Best Practices for Contact Center Optimization How Much Is An Agent s Minute Worth? White Paper How Much is an Agent s Minute Worth?
What factors are causing agent downtime in your contact center? Dialer speed and effectiveness Daily campaign changes Hit-rate problems Longer-than-expected conversation times
Table of Contents Exexutive Summary Using Micro-Metrics to Calculate Loss Best Practices for Analytics and Operations Analytics Operations Contact Center Optimization Technologies About Noble Systems 4 5 5 5 8 9 10 How Much is an Agent s Minute Worth? 3 Noble Systems Corporation
How Much Is An Agent s Minute Worth? Best Practices for Contact Center Optimization Executive Summary The loss in productivity of a few minutes per agent every month can translate into significant revenue losses for even a medium-sized call center. Increasing staffing levels might improve the raw metrics for results, but that only masks the problem. If your operation cannot maximize Right-Party-Contact ( RPC ) rates, revenues are affected not only during the current month but all the way through to charge-off. In the same way, a lack of operational efficiency leads to the limited utilization of dialer resources that also results in lower revenues. However, organizations can maximize agent productivity by supporting best practices with software solutions for contact-targeting analytics and improved operational efficiency. In the current economical environment, good is no longer good enough. Organizations need to achieve increasingly higher levels of efficiency and productivity to remain competitive. This is especially true for today s contact centers. By its very nature, a call center faces significant challenges in terms of agent utilization. Call centers have to staff for peak periods during the early morning and evenings and then try to keep their agents busy in the valley between peaks by finding accounts that are contactable during the day. Agent downtime can also be the result of other factors: Dialer speed and effectiveness Campaign changes during the day which create delays of seconds or even minutes before new campaigns are displayed for agents Problems with hit-rates that generate a spike in idle time Agents talking to a single contact longer than expected, affecting the predictive environment of other agents How Much is an Agent s Minute Worth? 4 Noble Systems Corporation
Using Micro-Metrics to Calculate Loss For many organizations, agent downtime is simply a part of the cost of doing business. But how fast does this cost add up? Four minutes a day: By evaluating metrics at the micro-level we can better understand the true cost of agent downtime. In the example shown below, we assume a cumulative downtime of only four minutes per agent every day. A loss that small is almost undetectable in even the most highly organized and well-run call centers. Agent Count Marginal Revenue per Hour Lost Monthly Opportunity X Annually Downtime = per Month 5-Year Technology Lifespan 50 FTE $60 2 hrs $6,000 $72,000 100 FTE $60 2 hrs $12,000 $144,000 150 FTE $60 2 hrs $18,000 $216,000 $360,000 $720,000 $1,080,000 However, four minutes a day over 30 days adds up to 2 hours every month per Full-Time Equivalent ( FTE ), as described in the chart above. Consider a call center with 150 FTEs, with an hourly marginal FTE revenue (after costs) of $60, namely an average collection or sale of $75 (after pass-through cost of the loan or sale), minus an example salary of $15. That amounts to over $18,000 in lost opportunity every month, or $216,000 per year, or $1 million over the lifespan all from only four minutes of downtime per agent per day. Best Practices for Analytics and Operations To increase agent utilization, organizations can take a strategic approach by supporting best practices with software solutions for contact-targeting analytics and improved operational efficiency. Analytics Most organizations have or can generate large amounts of data on accounts, payments and call histories. Best practices for analytics can leverage this data to: Develop target metrics that directly affect the bottom line, such as promises-to-pay, sales and dollars-at-risk Augment and enhance analytic decisions based on past experience and internal modeling In general, the right analytic solution develops custom models that accurately predict the probabilities of getting an RPC during each hour of each day. Other analytic models can calculate the probability of obtaining a promise from each RPC. By using data contained in the calling list along with call result history, the analytic solution can build models that are highly predictive, even if an account has never before entered collections. How Much is an Agent s Minute Worth? 5 Noble Systems Corporation
