The primary area of concern for Siemens Information Processing Systems (SIPS), the BPO arm of Siemens, was the distribution of detailed Key Performance Indicators (KPI) data directly to agents in real-time for maximizing self correction, improving effectiveness of supervisors, who typically spend about 1-2 hours per day in collating data from multiple systems for management reporting in MS excel sheets, tracking agent transfer across teams without hampering their past performance data, automation of monthly incentive calculation task for payroll, and implementation of attendance tracking and training management system.

According to Rizwan Syed, head, IT, SIPS, Workers were spending a lot of time on report creation. Supervisors were taking a lot of time in consolidation of reports. The real cause for all this manual work was the existence of various database platforms across various applications. The data was extracted manually and then compiled using excel sheets. Applications like automatic call distribution, quality monitoring, voice recording, workforce management, and legacy system applications were spread across various databases like Oracle, MS SQL Server, and Informix. The senior management team of SIPS wanted to improve the productivity of their inbound workforce and overall efficiency of their service delivery.

Metrica Systems proposed a solution and the professional services team of Metrica worked with the clients operations team to understand their pain areas and customized CenterWorks modules to address those pain areas.

Customization work involved development of several workflows, reports, development of an interface that will talk to a variety of databases existing in the current system. After conducting a study of their pain areas and existing systems, Metrica recommended the automation of processes like team transfers, incentive calculation, attendance tracking and maintenance of the agents personal life. Several new drill down reports were developed to capture data from excel sheets and papers.

CenterWorks solution empowered the workforce in SIPS with KPI data that enabled self-correction of people on the production floor. It helped the management to optimize the performance of the teams by highlighting the actionable items to all the stakeholders.

Syed says, The system has improved the productivity of workers and reduced the MIS cost. It also helped in effective utilization of workers and the transparency in KPI from agent level to manager level has increased.

Agents were able to see their KPIs in real-time on their own. They were also able to see their own rank, which motivated them to move up in the ranking. The reduction in the average hold time (AHT) for the agents was anywhere between 3% and 6%. Skill-wise performance analysis helped them improve the satisfaction level of callers.

Since the reports were automated, supervisors were able to spend more time in coaching agents on the floor, which, in turn, helped improve the supervisor-assisted sales. Supervisors were able to manage their teams a lot more easily. The effectiveness of the training became measurable through quizzes and other tools in CenterWorks. MIS development and staff costs were brought down significantly.

The automation and streamlining of the above given processes increased the overall satisfaction level of the staff.

Sandeep Sharma
sandeeps@cybermedia.co.in

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