Call Center - Service Level

Hi dalystone, for me the answer to your question is because customers have different tastes and opinions. One agent may satisfy the need on one customer but fail to do so on the other. Since generally, you cannot please everyone, same goes with customer service. Unless the agent is highly trained to shift from one persona to another, it would be difficult to please all.

A 100% service level at all interval would mean you are over staffed. Too much agents are available and you are paying for the overhead,for the excess people. For call centers you identify your customer by knowing what their tolerance level is, you know that they are willing to wait a certain time, say 20 seconds, and you set 80% of those you have to attend to in x number of seconds. Your 20 percent then represents the other customers who May have more tolerance to wait, therefore this gives you a Buffering.

Unless the system is automated, it's extremely difficult for a call center to be at 100% satisfaction. This is because no matter how you try to satisfy customers, there will always be those who will be dissatisfied with what you have to offer. At the same time, most call centers also enforce strict AHT (average handling time) guidelines. This means in addition to ensuring that a customer is satisfied, a call center agent also needs to wrap up their calls within a certain time period. AHT usually begins from the moment the call is picked up by the agent and lasts till the time the agent goes back to "ready" status. To hit a service level of 100% thus is extremely difficult. You're dealing with humans after all, and not robots. Most callcenters I know aim for at least a service level of 95%.

Hi.. Daylstone, previously i worked for a call center which is a inbound one, relating to a post paid telecom service provider, & exactly i used to found there that we guys are always fail to reach to the 100% service level, but when ever it crossed 90% our seniors & team leaders were say we are achieved, because that was the target. its very true that for a call center with a huge call pressure, by maintaining the answering level, Average talk time, Average handling time, its always not possible to give 100% call quality to each & every call.... and i think this is are reason works for not reaching the service level at 100%.... :)