Steve Nesbit Call Center Analysis - Six Sigma Green Belt - Class Project -LinkedIn Version
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The document describes the process for scheduling volunteers at the Loaves and Fishes call center. Currently, volunteer scheduling is sometimes inefficient, underutilizing volunteers and distracting staff from regular duties. The purpose of the project is to determine ways to make volunteer scheduling more efficient by analyzing historical call data. Key aspects include identifying periods of high call volume to better align volunteer scheduling and minimizing missed calls.
Steve Nesbit Call Center Analysis - Six Sigma Green Belt - Class Project -LinkedIn Version
- 1. Overview Loaves and Fishes is a charity which provides seven days of emergency food supplies to a household once every thirty days once their financial resources fall below a minimum level. Their clients must be referred by an agency. These agencies telephone a call center number at Loaves and Fishes to schedule a pick-up for the client from a food pantry. The call center is staffed by up to three volunteers from a limited pool of about twenty-five between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM Monday through Friday who verify client information, enter the referral in an online system, and schedule a food pantry visit for the client. The call volume can vary by day and by hour. One volunteer is scheduled from 9:00 AM until noon. Up to two additional ones may be scheduled from 10:00 AM until 1:00 PM. The afternoon shift is from 1:00 PM until 4:00 PM. Under-scheduling of volunteers results in paid staff interrupting regular duties to answer calls. Over-scheduling results in volunteers being inactive for much of their shift and their being asked to be present for more shifts. The purpose of this project is to determine ways to make call center volunteer scheduling more efficient.
- 2. Define Project Charter Project: Optimize Loaves and Fishes Call Center Volunteer Staffing Project Information Process Importance Leader: Steve Nesbit Current volunteer staffing scheduling process sometimes Master Black Belt: underutilizes volunteers and distracts permanent staff from regular duties. Project Start: February 2, 2011 Project End: April 19, 2011 Cost of Poor Quality: Intangible due to Volunteer Staffing Team Members Process Problem Executive Sponsors: Current volunteer staffing scheduling process does not take into consideration the daily variances in the number of anticipated referral calls by agencies to the call center as reflected in Project Champion: telephone statistics. Subject Matter Experts: Project Goals Align daily scheduling of call center volunteers to better meet daily resource needs and minimize missed calls. Project Scope: Process Measurements Process Start Point: Agency telephones Call Center to register Client for food aid. Historical daily telephone call count data will be analyzed to predict those days and shifts during a month when higher Process Stop Point: Call Center Volunteer either registers than average telephone call and agency referrals can be Client and refers to pantry or rejects. Expected. Other Boundaries: Agency client must meet defined criteria And pantries have client count limits.
- 3. Define Project Charter Project: Optimize Loaves and Fishes Call Center Volunteer Staffing Project Milestones: Milestone: Date: Meet Initially with Executive Sponsors 02/02/2011 Contact Telecom Company Representatives 02/03/2011 Observe Call Center Volunteer Activities 02/04/2011 – 02/11/2011 Discuss Measurement Options with Subject Matter Experts 02/04/2011 – 02/11/2011 Obtain Measurement Data 03/03/2011 – 04/01/2011 Financial: Revenue Enhancement: $ Expense Reduction: $ Loss Avoidance: $ Costs: $ Soft Savings: Improve volunteer, agency, and staff satisfaction
- 4. Define SIPOC Agencies Inputs Process Outputs Clients Governmental Agencies Name, Address, and SSN of Client Head of Notification to Client of Arrive at Food Pantry as Non-governmental Household Acceptance or Rejection scheduled Agencies Qualification Information: Number of If accepted, Pantry Name Pick up Food Churches Days since last server and Financial Assets and Time to Client Answer Surveys Other Organizations Number of Other Client Household Members If accepted, Update Pantry Pantry notifies Loaves and Names, Ages, and SSNs of Other Household with Client and Household Fishes whether Client arrived Members Information and Time as scheduled. Updated Referral System Step 1: Step 2: Step 3: Step 4: Step 5: Call Center Call Center If qualified, Food Pantry Client and Food volunteer takes volunteer takes referral system location and Pantry notified call from agent HOH updated with time entered in of Client Pickup information and household referral system Time verifies eligibility information • Agent gathers Client • Call Center volunteer Information and calls • Client schedules for each answers call and enters •Windstream day’s pickups are sent to Information collected by Communications gathers Each Food Pantry Agent about Client into call data referral system
