Solving Core Business Problems by listening to Call Centres and Leveraging Lean Six Sigma

Thursday, 30 July 2009 15:49

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All too often companies continue to use their inbound customer service call centre as the ‘garbage processing’ function of the organization.  Then when the noise about poor service gets too loud and the costs of handling all this garbage gets too high, the trend is to outsource the call centre to a cheaper operator, which is often an off-shore location in a developing country.

Today, outsourcing call centres is the biggest trend since the rush to implement ERP systems of the late 1990’s.  A perceived benefit of the outsourced arrangement is that the company is able to prescribe service delivery through performance metrics as defined in the Service Level Agreement (SLA).  This is supposed to ensure that customer service levels and customer problems are suitably addressed.  Due to the visibility of call answering times and call resolution, Speed of Answer (SoA) and First Time Fix (FTF) are often the favorite metrics defined in the SLA.  The interpretation is that the Call Centre that can resolve customer queries quickly and preferably in the fist contact with the customer can take more new calls.  The irony is that these metrics are often mutually exclusive.  However, the call centre management team and Customer Service Agent (CSA) are bound by the SLA to chase these elusive targets.

At the same time companies are rushing to physically remove the call centres from core business, there is considerable effort being made to remotely reconnect the call centre through the use of technology.  The objective is to use technology to empower the CSA’s to fix customer problems in their first contact, FTX. A wide selection of Information Technology (IT) and Telephonic applications have been designed (and sometimes over-engineered) to specifically address these challenges.  So with all the SLA’s and technology in place, why is first time fix so elusive?  Why are customers continuing to complain about their service experience?

Is it because the IT applications missed the mark?  Is it because companies have the wrong approach to their call centres?  Or is it because CSA’s lack accountability?
The IT and Telephonic applications have certainly made the Call Centre Manager’s life a lot easier – but our view is that they have failed to address the root causes of the poor service.  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and workflow tools try to re-establish the link between call centers and business operations but these tools are often a paradox creating more handoffs that further degrade the very service-promise that they endeavor to improve.  This lengthens query-resolution cycle time, thus limiting the ability of the CSA to provide exceptional service.  In this environment, the call center agent is only able to make a promise to resolve the query instead of being empowered to actually resolve the query.  This ironically sets in motion a guaranteed dysfunctional process and sets up the CSA and the call centre for failure.  The result is a customer experience involving multiple calls to resolve a single (and often simple) issue.

The answer might lie in the approach that companies have towards their call centers.  Company executives have been moving in the right direction to enable their call center agents.  They appear to understand that the touch-points customers have with their CSA’s are almost the only substance customers use to formulate an impression of their whole organization.  There is a strong financial re-investment in the Call Centre to ensure that the CSA is empowered to perform a slick first-time resolution to queries.  However, this effort still appears to be coming up short.

The common suspicion that CSA’s lack accountability is misguided.  Perhaps there are some ineffective CSA’s that don’t have the knowledge or experience to solve problems, but this is probably not the root cause.  The real source of the problem usually lies in the fact that, at any one time, good, hard-working CSA’s are juggling multiple client queries and are only armed with a patchwork of systems and a set of dysfunctional processes with which to offer service. And although they are usually measured on call resolution, which they usually do achieve, they are also measured on First Time Fix, something that, in this environment, is nearly impossible to deliver.
What we have observed is that in the rush to solve the problem, a larger one was created.  Companies have lost contact with their customers and their Customer Contact Centres.  The disconnection created by disengaging call centers from core business robs the business of the data rich environment that can contribute to improving internal processes and customer service.

The bottom line is that more often than not, poor service is rooted in broken process and not call targets. These broken processes are the root cause of so many failed customer contacts.   You cannot optimize your Customer Service Call Center until the core enabling business processes have been established, stabilized and enabled by the right technology.  A stable platform of core and supporting processes, enabled by integrated technology, positions the CSA to give the exceptional service expected by the customer and desired the organization. Only once this is done can the CSA offer real customer service and be truly accountable.

What we are talking about is that Customer Service Call Centres are a function of everything that happens elsewhere within an organization.  Due to this, separating a call center from its business organization may remove the vital link that enables business operations improvement.  If we see call centers for what they are, an inspection and rework center, we will begin to see that the root cause to the problems do not sit in the call center but rather further upstream. What is experienced in a customer service call centre is a symptom of what is going wrong elsewhere in the organization.

