Project Report

Six Sigma- Green Belt Programme SQC & OR Unit Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi

Varun Ghai

Project Guide Rina Chakraborty

Executive Summary
This paper consists of a project on 15-15 server. The project is set to improve SLA and productivity of Emails. On Time Response for Normal Mails is one of the KPIs defined by X Postpaid which should meet its target of 95%. The resolution of the mails received should be given in 2hrs. Productivity for Normal Mails is defined in terms of the number of mails handled by an agent in one day which should meet the target of handling 45 Normal Mails/agent/day. Voice of Customer (SLA)

Voice of Customer (Productivity) Productivity i.e., No. of mails handled per Agent is very less. Higher Productivity will be an opportunity to generate more business by increasing the number of mails Responded Productivity should be improved while maintaining the other quality factors and KPIs.

Problem statement
Current SLA for Action Response stands at 91.84% which is not meeting its target of 95% and above Current productivity stands at Approx. 35 Mails responded/Agent/Day which is short of its target of 45 Mails/Agents/Day

Project scope
As mentioned earlier due to impact on 15-15 server there is a revenue loss for the organization. If this problem is addressed properly it will help in revenue increment.

Critical tools
Pareto chart fish bone diagram Failure mode effect analysis control chart

Results
It has been observed that target SLA is improved by 95% and productivity by 45 mails/Agent/Day.

Conclusion & Recommendations

1. Manual mail allocation process 2. Incoming email flow Vs Actioned email flow 3. Actioned Mails Trend

4. Unit Productivity 5. Productivity Trend 6. Experience VS Productivity and Quality 7. Fatal Errors & Quality Parameters 8. Auditing Quality

Define Phase

Problem statement
Current SLA for Action Response stands at 91.84% which is not meeting its target of 95% and above Current productivity stands at Approx. 35 Mails responded/Agent/Day which is short of its target of 45 Mails/Agents/Day

Goal Statement:
To improve SLA by 5%, the target SLA is 95% To improve Productivity by 10Mails/Agent/Day to meet the target of 45 Mails/Agent/Day

Project scope
In scope Normal Mails Human factors like Motivation, Hygiene, Attrition, work environment , rewards and recognition

Out of scope Bulk Mails, Tail SLA, Close Loop, Quality & Training, Customer satisfaction

Key measures
Impact on key business ABC company provides Centralized Backend Email System to X Postpaid, which works on a transaction based model Presently the On Time Response for normal mails is below the SLA of 95% which is resulting in penalty and hence dip in revenue (Approx Rs 1.7 lakhs/Year) Current Agent productivity average stands at 35 Mails responded in one day , this needs to improved

Worksheet in Im proving Productivity for TTSL 1515 Em ail Unit_Measure_Draft0.xls

The Measure Phase

Detailed Visio Diagram

Worksheet in N1515 v0 8 (Com patibility Mode).xls

Hourly Flow of Incoming Mails is highest during the peak Hours 10am To 1pm. Less agents are coming during 9am to 12pm. Shift timing needs to be re-organized
D a ily Ma ils In bou nd : Ju ly 2009 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

e m V l i a M d u o b n I

Inbound Mail Volume is High on Weekdays i.e., Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & has a drastic drop on Sundays

W 1 d e h T 2 u i r F 3 a S 4 t 5 n u S n o M 6 e u T 7 8 d e W h T 9 u 0 1 i r F 1 t a S 2 1 n u S 3 1 n o M 4 1 e u T 5 1 d e W 6 1 u h T 7 1 i r F 1 t a S 8 9 1 n u S 0 2 n o M 1 2 e u T 3 2 d e W 4 2 u h T 5 2 i r F 2 t a S 6 7 2 n u S 8 2 n o M 9 2 e u T 0 3 d e W

Maximum no. Of Agents coming in 9am shift are New & are handling very less number of mails. Shift timings need to re-organized for new agents.

