Afrox, the largest South African supplier of gas, welding products and consumables to the industrial, medical and hospitality sectors, has increased the capacity of its contact centre to handle 45% more in terms of delivered orders. This improvement was due to a call centre enhancement project initiated by ATIO Corporation, Afrox`s technology and solutions partner, together with Creative Customer Concepts.
The measurement standards used by Afrox before the upgrade indicated there were severe capacity constraints. The goal of the project was to achieve capacity improvement within the current resource level and operational budget.
"There has been a significant improvement. In 2002 the service levels ranged between 50% and 70%, and now record a monthly average of 95.39%." Comments Patrick Dunseith, Director, Afrox.
Through a strategic partnership with Creative Customer Concepts, ATIO commissioned a high level assessment of the contact centre`s operational environment to identify ways to increase capacity without adding more agent seats.
Once complete, Afrox launched a contact centre enhancement project. The analysis revealed that agent performance and service level reporting standards were inappropriate and compounding the capacity constraint perception. It also outlined that a number of workflow and process inefficiencies were aggravating the centre`s potential for additional capacity creation. Over and above providing project management with the appropriate reporting tools created by ATIO, Creative Customer Concepts provided a contact centre manager on an outsource basis to ensure continuity and continuous improvement of the service level and agent performance measurements. A holistic change management programme targeting incremental and achievable improvements in agent adherence and occupancy was also implemented.
"Having addressed the issues outlined in the analysis, service levels improved dramatically, comparing favourably with industry best practice. Potential capacity existed in abundance and would pose no obstacle in accommodating the additional volumes anticipated in the centralisation roll-out," commented Jean Sinovich, Services Director, ATIO Corporation.
Due to the success of the project, Afrox management was able to focus on core competencies such as promoting increased product-service delivery and ensuring that each customer experience presented an opportunity for future value creation.
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