Service Level Calculation



	Service Level Calculations

	Despite the growing recognition of the importance of abandoned calls (see The Importance of Abandoned Calls), most call centers continue to use and advertise a single service level commitment that focuses on a response time target that is not linked to abandoned calls. Service level, expressed as the percentage of calls that are answered within a predefined time threshold, represents an internal perspective, which does not necessarily reflect the needs and expectations of the callers. A call center may set a service level target and pass it in flying colors, yet experience high rate of abandonment. Call center metrics must combine both internal and customer perspectives, and couple the target response time with the expected outcome, namely the abandonment rate. Interestingly enough, many call centers already have the ability to obtain this metric. This is the service level information calculated dynamically by the ACD (automatic call distributor) software and is often prominently displayed for the call center agents to monitor. Various service level equations have been used for years with each vendor calculating it differently, and some allowing users to select a preferred method and even create their own equation to best reflect their attitude towards abandoned calls. The call center's service level target defines the service level threshold; it is the target maximum time a caller spends in a queue before being connected to an agent. To calculate the service level for a period of time, the ACD determines the number of calls that had a service level event within that period. A service level event occurs when any of the following occurs: * The call is answered within the service level threshold. * The call is abandoned within the service level threshold. * The call reaches the service level threshold without being answered or abandoned. All calls that had a service level event within a specified period are considered as service level calls offered for that period. There are three fundamentally different ways to combine the service level event counts to compute the ACD's service level. In the following examples, let the call data be: Calls offered: 100 Calls answered within service level threshold: 70 Calls abandoned within service level threshold: 10 Abandoned Calls are Missed Opportunities This approach treats every abandoned call as a missed opportunity. Calls abandoned before the service level threshold expired are counted against the service level. *Example:* 70/100=70% Abandoned Calls Ignored This approach assumes that abandoned calls are an integral part of the call center business and cannot be avoided. Calls abandoned before the service level threshold expired do not affect the service level. *Example:* 70 / (100 - 10) = 77.7% Abandoned Calls Counted This approach stipulates that when adequately staffed, the queue hold time is short enough so callers that didn't abandon the queue prematurely would have received service before the service level threshold expired. Abandoned calls are treated as though they were answered within the threshold, which improves the service level. Example: (70 + 10) / 100 = 80% In these examples, we considered all the calls that were abandoned before the service level threshold expired. However, if a caller hangs up almost immediately after being placed in a queue, excessive queue time is not the problem and the caller probably hung up for another reason. Tracking these as abandoned calls can be misleading, and under certain circumstances it is reasonable to ignore calls that are abandoned in the first 5 or 10 seconds in the queue. In summary, a call center must have a business strategy that defines the importance of abandoned calls and select a service level metric that reflects it, which may not be the same as the arbitrary service level calculated by the ACD.

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