NEW STUDY CONFIRMS KNOWLEDGE PAYS
Australian Work Place Authority test audit finalised
Key Points
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New study into knowledge impediments
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Knowledge audit through Australian Workplace Authority contact centres
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154 hours of customer contact analysed
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Findings show self managed knowledge give fastest results
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Indications suggest savings of over $5,500 a year per agent for contact centres
Sydney, March 18, 2009 – Media reports of turmoil in telecommunications contact centres has highlighted how stressful it can be for staff and customers when the right information is not available at the right time. Now a new piece of research designed to study the productivity impact of knowledge impediments in contact centres from students at the University of New South Wales, has been performed on the Australian Workplace Authority. The findings of the research could potentially help other service led organisations save millions a year.
Students Matt Dixon and Dominic Byrne authored their report “Measuring Staff Productivity Loss Relating to Knowledge Management” as research for their Masters of Business & Technology. The initial finding of the research indicates that significant savings can be generated in larger contact centres by implementing knowledge management systems.
Working with the Australian Workplace Authority (WPA), the pair collected a comprehensive sample of over 1,500 calls handled by 50 agents throughout Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth over a three-day period in late October. This represented 154 hours of customer contact and 15% of total calls made by the public into the WPA’s busy contact centre in Sydney over the audit period. To collect the data, agents input call information via a specifically designed computer system to identify and assess knowledge related time delays incurred by agents. It was critical that the research was easy to implement and required minimal time from the participants.
The research gathered data on:
- knowledge-gathering methods used by agents
- identification of the fastest calls types
- identification of slow calls and those creating productivity losses
Productivity gains were most evident when the call was resolved with ’self found’ knowledge using tacit or self created resources, while ’assisted knowledge’ resolutions that required another team member or more senior advisor took the longest.
After studying the results, Research author, Matt Dixon observed that “The use of self-made notes or tacit knowledge resulted in an average handling time of 2.58 minutes and 3.51 minutes respectively, whereas reliance on a variety of sources like internal systems & databases, websites, assistance from another person, or escalations to “experts”, generated much higher resolution times of up to 3 times the call length.”
The insight created by the study will be of value to the WPA’s contact centres, according to General Manager, Mr. Michael Clark, who said “not only has participation in this study allowed us to get a different perspective on how we manage calls and how many different sources of information are used in order to resolve an inquiry, the analysis has highlighted for us a number of areas where efficiencies can be gained.”
The findings and approach to collecting the data were reviewed by Associate Professor John DAmbra, Academic Director, Master of Business and Technology Program at UNSW. He says that the study has raised some highly salient issues regarding the way knowledge is captured and leveraged within busy service environments.
“The research was conducted in an environment that is not indicative of the majority of contact centres, because WPA agents typically deal with a great deal of one-off calls. They cover a very wide, disparate range of inquiries meaning the WPA can not, as a bank might, build a customer profile based on the frequency of contact and this is common of many Government contact centres,” explains Dr. D�Ambra. “What remains to be seen is how these initial results translate into the private sector and what additional insight can be gained by cross referencing the experience of the two different kinds of centre.”
Dixon and Byrne plan to expand on their study with the private sector by conducting similar knowledge audits with commercially operated contact centres & outsource providers.
Any organisation interested in analysing knowledge management in their own contact centres should fill out the Enquiry Form
