Ensures that headcount is managed and shifted in an appropriate fashion to both achievecustomer satisfaction while minimizing cost

Function of Work Force Management (WFM) Seat utilization Revenue per seat Manage Opex (Operating expense) Check erlang calculator on the web - widely used

Common SLA's:
-AHT(Average Hold Time) is the average time of the entire call (The formula for measuring AHT is the total call time divided by the amount of calls) - Quality score (Defined by client) - NPS Net promoter score (Feedback taken from customers post call)* very important for customer service based domain - Attrition - Absenteeism - Defect rates - Cost/effort efficiency - ABA (Abandonment Rate): Percentage of calls abandoned while waiting to be answered. - ASA (Average Speed to Answer): Average time (usually in seconds) it takes for a call to be answered by the service desk. - TSF (Time Service Factor): Percentage of calls answered within a definite timeframe, e.g., 80% in 20 seconds. - FCR (First-Call Resolution): Percentage of incoming calls that can be resolved without the use of a callback or without having the caller call back the helpdesk to finish resolving the case. - TAT (Turn-Around Time): Time taken to complete a certain task. - MTTR (Mean Time To Recover): Time taken to recover after an outage of service.

 CALL CENTER TERMINOLOGIES

ABANDONED CALL A call wherein the caller disconnects the line before he speaks to a call centre agent. AUTOMATIC NUMBER IDENTIFICATION It is used by all call centers to keep a record of people who have called up with their phone numbers. It is also an effective method to detect threatening or nuisance calls and pass on the information to the relevant authorities. AUTO ANSWER GREETING When the customer calls up the call center, he is greeted by a pre recorded voice message to put him on hold, till his call is answered by a call center agent This pre recorded greeting can be done by the concerned BPO itself. CALL DISTRIBUTION Many call center agents work in one process. The experience and ability level will obviously vary from one agent to another. With this system, the call can be routed to the appropriate call center agent, taking into account his knowledge and experience. DISPATCH CALLS In this, the call center agent has to simply take the message and pass on the information to the recipient, by way of a text message to a cell phone. AVERAGE CALL HANDLING TIME This is the total number of minutes put in by the agent in a day, divided by the total number of calls taken by him. This gives the Average Call Handling Time (ACHT) HELP DESK

Help Desk calls basically refer to calls providing customer support services to people who have problems with software packages or hardware problems. INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE This is basically to reduce customers waiting time and provide them with quick and efficient services. When a customer calls up customer service, he will have instructions given to him, by a pre recorded voice. The customer has to follow the instructions, to ensure that his call is handled by the right person. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT This is the agreement signed by the BPO and the company, when the company has decided to hand over the operations to a BPO. The Service Level Agreement contains the guidelines which the BPO has to strictly follow. Any kind of deviation may lead to customer dissatisfaction which will make the customer go for another company. No company would want to lose its existing customers. Normally the Service Level Agreement will cover the following areas:

Recruitment Training Quality Score Customer Satisfaction BARGING

When a new agent is on a call, the quality team can hear the conversation between the agent and the customer. This is called as barging. SCRIPT If you are a part of an inbound or outbound process, you are given a script, which you necessarily, need to follow. The script contains details of the dialogue, to be followed by the agent, while interacting with the customers. All Voice Processes have a script. QUALITY The job of the quality team is to listen to the interaction between the customer and the agent and give them a feedback on their performance. This is done only in the case of new call center agents wherein they are given a quality score for each call and also a constructive feedback. QUALITY SCORE When a new call center agent takes calls he will obviously take some time to settle down before he starts performing. The initial three months when a fresher joins a BPO till he is officially made part of the team and given targets, is normally referred to as the honeymoon period. The quality team will listen to

some of the calls and give him a quality score. The quality score is given in percentages. All agents who are part of the voice process need to get the qualifying quality score, even if they have over performed. This applies to all agents of a voice process, irrespective of whether they are fresh or inexperienced. PREDICTIVE DIALING In this a database of customers with the phone numbers are loaded in the system. The dialer will start dialing the numbers automatically and if the call is picked up, it will route it to the concerned call center agent. If the call is not picked up it will put the number back in the list for redialing. QUEUE The queue is a system wherein calls are on hold or yet to be answered by the call center agent. The number of customers in queue can be seen on the screen by the call center agent and this will help him to dispose of each call as quickly as possible depending on the queue. TALK TIME Talk Time is the total time spent by the call center agent on the phone with one customer. The talk time starts from the moment the agent greets the customer till he finishes the call. TOLL FREE NUMBERS Toll Free numbers enable customers to call up the call center without incurring any charges. FLOOR Floor is the place where all call center agents, team coaches and team leaders sit. BAY The entire floor is divided into various sections. Each section is called a bay. Typically each bay will have a team leader and his team of agents. CALL ESCALATION When a call center agent is not able to handle a customer, he will ask the customer to hold the line, and transfer the call to a senior agent or his team leader. This is known as call escalation. SIDE JACK When new agents come to the floor after they clear the training, they are made to sit with experienced call center agents. The new call center agents are given headsets which can be connected to the system. The new agents can then hear the conversation between the agent and the customer. Normally side

jacking is done for three or four days. This is very effective because the agent can listen to live calls and knows how to handle various situations. DO NOT CALL REGISTRY In the US and UK customers can register with their phone service provide and pay a fixed amount each year to ensure that their name is not put in the telephone directory. Such people are part of the DO NOT CALL LIST Abroad each person gets around 20 telemarketing calls on an average. Customers who do not want to be disturbed register with the DNC Registry. Since all BPOs buy databases directly from the market, there is every chance that the database contains lot of DNC numbers. Normally many calls go to DNC customers who get very angry or irritated. They can also record the call and sue the company according to their legal laws. LOG ON When the shift is about to start, the team leader asks all the agents to log in and get ready to receive or make calls as the case may be. LOG OFF Agents normally log off from the system when their shift finishes or when their team leader wants to talk to his whole team. UPDATES When there is a change in the product, as in, if new schemes are launched by the company or new features are introduced in a model, this information is passed on to the agents who can use it effectively while interacting with the customers. Usefull Websites: http://www.12manage.com www.slideshare.net http://www.provenmodels.com www.kpoweb.com http://www.sourcingmag.com