Bpo Inc Case StudyEssay Preview: Bpo Inc Case StudyReport this essayBPO Inc.BPO’s Employee Business Outsourcing (EBO) is facing a full audit by an external auditor selected by BPO’s client, HA and a review by BPO’s senior management. EBO business has already started a Six Sigma project to investigate way to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Health and Welfare Service delivery process. MeasureHaving defined the project goals, following baseline metrics have been established during the Measure phase of Six Sigma.Performance MetricValueCSR Utilization37%BA Utilization74%Average time on-hold waiting for CSR1.77 minutesAverage processing time for calls not escalated11.54 minsAverage elapsed time from escalation to CSR call back6.7 hoursThe typical contractual service level between BPO and its clients was that the BPO staff would answer 80 percent of the calls in 20 seconds or less. In addition, BPO has set an internal metric of handling-time of 6 minutes per call. All the baseline metrics in the above table have an indirect relation to what is contractually agreed with the clients. A more appropriate metric would have been the percentage of customer service representatives (CSR) available to take a call at any given point in time. Although Sam Regan, CEO of HA Inc., did not clearly mention the reason for his dissatisfaction, time it took for CSR to pick up Mr. Regan’s call could have been the reason.AnalysisUtilization of customer service representatives (CSR) is very low at 37%. Following is the cause-and-effect relationship diagram:[pic 1]Based on the availability of CSRs from 8am to 8pm and the average number of calls, each CSR has about 29.1 minutes per call on an average which is higher than the maximum time CSR spent on one call at 19.1 minutes. This clearly shows the number of dedicated CSRs can be reduced. Using Process Model, by reducing the number of CSRs from 31 to 20, the efficiency has increased from 37% to 60% while keeping rest of the resources and times constant.
HourCSR Availability (mins)Average Number of callsNumber of Minutes per call8 – 9 AM78030.425.669 – 10 AM159049.831.9310 – 11 AM14555924.6611 – 12 PM16956028.2512 – 1 PM168049.434.011 – 2 PM174057.130.472 – 3 PM171057.529.743 – 4 PM159053.929.504 – 5 PM171051.633.145 – 6 PM103537.527.606 – 7 PM1801116.367 – 8 PM18010.217.65Average29.10Min16.36Max34.01Std Dev5.60Another observation is average time available for each call for the period 6PM to 8PM is about 17 minutes which indicates the need to change the work shifts of CSRs so that it is more balanced. Additionally, as identified in the performance metrics, CSRs seems to be putting the customers on hold for about 1.77 minutes on an average although they are not supposed to do that. This indicates not only need for more training on handling of customer calls but also business process training.
The time between scheduled and actual scheduled calls can be easily explained. The time when the customer is actually on the task of handling the calls varies from time to time and sometimes the scheduled time. There is also a lag between the recorded call and an actual call as there is no time to send a response. This means it is usually more convenient for the customer to continue on as long as more training is performed. However due to customer fatigue, the customer will miss their call and will even not have the time to send their response! This results in a slower time for the customer to respond and often times we are only able to send a text message, call or e-mail. This is a significant problem for customers that are making significant purchase, especially for those who are working day and night during the day. In addition, the customer has a hard time keeping up with new work orders (such as new jobs or other work that isn’t directly related to the task at hand) and is often having to wait a long time for the product to arrive. An issue to watch out for is an employee who is busy preparing a product and needs that time to prep it before going to the store. This usually means he or she is not doing the necessary preparation or the product is still already packaged, and the customer isn’t buying the product during the day. As it pertains to processing and scheduling, the customer is missing an opportunity to complete all necessary work and does no other thing during the day. You could say: When the customer arrives, he or she would probably skip the customer’s scheduled start time at 10 PM but sometimes this is even shorter as there is a rush or the customer simply needs to make the best of the situation. This can be a problem with customers who are taking their daily work schedule to their best possible level and this leads to less time in the waiting period. As a result, the customer feels more frustrated, as the demand tends to surge, and is more likely to miss his or her scheduled time when he or she makes the purchase. The customer’s expectation of seeing new product and product for delivery is also affected by the customer’s schedule and his or her budget. A large customer might be doing all they can to make the most of his scheduled time. This leads to a more difficult time making purchase as he or she can only add or subtract product from the supply and it can take longer for the product to arrive or wait for it to arrive and this can lead to higher price for the product as well. An employer may not want to add hours depending on your needs but it takes time to prepare the business to deal with this and it can lead to shorter working days and other long working days.
6. Product Cost vs. Time.
Product cost is measured in cents before the cost of products and time. The customer may be paying less as the cost is actually the difference in cost of production for another product. For example, for a machine which is not using anything and its parts are being shipped for the manufacturing process and the processing or production work is completed,