- 5. Define Process Map Potential Agent Client Agent telephones needing reviews and Start Qualified? Loaves and food collects client Yes Fishes Call contacts information Center agency No Client informed End not qualified Call Center No Volunteer Call Center Client goes identifies Volunteer to Pantry Pantry and Yes Qualified? reviews and picks schedules client up Food Client for information visit
- 6. Measure Data Collection Plan The purpose of the data collection is to identify efficiency opportunities for improvements to Loaves and Fishes Call Center volunteer staffing. Related Conditions to Sampling How / Where What Data Type How Measured Record Method Recorded All telephone calls to the Start time, end time, Data about each The call data for each call All incoming and Data stored on an call center number during duration, calling individual call is logged provided by Windstream outgoing calls are internal Windstream the months of January, number, and whether by Windstream. has hour, shift, and day of available. Certain system was February, and March 2011 the call is answered is week added after being calls are excluded: exported to a local were captured and made recorded by copied to aid in analysis. -January 10th and Excel spreadsheet available by Windstream Windstream for each 11th due to system where day of week Communications. call. issues and hour of call -January 17th which were added. This was a holiday spreadsheet was - February 2nd two loaded into Access calls of three hour for additional duration which calculations with skewed data. Access queries. How will you ensure consistency? What is your plan for data collection? Windstream captures all telephone calls and data about them Data for January and February 2011 was downloaded to an excel spreadsheet at the for billing and other purposes and makes this data available in beginning of March into an Excel spreadsheet. a variety of formats for a rolling sixty day period. Data for March 2011 was downloaded and added to the above spreadsheet at the beginning of April. How will the data be reported? Discrete Data – Histograms and the data used to create the charts
- 7. Measure Data Analysis Charts This slide shows the number of incoming calls answered (yes – in red) and not answered (no – in blue) for each day of the period.
- 8. Measure Data Analysis Charts This slide shows the another view of incoming calls answered (Total – in blue), their total duration (hours:minutes:seconds), for each day of the period.
- 9. Analyze Cause and Effect Diagram People Measure Cause Process Cause Limited number of Cause Agencies fail to prescreen Volunteers impact how properly and call with Loaves and Fishes many can be scheduled unqualified clients or fail to unaware measures of gather information in advance telephone calls available Cause increasing call duration. Limited number of Subcause Call statistics gathered Volunteers might feel by Windstream are not Cause Agencies call business overscheduled and no used to improve line when Call Center longer want to volunteer scheduling lines are busy tieing up that number Less Efficient Volunteer Cause Cause Cause Scheduling Number of telephone lines in Call Center limits number of Unanswered Call Center calls which can be handled at calls answered by staff once. disrupt normal business tasks Cause Number of PCs in Call Center is limits number of calls which can be handled at once Equipment Material Environment Loaves and Fishes Call Center Volunteer Sheduling Improvement
- 10. Analyze Data Analysis This first slide shows the unanswered percentage of the total calls for the entire day (Total – in blue). It shows higher percentages on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and slightly higher levels on Thursdays and Fridays. The following three slides stratify the data by volunteer shift to see if staffing can be proved on individual shifts. (Each unanswered call for an agency calling multiple times is counted once until that agency is answered.)
