Anyone work in a 24 x 7 customer service environment?

jme5343

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Nov 21, 2003
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My company is getting ready to centrally locate a customer service center that will handle 15-16 locations scattered over the western half of the US. Each location is it's own entity, but we will handle all of the customer calls and orders, as well as dispatching crews at each location and providing them with work instructions 24x7.

We're in the VERY early stages, with implementation thought to be 12-18 months away.

The bulk of the business will be performed during regular business hours, but will span 3 time zones, so probably 7 am CST to 8 pm CST will be the busy portions. I'm looking for a scheduling process that will cater to these times, i.e, have more people through this part of the day, with a couple left at night and a couple over the weekend. This will most likely employ 15-20 persons.
 

General Texas

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Apr 16, 2006
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There are many factors to look into before scheduling, but with a small operation it will be harder than usual. Have you given any thought as to what the shrinkage rate will be? How many people will you allow off for vacation per day, how many people will call in absent without notice, what kind of attrition do you expect and how long will it take you to train up another person? What is your goal for service level, ASA, and accessibility, and AHT. How much ongoing training is required either in a classroom setting or one-on-one with the supervisor? Are there any seasonal factors to take into consideration, such as higher volume during the holidays or summer months? What about breaks, overtime, undertime, etc?

All those questions need to be thought of in advance. Running a 24x7 operation will be tough with 15-20 people but it's doable. Your best bet it sounds like would be to run most people 4x10, during the week/day and have your night and weekend people work 5x8s. You will want at least three people scheduled at all times to allow for PTO, absenteeism, etc.

 

jme5343

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Nov 21, 2003
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Very good, thought provoking questions. This is a transportation industry, fwiw. Let me also say, I am not in charge of this operation, though I will most likely apply, and at the least, will be involved in setting up the center. I'm just trying to get a leg up :)

Attrition will probably be 15-25% over the first year, I would guess. It will be a job that pays very well for our region, I imagine 150% what similar office settings pay. Training will be make or break, we've had too many beople just barely eke through the probation period and become disasters.

The core 5-6 employees will have already earned 3-4 week vacations with the company. New hires will get two weeks from the start, 6 sick days per year. Absenteeism should not be a large issue, as the shift manager will be able to fill all postions as needed. We allow sick days to be used for Dr.'s appointments and the like, so we generally have notice of an upcoming vacancy. Training should take 2-4 weeks for the new hires, which is partially what the long implementation period allows for. I expect the process to be slow, hopefully take on one of the 14 company's customers at a time. Each of the 14 customers has a varying number of their own custoners, from 2 to 55, which we will be handling. Most are standing orders with little change. Right now, in our one company, we have 1 1/2 people taking care of 50+ customers, with plenty of time for breaks. Overtime will be accounted for, but is not expected to exceed 2-3 hours per employee, per week. There is a possibility the jobs will be salaried.

Ideally, the bulk of communication will be done via email. This will allow us to have hard copy in case of any discrepancies, and will also allow all shifts handling that customer to have a record of the transaction, rather than only relying on person-to-person exchange during turnover. I recognize not all customers will be willing to communicate that way, but will slowly encourage it. The use of an instant messaging type service will also be encouraged. I understand that securing the right amount of bandwidth for this will be necessary.

Some seasonal factors, but with all locations combined, it will be steady year round, harvest times and special situations may cause a small peak, but nothing major. Each customer service rep will have a different number of companies they focus on. 3 employees could handle 7 or 8 of the small companies, where it may take 3 people to handle just 2 of the larger locations. Each group of reps will be the sole contact for their region, which is to encourage a "first-name basis" among the customer and their particular rep.

Wow, even if you don't answer back, it brought a lot of question to the forefront, and was a great help. I appreciate it!

On another note... Cubicles or an open office setting? Is there an advantage to cubiles, and does it hinder inter-office communication. I think separate walled areas for each mini-station would work, but no cubicles for each person.


 

General Texas

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Apr 16, 2006
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You might want to look into a scheduling software, it can and will be a big help. TotalView's IEX and Aspect's TCS are two that come to mind. IEX is awesome but expensive, TCS is good too just not as good with handling delayed contacts (emails, IMs, etc).

As far as cubicles vs open spaces, it all depends. It's more expensive and space consuming to have cubicles, but it allowes for privacy. I"ve worked at call centers where everyone who was taking calls needed to be watched like a daycare, no way would we trust these people in a cubicle. Also, I've worked in places where everyone is fantastic. If your attrition is only 25% per year then chances are they are good people. On slow times though, an open area would allow co-workers to socialize and it would make the exchange of ideas and problems easier.

If you are dabbing into setting up the physical layout of the center perhaps you will also be getting into the technology. The best switch I've used is Avaya, however it's also one of the most expensive as I understand. The ACD along with CMS can run pretty high, but it's feature rich and full of great stuff. However I've only worked in very large centers with 500+ seats, I have no experience with small centers.
 

Specop 007

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Jan 31, 2005
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Originally posted by: General Texas
You might want to look into a scheduling software, it can and will be a big help. TotalView's IEX and Aspect's TCS are two that come to mind. IEX is awesome but expensive, TCS is good too just not as good with handling delayed contacts (emails, IMs, etc).

As far as cubicles vs open spaces, it all depends. It's more expensive and space consuming to have cubicles, but it allowes for privacy. I"ve worked at call centers where everyone who was taking calls needed to be watched like a daycare, no way would we trust these people in a cubicle. Also, I've worked in places where everyone is fantastic. If your attrition is only 25% per year then chances are they are good people. On slow times though, an open area would allow co-workers to socialize and it would make the exchange of ideas and problems easier.

If you are dabbing into setting up the physical layout of the center perhaps you will also be getting into the technology. The best switch I've used is Avaya, however it's also one of the most expensive as I understand. The ACD along with CMS can run pretty high, but it's feature rich and full of great stuff. However I've only worked in very large centers with 500+ seats, I have no experience with small centers.

Full height cubicle walls FTL.
Those half height ones, what are they 3.5 or 4 feet? Allows you to be able to sit down and have privacy and still stand up and look around and talk to others.

Also, dont forget to account for holidays. First come first serve with length of employment breaking ties.
EVERYONE wants the major holidays off. We have paid holidays, so working the holidays is the equivelent of 2.5 times pay. 8 hours for the paid holiday, then your shift is considered OT at 1.5 times pay. It makes it a bit easier to swallow having to sit there over Thanksgiving.
But not much.

Also, the hardest times to cover are generally weekends. We would split it up, Friday night/Saturday morning for one shifts end, Saturday night/Sunday morning is the other shifts begin. Unless you can find someone will to go like 3-12's or 4-10's across the weekend. Yes 3-12's isnt a true 40 hours but then again working weekends really sucks too....
 

enis083

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Jan 17, 2003
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We have a 24x7 desk with 20 people. Most of them are day shift but we were lucky when a few of the people we hired wanted the afternoon or weekend shift. For the overnights we staff 1 person. You might want to consider pager/cell duty for anyone calling in sick for the evenings and weekends so you can staff less on overnights and weekends. Definately buy scheduling software. We do ours manually and I spend 3+ hours a month scheduling lunch and breaks for the day shift and doublechecking that the schedule that the manager built covers the shifts. Pretty much everyone has to work a weekend sometime as our schedule changes on a monthly basis. I have it set up so that you would either work Su-Th or Tu-Sa. Then there are the 4-10s scattered around as needed. As far as cubes, short walls are better so they can stand up and talk to each other instead of walking around a wall. For 20 people we try not to let more than 2 people on vacation on a regular workday.