Bringing service to life
CASE STUDY
Achieving cost efficiencies and improved service delivery through
Multi-Skilling Customer Service Agents
The challenge
Initial solution
In 2011, Serco secured an Australian
Commonwealth Government Department contract
which required the delivery of customer contact and
back office administration processing services on
behalf of a range of department stakeholders to a
multitude of customer types.
A compressed transition timeframe delivered a basic
operational model.
The workload was complex, requiring a high level
of accuracy and consistency. Extremely high, daily,
individual service level targets were mandated
across each call and service type. The services
provided by Serco were also subject to a stringent
quality assurance process.
In this initial service delivery model, agents were:
• trained in four separate call-taking silos for
separate inbound call queues, with
• no cross-skilling between the groups,
• and another, different group of agents were
trained exclusively in two completely separate
back office functions.
Essentially this model reflected four operationally
separate call centres and two distinct back office
processing centres.
As a consequence, the outcomes of this model
were:
• an inflexible workforce
• extremely low occupancy, and
• a higher cost base to deliver the required service
levels.
Next stage
The decision to transition to a multi-skilled
workforce allowed Serco to successfully address
these challenges and capture efficiencies and cost
savings for the client.
ADVISE | DESIGN | INTEGRATE | DELIVER | SUPPORT
Benefits
Multi-skilling agents across a range of
customer services can deliver significant
cost savings, more flexible operations, and
the ability to rapidly respond to unplanned
changes in service volumes.
Service capabilities
• multi-channel customer contact centre
operations,
• back office/administration processing
Serco business unit
• Citizen Services
The cross-skilling plan
• A comprehensive cross-skilling plan was devised
including assessing full time equivalent (FTE)
staffing requirements per work type, service
level targets, call distribution patterns, training
requirements and agent competency and crossskilling capacities.
• Over the course of five months, the centre
transitioned from having an average of 25%
to 61% of staff trained in each call queue with
further agents also cross-skilled in the back office
work types.
• This delivered a reduction in staffing
requirements of 12.9 FTE for call taking staff
alone.
• The higher numbers of staff skilled in each work
type and the workforce flexibility this achieved,
enabled effective responses to unplanned
changes in workload in each queue and
unplanned changes to staffing levels in particular
areas. This ensured consistent delivery of
service levels.
• The economies of scale generated by multiskilling agents meant Serco could maintain the
high service levels required by the contract with
higher occupancy and therefore fewer agents.
2 | Serco Case Study
Table 1: The table below quantifies the improvements
across a range of measures.
Daily workload FTE
(time on calls)
Occupancy
Idle FTE (total daily
non-productive
time between calls
expressed as FTE
equivalent)
Daily on phone FTE
Shrinkage %
Shrinkage FTE
(27% shrinkage)
Total phone FTE
required
Prior to
crossskilling
After
crossskilling
FTE
saving
13.8
13.8
42%
19.0
59%
9.6
32.8
27%
12.1
23.3
27%
8.6
3.5
44.9
32.0
12.9
9.4
This graph illustrates the reduction in nonproductive resources which translates directly to
non-productive time and reduced costs.
Figure 1: Call taking FTE before & after cross-skilling
50
It is important to note:
• these efficiencies required automated call routing
in a multi-skilled environment
• priority call routing was deployed to ensure a
balanced performance across all queues
• the multi-skilled operation requires effective and
pro-active real time management, and
• the resulting occupancy was still low in this case
relative to other contact centres due entirely to
the requirement to meet extremely high service
levels across all call types on a daily basis.
40
Shrinkage FTE
12.1
30
20
10
0
Idle FTE
19.0
Shrinkage FTE
8.6
Idle FTE
9.6
Workload FTE
13.8
Workload FTE
13.8
Prior to
cross-skilling
After
cross-skilling
(42% occupancy)
(59% occupancy)
Achieving cost efficiencies and improved service delivery through Multi-Skilling Customer Service Agents | 3
Further benefits
Additional cross-skilling to encompass the back
office functions realised a number of further
benefits:
• Due to the different KPIs for back office work
(1 to 2 working days for back office compared
to 15 seconds for calls) staffing levels could be
manipulated to meet call KPIs as a priority, with
more time to adjust the back office staffing whilst
continuing to meet KPIs across those work types.
• The design and delivery of more efficient, holistic
scheduling practices enabled the ability to flex
staff into areas with unexpected changes in
demand, such as:
- back office staff being deployed to the phones
in real time when an unplanned spike in
demand occurred or there was a higher than
expected unplanned absence in call taking
staff, and
- similarly, unexpected decreases in call
volumes or low Unplanned Absences (UPA)
meant excess staff could be utilised to clear
back office work.
• Staff engagement and retention improved due to
the ability to offer career paths and progression
opportunities within the one centre which also
ensured the consolidation of expertise and
knowledge within the team.
CONTACT
SERCO
Level 14
535 Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
T +61 (0)2 9964 9733
Wwww.serco-ap.com.au