- 11. Analyze Data Analysis This slide shows the unanswered calls for the 9:00-10:00 period by the one scheduled volunteer as a percentage of the total calls for the hour at the beginning of the 9:00-12:00 shift. It shows small peaks on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with missed calls approaching 25% of total calls for that hour and slightly higher levels on Fridays, but not at the level of the next two shifts shown on the next two slides.
- 12. Analyze Data Analysis This slide shows the unanswered calls by the scheduled volunteers as a percentage of the total calls for each hour of the 10:00-1:00 period. Call times 10:00-10:59 are in blue, 11:00-11:59 in red, and 12:00-12:59 are in green. It shows peaks on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (approaching 90% some hours) indicating a need for greater resources during this shift on these two days, but not on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
- 13. Analyze Data Analysis This slide shows the unanswered calls by the scheduled volunteers as a percentage of the total calls for the 1:00-4:00 period. It shows peaks on Thursdays and Fridays indicating a need for greater resources during afternoon these two days as agencies try to squeeze clients in for Friday and Saturday pantry visits at the last minute. Call times 1:00-1:59 are in blue, 2:00-2:59 in red, and 3:00-3:59 are in green.
- 14. Analyze Data Analysis This slide shows average call duration for all answered calls on a day (Total – in blue), but shows only small variations by date and day of week indicating that overall average call duration was fairly consistent across all agencies. The following slide shows the data stratified by agency.
- 15. Analyze Data Analysis Average call duration for each agency for all answered calls during the study period (Total – in blue) was charted and showed significant variations by agency for average call duration. While the overall average duration of calls was three minutes and twenty-eight seconds for all agencies, twenty-six agencies averaged over four minutes for their call duration. There could be multiple causes such as larger household size requiring more data to be entered or new clients. Another cause however could be lack of preregistration data being gathered in advance of the agency calling which lengthened the call duration by the agency representative needing to gather the information needed for the referral during the call itself. The average call duration by agency is shown on the next two slides.
- 18. Improve Solution Analysis Brainstormed Solutions Prioritized Solutions - Increase Call Center volunteer pool 1. Identify periods having highest percentages of - Begin using Windstream and other statistics about missed calls and increase number of scheduled calls and referrals to predict call volume volunteers - Increase number of PCs and telephone lines 2. Identify agencies whose average telephone call - Improve prescreening by agencies to reduce number duration exceeds one standard deviation above of rejected clients the average and later those above the average - Schedule paid staff in call center when number of 3. Review whether adjusting shifts might improve lines in use exceeds volunteer staff during periods call volume handling. when a high call volumes are expected. (Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and Thursday and Friday afternoons) -Improve training and materials (including a preregistration form to gather potential client information) for agency staff to reduce duration of individual telephone calls from agencies and client rejections.
- 19. Improve Implementation Plan Action Responsibility Timing 1. Review measurements and adjust volunteer schedules TBD TBD 2. Prepare form for agency to gather registration info prior to contact TBD TBD 3. Identify agencies needing retraining in use of registration form TBD TBD 4. Review and compare measurements for quarter after changes TBD TBD 5. Continue to adjust volunteer schedules as needed. TBD TBD 6. Download telephone call information from Windstream monthly. TBD TBD
- 20. Control and Leverage Control and Leverage Plan 1. Gather quarterly measurements of missed calls and call durations. 2. Review measurements quarterly for change since prior quarter and other trends. 3. Seek other areas to improve call center responsiveness once improvements from these areas level off. 4. Form used to improve information gathering for preregistration by agencies having a greater than average call duration should be leveraged as a training tool for new staff at other agencies to prevent their average call duration or number of client rejects from increasing.
- 21. Control and Leverage Control and Leverage Plan Leveraged preregistration form which agency would complete before calling the call center should contain the following information: • Name and address of client • SSN of client • Verify thirty days since last assistance from Loaves and Fishes • Verify financial resources are below minimum level • Determine how many other people are part of the household • Obtain the names, SSNs, and ages of other household members.