Benchmarking Outcomes

By Peter L DeHaan

May 2, 2007

In previous columns we discussed the value of benchmarking your call center, as well an introduction to the benchmarking process.  The challenging and time-consuming part of benchmarking is correctly ascertaining and accurately gathering the requested data and metrics for the analysis.  Once that is done, the next task is to sit back and wait for the benchmarking analysis report.

A comprehensive benchmarking report will assess a wide array of call center issues, which may include:

• Call center costs

• Performance measurements

• Caller or client satisfaction

• Overall call center strategy

• Human resource concerns

• Call processing work flow

• Agent knowledge

• Technological infrastructure

• Facility factors

In general, the benchmarking survey will compare and contrast your call center's various metrics with other call centers.  The most commonly sought after calculation is the average for the group.  This quickly shows if your center is average, above average, or below average.  This is also misleading: in the overall scheme of things, comparisons to "average" are of no real consequence.  Who wants to do business with an average call center?  For that matter, who wants to be an average call center?

More telling and more worthwhile is comparing your center to a peer group.  These are those call centers who have similar characteristics to your operation.  Note that they will not necessarily be in your same industry.  Although call center leaders often desire to be benchmarked against their industry, there is good reason for not doing so.  Quite simply, when someone calls a company, they judge their experience in comparison to other calls they have made in the past, regardless of the industry.  Plus, if you are in an industry with an historically dismal call center track record, do you really care if you are above average to this low-performing group?

In addition to contrasting your numbers with your peer group, there is even more value in comparing your metrics to the best call centers in your peer group, that is, the "best-of-breed."  This assessment is the most valuable of the three.  It is a dependable indicator that can be truly relied upon for an accurate judgment of where your call center stands.

These are all examples of comparing individual measurements.  However, more informative than these examples is when similar groupings of numbers are considered together.  For example, merging together all metrics that relate to efficiency could result in an "efficiency index," thereby giving an overall indication of call processing efficiency.  Conversely, the same approach can be used to those measurements that relate to effectiveness, resulting in an "effectiveness index."  These two indexes are essentially quality and quantity; contrary to popular wisdom, they are not mutually exclusive.  The top call centers have been shown to achieve both efficiency and effectiveness.  When these two indexes are plotted at right angles on a two dimensional graph, a very telling matrix emerges.  Some upper-right quadrant call centers are shown to excel at both, some exhibit excellence in one or the other, while other groups are proven to be neither efficient or effective.  Seeing this portrayed graphically leaves little doubt about how one's center ranks.

It is also instructive to look at your call center's ranking in your peer group for each individual statistic.  Most call centers will find that they have a high ranking (high percentile) for certain metrics and a less stellar ranking (lower percentile) in other areas.  The way to best perfect your call center's operation is to select the lowest ranked statistic and seek to improve it.  This is essentially "picking the low hanging fruit" – that is, seeking the most accessible, easiest to achieve area, thereby producing the greatest results with the least amount of effort.  Improving this singular metric will also improve either your efficiency or effectiveness index, as well as resulting in a better placement on the overall performance matrix.

When considering these statistical areas of weakness, common improvement methods or technologies can be suggested, along with their corresponding cost, payback period, and return on investment.  This allows multiple possible solutions to be easily considered for their respective relative merits and costs.

To achieve the maximum benefit of benchmarking, it should not be a one-time occurrence.  The real benefit is in periodically repeating the process to gauge improvement and determine new areas to address.  In this way, incremental improvement can be made and measured, quarter by quarter, year by year, as you watch your call center improve to become the best in your peer group, becoming a standard bearer by which other call centers are measured.

Call center excellence does not occur quickly or by accident, but slowly over time as a proven measurement, tracking, and improvement system is faithfully followed.  Benchmarking is ideally suited in this regard.