The chart below provides a simplified model of how analytic tools are capable of improving RPCs. Five accounts are assigned minimum payments based on outstanding balances. Each account is assumed to have the same level of delinquency. Acct Min Pay Probability of Success TP1 TP2 TP3 TP4 TP5 Balance Return per account Prioritized Return per account Optimized Return per account 5216 $195 65% 20% 55% 35% 5% $68.25 $107.25 $126.75 4927 $159 70% 10% 80% 5% 35% $55.65 $111.30 $127.20 5139 $321 50% 45% 45% 65% 45% $160.50 $144.45 $208.65 4241 $226 20% 70% 50% 10% 75% $113.00 $158.20 $158.20 5058 $275 40% 65% 10% 75% 95% $178.75 $206.25 $261.25 Estimated Return $576.15 $727.45 $882.05 Estimated Success 2.35 3.15 3.75 At the far left, the Minimum Pay column shows the amount we can fully collect or sell to each account. Based on analytics, we can determine the likelihood of an RPC that leads to either a Promise-To-Pay or sales acceptance. In the Sort by Balance column, the accounts are sorted based on their individual balances so account number three is first, five is second, and so forth. For the purposes of our example, we are assuming that the dialer is only sorting calls by balance and is unaware of the Probability of Success percentages shown to the left. Sort by Balance shows a total Estimated Return of $576.15 for all five accounts. We can also calculate Estimated Success in terms of an RPC. So for Account 5216, we divide $68.25 by $195 to get.35. This means that if the Probability of Success equals 1, then for every 5 calls, the probability of an RPC will be.35. Using this method, we can arrive at an Estimated Success for all five accounts as.35. +.35. +.5 +.5 +.65 = 2.35. The Prioritized column shows the advantages of using basic analytics. The five accounts are now ranked according to the Probability of Success percentages. This strategy increases the total estimated return to $727.45 and the total Estimated Success of an RPC to 3.15. This level of success is typical for most analytic tools. The third column is true optimization, available with Noble Analytics technology. This method uses analytics to calculate the best success based on a combination of account and time period for all five accounts during the day. With optimization, the probability of success for one time period or for one account might be reduced by 5% in order to increase the Probability of Success in another period or account by 20% resulting in a net gain of 15%. The availability of agent resources at any given time is also considered. With optimization, our Estimated Return total has grown to $882.05. The Estimated Success is now.65 +.80 +.65 +.70 +.95 = 3.75. How Much is an Agent s Minute Worth? 6 Noble Systems Corporation
Operations Best practices for operational efficiency can work with contact-targeting analytics to optimize agent utilization and increase revenues. Effective software solutions can help organizations: Automate production workflow while transparently managing change in real-time Create advanced recall / phone strategy independently by segment using non-traditional and call history data The example below illustrates the call flow that organizations typically develop in a contact center environment. The dialer account pool is divided into smaller segments, each with different phone strategies, recall strategies and compliance rules. Decisions are made according to these different strategies and rules, but campaigns are executed independently. That is to say, the dialer cannot apply four different phone strategies to the same campaign. Pre-defined Account Segmentation Unique Call Strategy and Business Rules Campaign Scheduling and Execution Direct Account Pool 0-30 Day Low Bal 30-60 Day 50% 20% 30% Dialer Campaign Dialer Campaign The right optimization solutions can overcome these limitations. For example, locking mechanisms can be created for 0-to-30 day accounts after two passes, for low balance accounts after one pass, and for 30-to-60 day accounts after four passes. In each segment the treatment is different, so the relative penetration can be accurately measured and different segments can be targeted accordingly. In addition, this targeting can be accomplished through scheduling that is pre-defined and pre-configured automatically, with no administrative effort required. Furthermore, the optimized targeting and scheduling can be accomplished in a single campaign that is distributed automatically to one or more dialers with one or more agent populations. With this degree of automation, agent downtime is significantly reduced since an administrator is not required to manually switch campaigns during the day. How Much is an Agent s Minute Worth? 8 Noble Systems Corporation
