Hello Rajas: All wonderful suggestions. As a follow up to your response, how do you determine what the customer's expectation for wait time is? Is there a preferred method? Do you base it around a formula for the average abandonment time or average delay to answer time? Or is a customer survey really the only method? Tara, I also run a small call center, of 5 customer service associates, in the banking industry. We are using a 90% by 30 seconds service level goal. We initially tried using a 20-second threshold and found that we were just unable to come close to that target with the available resources. I found it useful to use an Erlang C calculator and run numbers using actual hour or half-hour numbers, number of associates, and different service level targets. -- Kara McCormic

Dear Tara: It appears to me that we are approaching the issue backwards. Whilst your query seems to be innocuous enough - "How to set Service Level Objective" - the crux of the matter is the "already given" figure of 7 FTEs. If you were to give me data about what is your busiest hour; what is the half-hourly call volume during that hour; what is your typical Average Handling Time during the busy hour; and further assume that during the busiest hour, the 7 FTEs are taking only inbound calls (and doing nothing else); then I could estimate what your Service Level will most likely turn out to be...but not what it *should* be with the limited details given by you. Actually what you want to do is: a) set your Service Level Objective, (I know we are back to the original question.. but hold on for some time, I will come to it... appreciate your patience); b) and figure out the half-hourly call volume for busiest hour; c) and your typical AHT (overall, not just during busy hour) Plug-in all the above in a Erlang Calculator such as ICMI's QueueView Calculator Software; and *then* you will know how many "bodies in chairs" a.k.a. FTEs you need to meet the target Service Level. I just wanted to get the above clarity, taking the risk of explaining even if you knew all about it, so that there is no ambiguity in my response; especially since I am bothered by the number of FTEs, as if it's a given. Having clarified that the number of FTEs is actually variable, and that it depends on the Service Level, let's come back to the Service Level problem. As a matter of fact, the Service Level is dependent on only two parameters:- a) What is the expectation of your customers; AND b) is your organization committed to meet those expectations - under any circumstances? Both of these are business decisions. If you are doing revenue generation, then even one lost contact means lost revenue, and ideally you should run a 100/0 service level if each call is worth say $10,000; whereas in a support-oriented call center, you need to be aware of what is the likelihood of customers churning if you don't meet their expectations, and additionally estimate the cost of losing a customer. [It's generally considered as a good idea to estimate (through observation) what is the Service Level being maintained by your direct competition - though I have my reservations because customers may subconsciously compare you against unrelated experiences, say, with how quickly their travel agency / airline / bank handles their calls.] On the other hand, you have to balance the above costs with the ongoing cost of running the operations. As highlighted earlier, for higher Service Level objectives, you might need to make available significantly higher amount of resources - may be much higher than the 7 FTEs you mentnioned. Which means you need to factor in their recruiting cost & training cost (taking into consideration your employee attrition rate); their compensation, incentives, & other benefits; support costs - real estate space, associated supervisors (your span of control - one supervisor for how many agents), desktops, cafeteria facilities, etc. etc. In many cases, you might have to strike a compromise. A scenario could be - Customers consider 5 seconds as an acceptable delay, but the Call Center establishes 85/15 as a viable Service Level. I might as well unveil another nuance in a smaller call center - to meet a high Service Level, the agent utilization a.k.a. agent occupancy will be much lower as compared to a larger call center meeting the same Service Level. Hence not only could you potentially have a un-viable business case (the monetary gains of higher service level being overshadowed by the higher cost of operations), you might run the risk of facing a higher agent attrition because bright resources might leave due to boredom, if occupancy rate runs too low. But a good thing I observe in your case is that you have off-line (non-real time) work viz. data entry, research, etc. So you might consider hiring and training resources that can do multi-taksing. So even if you throw in a higher number of resources taking inbound calls to meet the higher Service Level goal; and even if their occupancy is lower; you can utilize them to handle the off-line work. But striking this balance is also a bit tricky, and needs to be planned, operationalized and executed with precision. Till this point, most of my sermon has been conjecture - a "what-if" analysis. You know better in terms of what is happening right now out there. What is the Service Level you are striking with the given work force, how (if at all) are they doing multi-tasking with the off-line work, are you over or under your operational budgets etc. Proabably the only other sensible advise I have for you is - Ask your customers!! Run a survey program, if possible an automated IVR script immediately after the call, or have the agents ask the customers during all/random calls. If your customers say that you are doing good right now, you don't need to fix anything. Else take a look at your current Service Level, which is say 80/20 (and your survey reveals general customers tolerance at say 10 seconds); improvise it to 80/10; then do your maths with ICMI QueueView Calculator to figure out higher number of FTEs; acquire/train/operationalize them; monitor the new Service Level; re-run the survey; repeat if required..... But remember to *never* compromise on quality. In the long run, a good quality call handling will almost always improve Service Levels. I do hope you will find the above mix of theoretical explanation and practical tips useful. Thanks! -- Rajas Daithankar, Avaya Certified Expert, Avaya GlobalConnect Limited