Published on April 23, 2021
Indian Hotels (IHCL) had been measuring its contact centre key performance indicators (KPIs) around quality, manpower management and turnaround time. As part of its improvement efforts, the company wanted to compare contact centre processes across various industries to understand and evaluate its current processes and KPIs. Accordingly, in December 2020, using American Productivity and Quality Center’s (APQCs) Open Standard Benchmarking (OSB) Assessment, Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG) helped IHCL in comparing its contact centre metrics respectively with those of the best in the industry.
The performance benchmarking exercises with APQC, facilitated by TBExG, enables companies to identify areas for process and performance improvement. It also helps create a culture of continuous improvement and transformation.
The assessment report from APQC contained validated benchmarking information, including the performance relative to its peers in separate industries, regions, and organisation-size peer groups. In addition, qualitative information related to key business practices and enablers were included in the report, which helped IHCL identify performance gaps in its key metrics and performance measures to be taken for improvement.
The report highlighted KPIs related to call centre management in the categories of cost effectiveness, process efficiency and cycle time for IHCL compared to all participants as under:
- 25th percentile or bottom performers: This represents the performance level below which 25 percent of all responses fall
- Median: The median performance level for all participants in the database. The median reflects the value below and above which there is an equal number of values
- 75th percentile or top performers: This represents the performance level below which 75 percent of all responses fall
- Gap: Represents the difference between the performance level of the participating organisation versus the top performer value for that particular metric
Post the OSB assessment, IHCL has identified the following key areas for further understanding of global benchmarks and best practices as part of its improvement interventions to bridge the performance gap.
- Average speed of answer in seconds for agent queue calls
- Response time in minutes for inbound requests coming from e-mail
Participant Speak
The IHCL contact centre currently measures the progress of KPIs around quality, turnaround time, manpower management and process schedule. In the past we have been unable to obtain relevant comparisons from other similar competitive/comparative processes across industries to understand the process on a larger spectrum. Through this benchmarking exercise we were able to evaluate how we stacked up versus various industries including manufacturing. To further, assist IHCL in its improvement efforts, TBExG will be initiating best practice sharing sessions on internal benchmarks to leverage the learnings from within the group.
Brinda Sherman - AVP, Business Excellence, IHCL