If you’ve recently taken over at the helm at your organisation, you’ll be looking to improve efficiency and deliver some rapid cost savings.
As your Operations no doubt form a large part of your cost base, it makes good sense to start here. Of course, this can appear a daunting and time-consuming task, particularly if you’re not yet familiar with your firm’s operational frameworks and procedures. Yet it’s an effort well worth making, because even if things appear to be running smoothly, a flawless operation is a virtual unknown in any organisation, whilst large and varied opportunities for improvement are generally the norm.
Identifying such opportunities is of course a real challenge, even if you’re seeing things with a fresh pair of eyes. So next time you’re talking with your Director of Operations, here are some searching questions that will reveal where you should start looking.
“Without knowledge action is useless and knowledge without action is futile.”
What information and tools are our frontline managers using to make decisions?
Are they making decisions based on intuition or on solid, data-based facts? Whilst good managers will use their experience and their intuition to inform their decision-making, these should be supported by hard data.
Is there any opportunity to increase sales volumes without driving up average call time?
Operations may tell you that sales calls take longer than service calls, resulting in higher average handling times, which means they can only deliver higher sales at the expense of average call time. But through multiple analyses over the last ten years we can clearly demonstrate that there is no direct relationship between higher sales and average handling time. This is typically a key indicator of inefficiency in your voice operation.
Why are teams missing sales targets but spending more time on calls?
Operations often suggest that in order to deliver service quality, voice teams are forced to increase average call times. Yet we can prove that there is no direct relationship between quality of customer outcome and average handling time. If the right procedures are in place, and team members have the appropriate skills and tools, high levels of customer satisfaction can be achieved without any negative impact on average handling time.
“Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design,processes, and procedures.”
Can we increase volume of outbound calls without increasing resource or changing shift patterns?
There is a common misconception that in order to increase successful outbound sales calls, shift rosters have to be adjusted. Yet over the past ten years we have observed zero relationship between outbound call results and shift types. What we do frequently see is poor call targeting which acts as a drain on resources and drives activity without delivering results.
If you would like impartial answers to these questions, a DHP diagnostic review can quickly reveal the type and scale of the opportunities that exist within your organisation. It will also provide a clearer picture of your operational health and capability, which is likely to be invaluable in future strategy development.