A positive call center environment is critical to a company’s success or failure in the eyes of its customers and its bottom line. Knowing how to leverage call center talent to create a positive atmosphere will ultimately increase agent productivity and performance.

1. From Boot Camp to Teamwork:
How to Create a Positive and
Profitable Call Center Culture
09-08-11
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2. Agenda
Introductions
Positive and Profitable Call Center Culture
Operationalizing Culture Improvements
Questions and Answers
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3. Today’s Presenters
David L. Butler, Ph.D.
 Director and Associate Professor, The Call Center
Research Laboratory, The University of Southern
Mississippi
 Executive Director, The National Association of Call
Centers - a not-for-profit membership organization
 Author of Bottom-Line Call Center Management
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4. Today’s Presenters Continued
Matt McConnell
 CEO, Knowlagent
Knowlagent at a Glance
 Call center agent productivity solution
 Founded in 1995
 300,000+ agents in 17 countries using Knowlagent
 SaaS
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5. Quality of the Customer Experience
The Attitude of Agents 26%
The Ability of Agents to Understand the Issue 23%
Queue Lengths 20%
The Ability of Agents to Resolve Issues at the First 20%
Attempt
Agent Knowledge 8%
Consistency of Based on #1 choice ONLY
Information
2%
Agent performance is vital to the customer experience
and customer satisfaction
Source: Ventana Research CEM Benchmark Research
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6. By the Numbers
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7. The Nature of the Beast
Call center created to deal with customers more efficiently
 Volume
 Lower cost resources
 Metrics critical
Easily leads to a command and control environment

8. Response Defines Culture
Pressures remain the same
How you respond to them defines your culture
A tale of two centers

9. Know Thy Agents
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10. Know Thy Agents Continued
Do you find your work challenging?
No
24%
Yes
76%
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11. A Tale of Two Call Centers
Same city
Same labor area
500 seats each
Similar working hours
Similar benefit plans
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12. A Tale of Two Call Centers Continued
Pays $2 more an hour more
Turnover rate 3% vs. 90%
Waiting list to join company
Negative culture
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13. Volume
Can’t
Change varying volume
Can
 Make sure agents are prepared
 Break up the day with different tasks, alleviate boredom and burnout
 Change measurement focus

14. Resources
Can’t
Change demographics of labor pool
Can
 Give a career path
 Change management approach
 Invest in skills

15. Metrics
Can’t
Stop measuring
Can
 Balance productivity and performance
 Focus on metrics that matter most to customers (which empower agents
and drive behavior)
 Empower agents with information, not punish. Drive improvement while
investing in skills

16. The Payoff
Source: Metric Net
CONFIDENTIAL 16

17. Agent Training/Coaching*
29% provide as much
training as they target:
73% say service
level agreements don’t
allow enough time for
training
Coaching: 37% have no set target for amount of
coaching time
Source: Ventana Research Call Center Agent Productivity Poll
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18. Wait Time: Five Weeks of Really Bad, Boring
Vacation
Wait time = Five weeks; 2 minutes at a time.
Secondary Loss
24 x 2 minute breaks/ day 12% (off-phone work)
Primary Loss
120 x 2 minute breaks/ week 17% (Absenteeism,
vacations, etc.)
480 x 2 minute breaks/ month Wait Time
11%
5,760 x 2 minute breaks/ year
Call Handle time
60%
Costs our industry $30 billion/year
Source: 2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey
Category 1

19. Agents have 17 hours of Idle Time Every Month
Contact center
agents spend 11% Break
of their day
unproductively Lunch 50 minutes of
unproductive
waiting for the next wait time
customer Break
interaction

20. Wait Time: Five Weeks of Really Bad, Boring
Vacation
Wait time = Five weeks; 2 minutes at a time.
Secondary Loss
12% (off-phone work)
Primary Loss
Active Wait 17% (Absenteeism, vacations
, etc.)
11% Wait Time
Call Handle time
60%
Source: 2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey
Category 1

21. Find time by Converting Idle Wait Time into
Active Wait time
Leverage technology to
redistribute the idle
time and create 15-20
minute activity 20 minutes of
sessions “Active Wait”
Use these dynamically Lunch time
scheduled sessions to +
improve 30 minutes of
Break
skills, communicate unproductive
must reads, coach wait time
agents

22. Time Invested for Improvements
Industry Average Composition of Secondary Loss
21% Training
17% Coaching
Secondary Loss 12% 16% Team Meetings
Primary Loss 17%
11% Projects
Wait time 11%
9% Paperwork
Call Handle time 9% Call Research / Follow-up
60%
17% - Email, Call Back,
Knowledgebase, Etc.
Category 1
Source: 2010 Contact Center Shrinkage Survey

23. Structured Activity Queues Drive the Right
Work at the Right Time
Occupancy
100%
95%
90%
1) Urgent Must Reads
85% 2) Social Learning
3) Coaching
80%
4) QM Review
75%
70%
 Personalized based on agent need, prioritized based
on business objectives
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24. Customer Satisfaction
Getting First Call Resolution Done
Major U.S. Telecommunications Company
Using Knowlagent to deliver more
training, coaching, and communications to over
45,000 agents
Increased Delivery
“Delivered more training time to a site in 5 days using
RightTime than was delivered over 1 month when
manually scheduling time”
Improved Take Rate
“71.7% take rate for RightTime
vs. 59.4% take rate for pre-scheduled breaks”

25. Operationalizing Culture Improvements
Volume: Make idle time work for you and your agents
Resources: Find time to make them better
Metrics: Guide your improvements, prioritize off-phone
activities

26. Q&As and Contact Information
David L. Butler, Ph.D.
601-266-4735
david.butler@usm.edu
Matt McConnell
678-365-3500
matt.mcconnell@knowlagent.com
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