Call centers are not just an annoyance that should be outsourced.  Call centres are actually a data-rich environment capable of revealing a wealth of core business improvement opportunities.

Instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water (outsourcing) or trying to fix the problem by introducing new technology, let’s try solving the problems at the process level where they originate. Many companies are finding that Lean Six Sigma (a process improvement methodology) is the right vehicle to begin making sense of call centre data.  It was Edwards Deming, who said, “We should work on our process rather than the outcome of our process and there should be more emphasis on why we do a job.”  To those who say we need to improve the Customer Service Call Center first, we say, we should not improve that which should not be done in the first place. Yes, many functions in the Call Center are essential, Lean Six Sigma takes a fresh approach of looking for the root cause of the problems lying up stream of our essential call centre processes.

Lean Six Sigma uses the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) method designed to locate and solve the problem at the root cause.  The method’s Define phase is focused on properly identifying and scoping the project and selecting a team.  It enables Project Sponsors and Managers to identify the real issues from amidst the call centre noise.  Once properly defined in the form of a project charter, the Project Manager is ready to engage the right people, define the process where the problem originates and collect data upstream where the root causes will likely be found.

A Communication and Change Management Strategy is a critical success factor for all Lean Six Sigma projects. To enable project success, senior call centre personnel and other key stakeholders must be firmly behind the project team from the outset.  A good Lean Six Sigma rollout advocates organization-wide communication and change management as a clear focus in order to set-up the project team for success.

Once established, the project manager and team leverage the DMAIC roadmap and tools to identify the root causes found further upstream in core business processes and guides the team to a controllable solution. Lean Six Sigma uses process management and statistical analysis tools often found in the manufacturing and other highly measured environments. Although Call Centres are familiar with measurements, Call Centre personnel are generally not familiar with the technical tools used in Lean Six Sigma and could be easily frightened off by them.  For those of you just starting out with Lean Six Sigma, this should not be cause for concern.  In the initial stages of rolling out Lean Six Sigma in a Call Centre, many early projects benefit more from the discipline introduced by the method and the process mapping as well as qualitative tools. Project teams will be introduced to the graphical and statistical analysis tools in a very comfortable manner.  Although it may seem daunting at first, teams quickly settle down and become comfortable with the new language and new tools.

Here are some helpful case studies to demonstrate the methods effectiveness in the Call Centre environment:
Healthcare Administration Call Centre: One of our recent projects was in a transactional Healthcare organization where large volumes of call centre queries were the result of a failed set of ‘core business’ processes.  By following DMAIC methodology the project team discovered that the department responsible for the service failure in the call centre had a median turnaround time of 12 days!  This department’s processes became the focus of the project, which ultimately delivered a new turnaround time of 2 hours as the new solution.  The process team was so energized by their newfound success that they managed to further improve the cycle time down to 20 minutes!

Insurance Administrator Call Centre: In an Insurance Administration Call Center, 20% of the incoming calls were related to product coverage queries. The project uncovered that the root cause of the high volume of queries was related to confusing and poorly-structured product documentation.  Further investigation showed that, as a result, clients were not making the effort to read the policy booklet or the website.  This resulted in using the Design for Six Sigma Methodology to redesign the website to include well-structured product-coverage information. This Design project’s main requirement was usability and resulted in a state of the art website which included graphics, diagrams and easy–to-understand product-coverage information.  In addition, the IVR prompted clients to access the information on the website instead of waiting to speak to a CSA. As a result the product coverage calls into the call center reduced by 40%.

The lesson we have learned is to not blame the messenger.  The Call center is only voicing the symptoms of the problem that are rooted in upstream activities.  It is important to take the time to listen to those symptoms and look for the real problems.  Even if you have outsourced your call centre, don’t lose contact with this data rich environment.  Stay connected and leverage its immense capability to improve your core business.

Rick McCarthy is the Managing Director of Training Leadership Consulting (TLC) based in South Africa www.tlcglobal.co.za.  Rick is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and has worked in numerous Client Call Centre environments in South Africa and the USA.  Alan is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with TLC and has more than a decade of Call Centre Management and Lean Six Sigma experience.  Alan was an operations Director for a Major Medical Health Scheme Administrator.  He was in charge of Call Centers and then became the Six Sigma Deployment Leader.   You can contact Rick or Alan, on +27 33-342-2829 or contact them directly at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it