Below we see how operational efficiency can be enhanced throughout the day with automated scheduling for each segment. In this example, we have added a VIP segment. Early Stage 0-30 Day Low Bal 30-60 Day VIP 8:00am 10:00am 12:00pm 2:00pm 5:00pm 7:00pm When agents arrive in the morning they login to the same campaign with predefined schedules based on different segments. The 0-to-30 day segment is scheduled to begin first, followed by the others. Most segments continue to receive calls, but the 0-to-30 day segment is locked after 6:30pm, and the VIP accounts are locked after one pass. This scheduling can be changed in real-time, but it can also be pre-defined so resources can be scheduled ahead of time, helping to reduce over- or understaffing. Contact Center Optimization Technologies Noble Systems is the recognized leader in providing tightly integrated products to increase agent utilization and enhance call center performance. CallTech predicts Right-Party-Contacts and improves the rate of Promises-To-Pay. The solution develops unique, customer-driven analytic models, with no pooled data sources. As a result, organizations can optimize agent resources for enhanced collections. With OnQ, call centers can automate outbound calling campaigns while adding power and flexibility to their existing dialing systems. Administrative time can be refocused to develop new strategies. Organizations can also leverage multi-skilled agents with a single campaign while managing recall, phone and compliance strategies on an individual basis. How Much is an Agent s Minute Worth? 9 Noble Systems Corporation
About Noble Systems Noble Systems offers a unified suite of multi-channel inbound, outbound and blended contact processing, strategy planning, and resource management tools to meet the needs of small, midsize, and enterprise organizations. Whatever your business needs or size, Noble Systems can match you with the solution set that meets your functionality requirements and organizational goals, and offers the right-fit for your contact center to help you improve productivity, reduce costs, increase performance and grow your company. Our solutions allow companies to more effectively communicate with their customers via multiple channels, including inbound/outbound/blended voice, email, fax, and web. This unified system includes the key software technologies that contact centers need most: Predictive dialing, Inbound contact management and ACD, IP-PBX, Self Service IVR software, CTI for intelligent screen pops, Digital Recording, Workforce Optimization, Real-time Reporting, Campaign Strategy and Management, and Decisioning and Analytics tools. Noble also provides seamless integration to existing corporate environments in both premise and cloud-based platforms, reducing your learning curve and protecting your technology investments. The leading brand providing best-in-class analytics applications to the collections market, Noble s solutions empower business users to maximize agent productivity and optimize customer contacts through advanced contact analytics, automated decisioning and dynamic campaign management. Many of the world s most successful companies have chosen the CallTech, OnQ and Vincio solutions to enable them to proactively communicate with their customers more effectively, thereby improving business performance and enhancing their customer relationships. For over 20 years, Noble Systems has been delivering solutions that build performance and productivity, improve the quality of customer contacts, and reduce costs. Contact us to learn more. +1 (404) 851 1331 Worldwide +1 (888) 866 2538 Americas +61 (2) 8222 0500 APAC +44 (0) 161 772 7100 EMEA www.noblesystems.com 10
Get to Know Noble Systems Are you ready to maximize the value of your agents time with powerful analytics and contact center optimization technologies? Contact us for your FREE Business Assessment and let Noble Systems help you grow your business! 1 (888) 866 2538 www.noblesystems.com The technologies and methods contained in this document may not be applicable for all situations. For more information, please contact Noble Systems directly. To learn more about integrated collection center technology solutions from Noble Systems, including successful client applications of the Noble Solution, visit our website at www.noblesystems.com or call us at 1.888.866.2538. Copyright 2016 Noble Systems Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission from Noble Systems Corporation. Noble Systems, Noble and the n logo are registered trademarks of Noble Systems Corporation. All others are property of their respective owners. While every precaution has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this document, Noble Systems Corporation assumes no responsibility for inadvertent errors or omissions. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. Noble is a continually evolving product suite. The information listed above is believed to be accurate at the time of printing. Please contact Noble Systems to learn more about the latest features. The descriptions of solutions or services set forth in this paper are provided for informational purposes only. Some functionality may require purchase of specific products or services. In the event a customer purchases solutions and services from Noble Systems Corporation, the definitive agreement executed by the parties for the solutions or services engagement will contain the actual description of the functional design or services specifications to be provided by Noble Systems for purposes of that transaction.
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