The suitable dimensioning of Contact Centers is one of the big challenges for Telemarketing, Customer Care, Help Desk or Telecollections managers.

The target for this continuous process is the optimization of telephonic dedicated lines, attention positions and human resources that must be available in every moment to offer such a service to match the expectations of the market within a frame of profitability.

Sometimes, the need of having a correct dimensioning can be originated by the need of building a Contact Center that must offer a new service with no precedents in the market.

Other times it is the "conditioned reflex" to the result of a CSS in which our clients´ complain is: "I can never contact a live agent, they are always busy…". Or, maybe because somebody, from the Contact Center or from other areas, feels that "we are losing many calls… we do not take advantage of the sales opportunities generated by Marketing efforts".

It is often considered that merely using an Erlang calculator to determine the dedicated lines and agents we need in place to attend a determined inbound calls volume means we are dimensioning a Contact Center. Nothing beyond the truth: this is just the last step of a recommended methodology that demands to take into account:

The Metrics
When and why "peaks and valleys" appear?

We must:

• Register the volume and duration (CHT) of the contacts within each 15 minutes window during the day.
  It is recommended to gather this data during a considerable and representative period as to be able to extrapolate the results to be applied for the calculation.
  

• Identify events that can alter the seasonal behavior (new products launchings, special campaigns, etc.). The resulting effects should be isolated: they must not impact the dimensioning process. It is recommended to outsource the handling of these events as to maintain our Contact Center within its regular volumes.

The Environment
How and why our Contact Center interacts with internal and external clients, prospects and suppliers thru the different channels (phone, chat, mail, fax, etc.)?

The Organization
Which are the strategic goals and the comercial politics of the organization?
How do they match with the functions and structure of the Contact Center?
We must analyze:

• HHRR internal politics
  

• Contact Center processes
  

• Technology

The Metrics
The contacts between the Contact Center and the environment are classified as follows:

Source

• Outbound: the organizations determine the opportunity to perform these campaigns based on their availability in terms of human and technological resources ("blended agents" do outbound calls during the valleys of inbound volumes).
  

• Inbound: external clients choose when and how to contact the organizations.
  For external clients it is more important to be attended when they decide than receiving calls when the organization can! An adequate inbound service in critical.

Interaction

• On line: a live agent is required to interact with the external client (phone calls or chat).
  

• Off line:the contacts can start automatically and can be answered after being received (fax, email, etc.). In general these contacts are handled by back office departments. Notwithstanding Contact Centers are incorporating communication channels as chat, email or web, the biggest volume still is through phone calls. That is why the recommended base for dimensioning is the volume of inbound phone calls.

Our ACD files are basic for the calculation… if we are sure that all the calls submitted by our carrier were transferred successfully. Otherwise, a Traffic Report should be requested to the phone company: it has the detail of all the inbound calls our clients did.
The file must detail:

• Who is the external client that called (ANI)
  

• To which internal number called the external client (DNIS)
  

• When did begin the phone call (date / time)
  

• Duration of the phone call (seconds)

Conclusion 1
The adequate input for dimensioning must detail all the inbound phone calls that our external clients performed during the period under analysis.

The Environment
The behavior of those that contact with us through the different communication channels influences the figures of our metrics.

• Automated self services diminish inbound calls volume… but there are always people that want to contact a live agent!
  

• External caller behavior depends on the service to contact.
  -If it is a 911, caller will wait indefinitely until hearing the voice of the agent or will recall immediately when receiving an occupied tone.
  -Who call to a mileage program Customer Service hangs down after three rings or recalls "later, when I have time…"

The effects due to these and other similar factors are:

• The volume of phone calls addressed to live agents does not diminish as expected when implementing self services.
  

• Inbound volume growths because of unnecessary recalls: more calls per caller!
  

• Many calls are longer than standard: they start with the client complaint because "you never attend…".

In general, the systems that gather, process and exhibit data do not identify these relations "source / effect": ACD files just detail volume and duration of calls, offered, attended, abandoned, etc.

Conclusion 2
Traditional input has to be adjusted to reflect the "real" volume of demanded communications.

The Organization

Culture
It is frequent that Telemarketing areas have more positions and staff than the Customer Service ones because companies see the first ones as revenue generators and the second ones as cost centers… As a consequence, within the same Contact Center we can find areas below and over dimensioned.

The external client knows it: "to sell everything is easy and fast, but to ask for assistance… it is impossible!" The Contact Center culture can impact in the volume and duration of calls:

• Staff low moral due to HHRR politics generates low adherence to standards, unnecessary transfers to other areas, etc.
  

• A "blind" adherence to scripts or the usage of internal terms increases the duration of the contact because the client does not understand what the agent says and needs more explanation in "simple words".
  

• When coaching and training are more oriented to "what the company wants to communicate" and less to understand "what the client needs", transfers to Supervision increase.

Conclusion 3
The impact of cultural factors that increase the volume and duration of calls must be identified and quantified prior to the dimensioning process.

Processes
The job of the agent is to handle phone calls. Assigning other functions to agents affects negatively the efficiency and effectiveness of the team. An agent that has to leave the position to send a fax generates that the next inbound call must be transferred to other position. But… if there are no enough agents in place, the call is queued until the agent returns. When the agent attends (if the client did not hang down…), receives a complaint because of the delay!
ACD registers:

• One phone call attended and an ASA bigger than expected, or
  

• A lost call

While the true is:

• A call with a bigger duration, or
  

• A recall

This simple example shows how the internal processes impact on volume and duration of calls… and, even more, on service quality!

Conclusion 4
Processes analysis will let us recognize if there are functions that have to be transferred to back office teams and establish more realistic rules for the dimensioning process.

Technology
Just having state of the art technology does not mean that we are using it properly. Some examples are:

• When IVR asks for identification and the agent does it again
  

• When the agent has to go from screen to screen to look for the client´s balance (being this a frequent query)
  

• When the website only contains institutional information and is not transactional

Conclusion 5
We must be sure that we are taking advantage of technology in the proper way before starting the dimensioning process.

Final Conclusion
The continuous process of dimensioning the Contact Center is a key practice to ensure an effective and efficient service.
The adequate result can be measured by the optimization of:

• Volume Of Contacts: external clients access to live agents in the first contact. No need of recalls.
  

• Duration Of Contacts: the communication is focused just on the real needs of the caller.

Only when:

• We have gathered all the base information (complete, adequate, updated)
  

• We understand and quantify the impact of external and internal factors on the Contact Center operation

We will be ready to calculate lines, positions and agents. The omission of some of the suggested steps will generate wrong results that could impact negatively not only on the Contact Center: the name of the game is the main asset of the company… the clients.

About Robert Solla:
Robert has a degree in Business Administration and Masters in Systems (Buenos Aires University – Argentina). He has 5 years of experience as an external consultant in themes of Contact Centers. Previously, Robert spent 4 years as Customer Care and Telemarketing Manager at some finance and insurance companies, as well as, 2 years as Product Manager at Teletech Argentina. He joined ContactCenterWorld.com's group of experts on 6/23/2005.