Repeat Call Analysis

Answers

• Abhishek Singh Posted at 8:18AM on Jan 9, 2012

  Hello, I recommend that we do a bounce analysis on repeat calls.Nutshell try this. Get hold of the dialer data. Divide Data into 2 sections. Voluntary (Call Drops, wrong Transfers etc) and Non Voluntary (Premature call drops, disconnections etc) 3 level drill down on that data. This should help you get some insight as to why the calls are repeated, hopefully.High repeat calls can skew your forecasting data and has a ripple effect. Thanks Abhi

• Becky Simpson Posted at 12:00AM on Oct 20, 2006

  Prashant, I’m glad you enjoy Queuetips, it really is a great source of information for everyone from new managers to seasoned professionals in the call centre environment. There are many things you can do to avoid repeat calls, here are some ideas: 1. Ensure you achieve a reasonable service level so that callers do not have to wait in queue for too long and then abandon the call and have to call you back later. Apart from upsetting your customers, this distorts your true call volume and makes it very hard to know what your true call volume is. 2. Ensure your agents are adequately trained so that they provide the correct responses to callers and instill confidence in callers so that they do not feel the need to check-up, repeat or verify calls. Lack of confidence in the agent would result in many repeat calls that, again, would distort your call volume. 3. Ensure that all promised actions and follow-up activities are undertaken in a timely fashion so that callers do not have to chase up themselves because something has not happened. 4. Learn from your call types. Put in place mechanisms to identify the reason and drivers for calls (e.g., if customers are calling because another part of the organisation has failed, then this must be addressed). The call centre has a strategic role in the business and must help influence improvements thoughout. I heard that between 20-40% of calls in many centres are unnecessary for one reason or another – I am certain that all the resources we have to deal with this could be more productively used elsewhere! I hope this gives you a starting point – best wishes.

• Nalini Sain Posted at 12:00AM on Nov 3, 2006

  Hi, Prashant, I am doing a project in repeat calls at GE. This is a concern since our repeat calls percentage is on the rise. While searching for some information on repeat calls, I came across your comment on the same. Can you please share some metrics on how to measure repeat calls and how to improve/decrease the same? Request your help in this, since it will guide me better in accomplishing the required goal of decreasing the repeat calls, thereby reducing cost and other efforts involved. If you're willing to dialogue with me directly, please respond in QueueTips so the Editor can put us in touch. Regards -- Nalini Sain, GE Money

• prashant l yagnik Posted at 12:00AM on Feb 9, 2007

  Thanks, I got some of the tips. But would like to know the standard operating process as per the benchmark what should be the percentage of repeat calls which should come to you to know the health check of the call centre. Would be glad if something concrete and in details can be shared. We all talk to reduce but at the end how do we conclude? -- Prashant Yagnik, Ttata Teleservices Ltd

• Ria Ruiz Posted at 12:00AM on Jun 15, 2007

  We are also interested in calculating repeat calls. We are looking to determine the impacts of an initial large increase in volume which severely affected our FTE. Volume then increased further over the next few months due to headcount not being approved. How do we determine the percentage of repeat calls caused by the higher then normal ASA and Abandon rates? -- Ria Ruiz, ECC Ltd

• Prashantha Luther Posted at 12:00AM on Aug 10, 2007

  Repeat calls would help you to estimate your true demand, but you must also capture actual offered (Blocked + Abandonment + Answered). Subsequently you factor out repeat calls, which would give you your offered – this would help to reduce your number of FTE’s actually required. As a second step you might need to clean your data, which would further help you to make a more accurate forecast and help you to estimate your true demand. To do this the following steps would help – - Maintain good relationships with your marketing team - Capture promotional information in your CRM or database that could capture the data which is required to be factored out - Segment your call data into standard and non-standard days (days in a week change) Hope this would help... -- Prashantha Luther, Dialog Telekom, Sri Lanka

