Metrica : Enhancing Productivity

The primary area of concern for Siemens Information Processing Systems
(SIPS), the BPO arm of Siemens, was the distribution of detailed Key Performance
Indicators (KPI) data directly to agents in real-time for maximizing self
correction, improving effectiveness of supervisors, who typically spend about
1-2 hours per day in collating data from multiple systems for management
reporting in MS excel sheets, tracking agent transfer across teams without
hampering their past performance data, automation of monthly incentive
calculation task for payroll, and implementation of attendance tracking and
training management system.

According to Rizwan Syed, head, IT, SIPS, Workers were spending a lot of
time on report creation. Supervisors were taking a lot of time in consolidation
of reports. The real cause for all this manual work was the existence of various
database platforms across various applications. The data was extracted manually
and then compiled using excel sheets. Applications like automatic call
distribution, quality monitoring, voice recording, workforce management, and
legacy system applications were spread across various databases like Oracle, MS
SQL Server, and Informix. The senior management team of SIPS wanted to improve
the productivity of their inbound workforce and overall efficiency of their
service delivery.

Metrica Systems proposed a solution and the professional services team of
Metrica worked with the clients operations team to understand their pain areas
and customized CenterWorks modules to address those pain areas.

Customization work involved development of several workflows, reports,
development of an interface that will talk to a variety of databases existing in
the current system. After conducting a study of their pain areas and existing
systems, Metrica recommended the automation of processes like team transfers,
incentive calculation, attendance tracking and maintenance of the agents
personal life. Several new drill down reports were developed to capture data
from excel sheets and papers.

CenterWorks solution empowered the workforce in SIPS with KPI data that
enabled self-correction of people on the production floor. It helped the
management to optimize the performance of the teams by highlighting the
actionable items to all the stakeholders.

Syed says, The system has improved the productivity of workers and reduced
the MIS cost. It also helped in effective utilization of workers and the
transparency in KPI from agent level to manager level has increased.

Agents were able to see their KPIs in real-time on their own. They were also
able to see their own rank, which motivated them to move up in the ranking. The
reduction in the average hold time (AHT) for the agents was anywhere between 3%
and 6%. Skill-wise performance analysis helped them improve the satisfaction
level of callers.

Since the reports were automated, supervisors were able to spend more time in
coaching agents on the floor, which, in turn, helped improve the
supervisor-assisted sales. Supervisors were able to manage their teams a lot
more easily. The effectiveness of the training became measurable through quizzes
and other tools in CenterWorks. MIS development and staff costs were brought
down significantly.

The automation and streamlining of the above given processes increased the
overall satisfaction level of the staff.

Sandeep Sharma

sandeeps@cybermedia.co.in