Contact Centre KPIs & The Green Jaguar

I share the story of my former Boss, her green Jaguar car and lessons about Contact Centre KPIs.

The background

Back in the early 90s I landed my first VP Operations role running Contact Centre & Distribution operations for a music & entertainment company.

I was working there as the VP of Finance when I was offered the VP of Operations job – just after the existing VP of Operations resigned.

So I went straight from numbers, financials & risk analyses to operations, Customers and the management of hundreds of Team Members across multiple Centres and Warehouses.

At that time we didn’t have easy access to reliable Contact Centre training – especially in the operations domain.

So the entire management team, including my Boss the Executive VP, had to figure out how to run a large and growing Contact Centre without any formal education or background in the industry.

Though I should mention that work in finance for the Centre prepared me well for taking over the operations. Simply because I had an understanding of how the business operated and what business levers mattered most.

Contact Centres are unique environments and cannot be understood purely from an intuitive or gut level. There are some very real and complex mathematical realities which need to be mastered to perform well.

But I didn’t know those lessons and my Boss at the time knew even less than I did.

Which is probably true for most senior Leaders. Which is not meant as judgement of their capabilities.

At the end of the day, the responsibility for having mastery level know-how of the Contact Centre environment lies with those of us who lead and manage Centres – at any level.

We built our Los Angeles-based Call Centre from the ground

One of the milestones of my career was watching a brand new Contact Centre being built from the ground up.

Engineers were consulted, building crews were brought in, technology folks began to install, people began to be hired and it was all very exciting.

The Centre was located in a small beach town of El Segundo, California.

About 20 miles from the company’s chic and shiny Santa Monica based headquarters.

That gave our people a sense of independence and also some welcome distance from corporate politics.

My Boss – the Executive VP

My direct Boss was a life-long record company executive and a respected expert in the music industry.

She stood about 6’1” (186 cm), wore big statement jewellery and could do multiple currency calculations in her head.

I loved her but feared her just ‘enough’ – others feared her more.

Every year she also got a new company car. And in the year our Centre went live it was a shiny green Jaguar sedan. Gosh I loved that car.

Our new Centre was a single story building with glass windows all around. That allowed us to see cars pulling in and out of the driveway.

And soon you will see how important these glass windows were to this story.

When the Centre opened

Our formal launch day was set.

And about three days beforehand my Boss called me and asked if she could drop by on opening day to see the live operations.

She wanted to see people taking calls and experience what she and the Board had ‘gotten’ after spending so much money.

My answer was of course – yes, come on over.

This is when things got a bit messy

One of the lessons I now share in my training is never let your Boss walk unescorted through your Contact Centre.

It’s too easy to draw incorrect conclusions based on what you see – because a lot of what goes in a Centre is actually invisible.

But I let her go unaccompanied out into the Centre and here is what happened.

Armed with a little notebook, she walked around and observed each and every one of the 80 or so Agents who were working that day.

If the Agent was talking with a Customer or typing on their keyboards she was pleased and walked on by.

If they weren’t doing anything she wrote down their name on the notebook.

When her 6+ foot frame appeared in my doorway, she wasn’t very happy.

“Daaaaan” she drawled in her Southern accent, “You’ve got a big problem.”

“You’ve got a lot of lazy people out there not doing anything. So your interviewing skills must not be all that great. And I’d say you’re also overstaffed. How could it be that people are sitting there with nothing to do?.”

“If you don’t fix this we are going to have a serious problem with your performance.”

With that, she walked out, got into her car and drove back to Santa Monica.

The following week she made a surprise visit

A week later, at about 10:00AM, our Receptionist ran into my office and blurted out “She’s here, she’s here!”

She had spotted the green Jaguar arriving through our building’s glass windows.

So I did what any fast thinking VP of Operations would do.

I ran out to the floor, grabbed the first three Agents I could reach and said “You, you and you, sign off and go hide in the pantry! Now!”

And as those three Agents ran around the corner in walks my Boss.

She looked at me for a moment and then strode right onto the Contact Centre floor.

Now stop a moment and ask yourself. What did she see?

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/why-are-you-still-talking-about-average-handling-time/

To explain what she saw I came up with the ‘The Chicken Dance’

Ok – now remember that I am short by three Agents who are hiding in the pantry.

And my Boss is on the floor with me. As she looks out at the floor she can see that everyone is ‘busy’. They’re either talking to Customers or typing on their keyboards (or both).

And she’s totally happy about what she sees.

But it’s actually not a pretty picture at all. And we can study what’s happening using the Chicken Dance.

You start by raising your arms in the air.

Ok here goes – and do it along with me (though it’s more fun in person) –

– When I pulled the three folks off the phone the Service level went down (arms down).

– That means the Occupancy went up (arms up).

– Quality potentially began going down (arms down).

– Abandonment rate likely went up as the queue grew (arms up).

– Available time for the Agents went down (arms down).

– In the short run AHT might go down but as time goes by AHT goes up (arms up).

– Customer Satisfaction with wait time goes down (arms down).

– # of Calls Handled per Agent went up (arms up) – but not because our people were more productive. Simply because we were understaffed at that time (with three Agents still hiding in the pantry).

And I can carry the Chicken Dance on even more – bringing other KPIs into the dance.

Which is a fun way to demonstrate the cause and effect relationships between the KPIs – both direct and indirect.

I fondly dedicate The Chicken Dance to my former Boss

Since I introduced the Chicken Dance in my classes way back in 2003, thousands of people have sat in a training room or hotel conference room and watched me perform the dance.

It’s a fun and useful way to convey the complexity inherent in Contact Centre operations. But also make it easy to understand and remember.

Operations training doesn’t have to be dry and boring. It should be interesting , useful and be easily connected to the Employee experience and the Customer experience.

So in closing, I fondly dedicate the Chicken Dance to my Boss with the green Jaguar.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/15-quiz-questions-on-contact-center-operations-management/