The final concept in Parlance’s exploration of Lean practices for call management concerns timing and intervals. “Takt Time” is traditionally defined as a “measurement of production intervals required to meet customer demand”. It is the time between the start of production of one unit and the start of production of the next unit – when these production starts are set to match customer demand. For example, if 10 units are needed to meet demand, and assuming a 40-hour work week, the average Takt Time must be no more than 4 hours.
To place this concept in the context of contact center call management, we can relate Takt Time to agent availability intervals. How many agents are required to meet the real-time caller demand? Let’s look at a simplistic hypothetical scenario. Assuming a Takt Time of 6 minutes (average time on call), and an hourly volume of 100 calls, Takt Time will influence staffing needs as seen in the below image:
Yet, if we meet the core Lean principle of waste reduction by using an advanced caller self-service solution to automate portions of the caller experience (routine requests, ID verification, account lookup, skills-based disposition and routing, etc.), Takt Time can be significantly improved:
In this scenario, self-service has reduced agent time on call to the point that Takt Time has been cut in half – requiring fewer resources to meet the caller demand. Not only does this eliminate waste by reducing staffing costs, but it also provides ongoing improvement, another core principle of Lean. You’ll now have a 24/7 call management asset on your side that lets you do more with less. No more hold times. No more phone trees or frustrating IVRs. Just a fast and simple caller experience empowered by a partnership between advanced caller self-service and dedicated agents.
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