How Many Calls Did You Handle Today?

The managers of a small internal call center tracked the number of calls handled each day. In efforts to improve customer service, pep talks and incentives were put in place to reward the team if they could increase the number of calls handled without increasing staff. It worked, and within a few months the same group was handling about twenty percent more calls. Success!

Unfortunately, some quick data collection about the purpose of each call revealed that about half of all the calls were not new orders but were calls to follow up on something that hadn't been thoroughly completed - checking for order status, looking for supporting paperwork, providing information missed on an earlier call, reporting an incorrect shipment, trying to find a person, or asking for copies of invoices. All of these demands on the call center were counted the same, a call is a call and they were handling more calls than ever before.

With the focus on increasing capacity, the customer service reps felt pressure and incentive to handle calls more quickly, and so they were. Not dramatically, but shaving a little time here and there on each call to try to speed things up. Unfortunately, this often resulted in less complete communication, a few details missed, and slightly incomplete understanding of customer needs - resulting in more calls that subsequently needed to be handled to fix things up. A similar focus on increasing and rewarding activity in specific departments existed throughout the company, and many of the calls were due to minor problems occuring throughout the organization. Since all outside communication flowed through the call center, it felt the impact of little glitches all over the company.

By tracking the type and frequency of calls, and working to improve the concrete little details in the call center and throughout the company that were contributing to all this failure demand, management was able to methodically reduce the churn, the customer service busy-work. Over a period of six months, the number of calls handled actually decreased, but this was because true customer service was improving significantly; customers were calling mostly to place new orders, rather than to follow up on previous calls. This kind of work never stops, and there is always further room for improvement.

All calls are not equal so don't bother just counting them. Look at which are new, valued calls and which are based on some previous little (or big) failure. Then work systematically to reduce the sources of the failures, throughout the company. That's the key to improving your customer service department.