Re: Would you recommend Vonage ?

John Gray wrote:
This is elementary call center management theory. It's not some
new-fangled, untested idea. It's the way private sector call centers
HAVE to operate (because they don't have an endless stream of taxpayer
money.) And in a big city, the effect is going to be well into six -
maybe even seven - figures a year. Taxpayers should be outraged if this
basic way of managing labor costs is not employed in their area.


But then, private sector call centers keep people on hold until a live
person is available to talk to them. In a life threatening emergency,
the
person in need could easily be dead after being on hold for even a short
time.


That's because they choose what service level they want to provide.

The baseline for tech support is 80% answered within 4 minutes, with 80%
of the half-hours being within service level. But the company may want a
premium support line to be 90% within 2 minutes, and 90% of the half-hours
being within service level. Change those parameters, and the staffing
requirements change, and thus the schedules that workforce management
spits-out will be different.

For a 911 call center, you might want to specify 100% within 30 seconds,
and 100% of half-hours being within service level. You'll end up with
schedules very different from what you'd get in a tech support call
center, but you'd still get schedules that provide different staffing
levels for different times of the day. And those schedules would save a
lot of money compared to always staffing as if the whole day is as bad as
the worst time of the day.

Staffing a large 911 call center with the same number of people all the
time wastes money. Tax money. Money that could go towards more pressing
issues, like more police officers so they can raise their service levels.
Money spent on 911 operators who are consistently sitting around during
predictably slower times (and yes, with historic data you can predict call
volume fairly accurately) are being paid money that could be spent on
something that actually enhances public safety. Unless the attitude is
that the taxpayers are an endless font of money, and that there's no need
to be efficient.

And I simply can't believe that this lack of efficiency is the way all 911
call centers work. I still have faith that there are call center managers
out there who actually know how to do their jobs, and at least make an
attempt to staff effectively and efficiently. I can't believe that the
norm is for these call centers to be run by armatures who put our safety
at risk by wasting money on ineffective and inefficient staffing models.
Civil service can't possibly be in that bad of shape.

--
Warren H.

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employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.

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