• Kamalesh Rao Posted at 12:00AM on Aug 25, 2008

  Repeat Calls! I think Becky did cover pretty much the key drivers at a high level. At an inquiry level; post IVR, capacity issues drive recalls, which depending on operating model / industry of the center, dictates the frequency. The most dominant reason for repeat calls is driven by agents and internal processes. As contact center managers, once we identify repeat calls as an issue, the next step is to benchmark the repeat calls rate in the industry you operate in to identify where your center stacks up against others. I would rather call the metric we need to measure Call Resolution Rate. If centers are using an advanced account management platform, they should have an ability to capture call resolution status either during the call (agent decides if the inquiry was resolved or pending) or using an automated process triggered by call flow data captured by the system. For those lacking advanced systems, a manual data collection tool can be setup. Another key dimension would be the time span that will be used to define a call as a repeat call. So, I would recommend that before you set out to solve the problem, you need to quantify the size and scope it out! -- Kamalesh Rao, Halg

• Vanessa Buchanan Posted at 12:00AM on Aug 25, 2008

  Over the past 18 months or so we have been able to reduce our Repeat Calls to a reasonable level. It is important to check if the window periods within which your calls are measured are set at the right levels. Sometimes your systems have to be re-checked on a regular basis. For instance, do you measure a call from a MSISDN that has called in many times within a 7 day period. Or, is your window period for repeat calls within a 30 day period. Each call center is different - you need to decide what the window period is for capturing and measuring repeat calls and then use the same period over a number of months so that your base measurement is the same. Quite recently the Repeat Caller level started rising, and upon investigation, we found that 10 calls from the same MSISDN were being routed to the call center and the 11th call routed to the department within a 7 day period - not good. Your Repeat Call rate should not be more than 15% for every 1.2 million incoming calls per month - this is an acceptable rate. The expectation is always to achieve a repeat caller rate of less than 10%, but this depends on your processes, business rules and your BPO or support functions in the contact center. Hope this helps you - you can email for further information if you swish. -- Vanessa Buchanan, Cell C (Pty) Ltd, South Africa

• Aroon Jham Posted at 12:00AM on Aug 25, 2008

  Repeat caller rate is a function of customer types, call driver, industry and the function. If you are able to model this, you will find that call driver and function will exert maximum parametric influence on your model. For example, a customer care agent that acts in the function of sales support (e.g., Where is my order? Did I get my order right? Why is my order delayed?) will have lower repeat caller rates (around 5 - 20% depending on the industry) than a technical support agent where followup is required to ensure that the issue is resolved (repeat caller rate 15 - 35%). Also, consumer customers tend to have a higher repeat caller rate than commercial customers. There are several programs that can be implemented to understand call drivers, and which call driver results in the highest repeat caller rate. But in my experience, the most effective and possibly the most difficult to execute practice that can help reduce repeat callers is "accurate expectation setting" and enablement of accurate expectation setting. I will be happy to discuss further. -- Aroon Jham, Dell Inc

• Rob McDougall Posted at 12:00AM on Sep 22, 2008

  With repeat call analysis, you need two specific types of information. One needs to define the call from end to end in complete detail. From the moment the customer calls, until the final agent has completed any after call work. Understanding this detail - complete with agent involvement information, customer ID and reason, and telephony information is the first step in getting to your repeat call reasons. The next thing you need is the same information across time. To be able to correlate calls from the same customer for the same reasons across time helps you identify repeat calls. And the detail of how the calls are handled - the customer experience and the agent's performance in particular, give you ability to identify specifically where you want to look for a root cause. For example, if you are getting a lot of repeat calls for password resets - then being able to identify the details of how agents are handling these calls overall lets you determine things like you need more training on resets for these specific agents, or passwords are getting reset but the back end notification process isn't working. Identification of the problem's specifics is crucial to any improvement that you wish to undertake. The other thing you'll find is that although some calls don't look like repeats, they are still related. By identifying your "customers at risk" - those who have to call you 4 times or 6 times for seemingly different reasons - you can start to understand an even larger picture of how the call center is performing. And having the call detail helps you determine what the causes of these issues are and resolve them accordingly. And note that, while you can implement systems or solutions that will help you measure FCR and Agent Solve Rates and Repeat Call Rates, none of these systems is actually going to improve anything. The final improvement will still be left up to a lot of hard work on your part. -- Rob McDougall, Upstream Works Software