine what screens will be easy for the Bursar s Office staff to decipher and give student s more information before needing to transfer them.
Bursar s Office Reducing the amount of transferred out calls
Percent of transferred calls 40% 35% 36% 34% 36% 30% 30% 30% 3% 27% 27% 25% 25% 22% 23% 20% 20% 5% 0% 5% 0% 2
Transferred out calls vs. Total calls P Chart of C 0.38 0.36 0.34 0.32 UCL=0.3229 Proportion 0.30 0.28 0.26 _ P=0.290 LCL=0.2590 0.24 0.22 0.20 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sample 8 9 0 2 Tests performed with unequal sample sizes 3
Value Stream Map 4
Fishbone Diagram 5
Cause and Effect Matrix Janet Sandi Kathy Misty Jennifer Access to banner screens 4 4 6 Anger level of caller 5 6 5 4 0 Attitude of caller 6 5 3 Attitude of receiver 7 4 7 Bad connection (cellphone) 9 Banner down Called wrong number 2 0 Caller unsure what to ask 3 3 5 4 Cross training 6 2 Direct mail information 8 Distractions Email information Experience of receiver 2 8 Interruptions Lack of training 9 Language barriers 8 Messaging system (interative mssg) 9 No accountability to give answer 5 6
Potential X Matrix Janet Sandi Kathy Misty Jennifer Access to banner screens 4 4 6 Anger level of caller 5 6 5 4 0 Attitude of caller 6 5 3 Attitude of receiver 7 4 7 Bad connection (cellphone) 9 Banner down Called wrong number 2 0 Caller unsure what to ask 3 3 5 4 7
Impact vs. Effort Matrix 8
IMPACT/EFFORT MATRIX High IMPACT QUICK WINS All ACD lines transfer to same phone number Add other office phone numbers to our main Bursar website Stress to phone answerers to ask more questions MAJOR PROJECTS Changes to www.purdue.edu Starting up Google Analytics Cross training How is the operator determining where to transfer Changes to MyPurdue to better explain reason for hold All offices in same building Fix installment plan calculations FILL INS Specific contacts in other offices Advisors get list of who answers what THANKLESS TASKS Low EFFORT High
caller Transfer call Ask other staff/ office/im for help Transfer call Answer Phone Listen to caller's request Look up information Ask for additional information Look up more information Answer question End call P/T = 0s P/T = -5m P/T = 2-5m P/T = 2-5m P/T = 2-5m P/T = 2-5m P/T = 5s D/T = 0 D/T = 0 D/T = 2-5m D/T = 2-5m D/T = 2-5m D/T = 0 D/T = 0 % C/A = 98% 3 staff % C/A = 80% 3 staff 30-60s % C/A = 95% 3 staff 20s % C/A = 80% 3-5 staff % C/A = 95% 3-5 staff 60s % C/A = 90% 3 staff % C/A = 00% 3 staff PT - 0s L/T - 0s % C/A - 98% 30-60s - 5m - 5m 80% 30-60s 2-5m 2-5m 95% 20s 2-5m 2-5m 80% 2-5m 2-5m 95% 60s 2-5m 0 90% 5s 0 00%
MATERIAL MEASUREMENT PERSONNEL - Bad connection (cellphone) - Reference material - Website information - Direct mail information - Email information - Number of times transferred - Called wrong number - Time to respond - Volume of calls - Top 0 caller?s - Office hours (dupl) - Lack of training - Experience of receiver - Number of receivers answering - No accountability to give answer - Language barriers (dupl) - Anger level (dupl) - Cross training (dupl) - Attitude of caller (dupl) - Attitude of receiver (dupl) - Workload (dupl) - Attitude of receiver - Attitude of caller - No central call center - Bad connection (dupl) - Language barriers - Anger level of caller - Banner down - Time of year - Interruptions - Distractions - Office hours - Workload - Person answering phone not asking for accurate info - Caller unsure what to ask - Cross training - Access to banner screens - Website referral - Called wrong number (dupl) - Office hours (dupl) - Time to respond (dupl) - Non-ACD line - Access to Banner screens (dupl) - Banner down (dupl) - Voicemail - Messaging system (interative mssg) Transfer call ENVIRONMENT METHODS MACHINE