Scary Math !!

(Sunder Ramachandran emphasizes the need to measure the lifetime value of a call center agent).

Do we treat our agents as well as we should? This is the key question that we need to find the answer to. Although there are plenty of examples within the industry of good incentive schemes, fine recognition and reward programs, loyalty bonus etc, the million dollar question is - Why do agents leave?

Turnover is high because there is virtually no career path built into being an agent. There is little sense that the skills you build will be useful in moving up the ladder. It’s a dead end and it’s always been marketed as such within the industry. As an industry, we cater to transients, students and people who need adjustable schedules.

As a whole we treat our agents with some amount of indifference. The way we treat agents affects the bottom line of the business. It’s that simple, agents cost a lot of money; they are expensive to hire, train and to keep on the job.

Is there any reason to look at it differently? Here’s one:

Based on known trends, let’s say that an Agent will stay with a company for an average of 6 months. Then, taking what we know from industry statistics, let’s have a little fun and do some scary math.

Say for argument sake that an agent handles up to 6 - 7 calls per hour, (each call lasting about 10mins) or about 48 -50 calls in an eight hour shift. That’s 250 calls per week which adds to 6000 calls in 6 months. The agent would take about 12000 calls if he/she stays on for a year. No matter how you slice it, that’s an enormous number of agent-customer interactions.

How scared are you that the person you barely know is going to talk to about 12,000 of your customers? At precisely the moment when the customer is most:

a) Ticked off    b) Willing to buy    c) Confused?

Let’s put some dollars to these 12,000 interactions. Depending on what you sell (Let’s say credit cards) that’s either a lot of money made, or a lot of opportunities squandered. Can the agent on the phone make the most of that opportunity by convincing someone who might go to a competitor? Or sell them something that they might not have thought of? Do we even know what they are capable of?

Agent Performance:
There are many metrics you can measure about agent performance in a call center that may have some bearing on customer satisfaction. Some of these include
•       Agent’s product knowledge.
•       Agent’s communication and soft skills.
•       Speed with which the call was answered.
We really need to place this tremendous value on an agent – taking into account the cost of training and the cost of those 12,000 interaction opportunities (possibly squandered). Let’s think of it as the measure of customer satisfaction (C-SAT scores). If we are taking the trouble of measuring that metric, why not put our thinking caps on and measure what’s most important…

The lifetime value of an agent. What say???

(Sunder works as a Trainer with a leading BPO. He can be reached at sunder_trg@hotmail.com.)