Achieving Consistency in Service Levels: A Path to Better Customer Experience
Transitioning from traditional Service Level metrics to interval-level consistency ensures a balanced customer experience by minimizing variability, though it demands precise staffing, flexible scheduling, and real-time adherence monitoring.
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Traditional Service Level metrics typically have weekly or monthly targets, though daily targets are sometimes used. These measures show the percentage of calls answered within a specified threshold, for example, 80% within 30 seconds. However, this approach often results in high variability at the interval level, leading to an inconsistent customer experience. At certain times, wait times may be high, while at others, they are minimal. Requirements tend to be lower, with inefficiencies obscured by what is ultimately an average. Efficiency is usually tracked separately.
In contrast, Service Level Consistency, sets interval-level pass/fail limits and can be evaluated alongside traditional Service Level. It reflects the percentage of intervals within an optimal service range, resulting in a more consistent customer experience across intervals. This approach may require a higher staffing level, frequent reforecasting, greater schedule flexibility, pre-planned off-phone activities, constant real-time adherence monitoring and the ability adjust staffing to interval-specific conditions. While this method enhances efficiency, it should still be tracked as an independent metric.