Call Centre Managers Wasting Up To Half Their Working Week

The findings also show that contact centre investments in technology are not providing managers with the tools they need. Over seven in ten (71%) want to be able to benchmark agent and team performance across all parts of the infrastructure — but only 40% have the technology in place to do so. A similar number (69%) want to be able to consolidate data regardless of location — just 43% have access to this technology at present.

The research also points to varying frequencies with which management information is received. A quarter (25%) receive reports shorter than hourly, 5% receive them on an hourly basis and 38% daily. However, nearly a quarter (24%) only receive reports weekly, monthly or longer. The reports are largely delivered electronically, with only 12% receiving paper-based reports.

Tim Burfoot, Managing Director of Teasel Performance Management comments: “The findings are very interesting. There are positive signs in that most management reporting is done electronically and 58% claim to be able to produce MI in real time. But with up to half their working week being wasted and over four in ten managers feeling failed by the information available to them there are clearly issues with the quality of MI and how it is being used to run contact centre operations.”

Burfoot continues: “Less is more when it comes to management information. It’s no good bombarding people with lots of irrelevant or inaccurate data. It’s far better to give them less but ensure that it’s relevant, up-to-date and tailored to the role they have to perform. Small modifications and ‘tweaks’ as the day progresses can make all the difference when it comes to running a contact centre efficiently and keeping customers happy. This is why even hourly delivery is unacceptable because the information is retrospective and too late to resolve problems in real time.”

The online research was carried out by Metrica between August and September 2006. Participants were classified as being either a contact centre ‘director’, ‘manager’ or ‘head of department’ and 78% worked for organisations that had two or more contact centres.