45% of Mails are being allocated after 45 mins which in turn gives the 11% of mails have to be replied in just half an hour 1% of mails are been allocated after they Violate SLA

agent less time to respond

The maximum mails handled in 2hrs is 43.4 & the lowest is 19.8. 70% of agents respond to less than 40 mails in 2hrs Average Mails handled in 2hrs is 36 whereas the target is 45

Av era g eMa ils H a n d led in 2 H ou rs _NewAg en ts Parul Laroia Jyoti S ing h Vivek Kum ar Kanchan Giri Haidar Ali Deepak S rivastava Abhinesh S ing h Narendra Pa wan Kum ar Anita Kum ari 0 5 20 18 18 17 17 16 15 15 15 8 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

The maximum mails handled in 2hrs is 19.5 & the lowest is 7.8. 70% of agents respond to less than 18 mails in 2hrs Average Mails handled in 2hrs is 16 whereas the target is 25

Current productivity is the no. of mails responded in 2 hrs. Average Current Productivity is 88%, and if the mails responded between 2:00 hrs to 2:30 hrs are responded within 2hrs then the proposed productivity would increase to 96%

Old Agents Approx. 53% of the associates are responding less than 40 mails per day. Quality Scores are less than 95% for 30% of the agents.

New Agents Approx. 56% of the associates are responding less than 20 mails per day. Quality Scores are less than 90% for 77% of the agents.

Attendance Vs No. of Mails Responded for Old Agents Approx 53% of agents are responding to less than 40 mails as compared to other agents who have same attendance

Attendance Vs No. of Mails Responded for New Agents Approx 60% of agents are responding to less than 20 mails as compared to other agents who have same attendance

Agents with equivalent experience handling less number of mails with drastic drop for some agents.

Analysis and Findings

Key Findings:
Manual Attendance/ break time tracking Mismatch in the roster data and actual incoming timing of the agents Mismatch in Quality Dashboard and TNA Report o 25 mails per quality person are audited but it is not in synch with the volume. o Quality person audits the mail with available data (most of the time) whereas there is a chance that quality may deteriorate more than it seems. Hardware performance (less RAM in some systems) Application response time ( HLR, DISHA and CDR) Process data is not being captured properly and sometimes there is manual capturing of data which leads to inconsistency in data Hourly flow Sheet does not have the right segregation for bulk and normal mails. DOJ the Process for Chandigarh Agents was before the DOJ the Tech Mahindra. (Resolved)

 Rostering was same for the month of July and Aug however some Agents have responded to the mails before/after their shift times and it was also noted down from the floor walks that some agents were not following the rostered timings. Productivity data was not available for the 1st week of Aug and some Agents were also missing from the data provided. The number of mails audited for an Agent (as per Quality Dashboard) does not match the figures given in TNA report) Each time the EMC data was provided the count was different Some agents are there in the Attendance Sheet but are not there in Productivity Data.

Analysis
1. Manual mail allocation process o 45% of Mails (as per May10 data) and 48% of mails (as per June10 data) are being allocated after 45 min. which in turn gives the agent effectively less time to respond. o 11% ( May10) and 15% (June10) of mails are being allocated after 1.5 hour ( consequentially, associates get only half an hour to respond an e-mail) 2. Incoming email flow Vs Actioned email flow o Actioned email volume is almost 30% less than the volume o Rostering was same for the month of July09 & Aug09 despite change in volume 3. Actioned Mails Trend o There is no optimum utilization of available resources for half of the month o In May minimum numbers of agents on floor were 26 and maximum were 39 and In June minimum number of agents on floor were 22 and maximum were 45. emails received during peak time (9 am to 1 pm); Mostly new agents are rostered during peak hours

o Peak strength of total agents on the floor lags behind than that of peak inbound

4. Unit Productivity o 10 out of 27 Agents have violated SLA for 50% of the mails o Average Mails handled by old Agents is 36 whereas the target is 45 and Average Mails handled by new agents is 16 whereas the target is 25 o In the month of May no Agents has achieved the target of 45/25 mails however in the month of June few Agents have achieved the target. 5. Productivity Trend Current productivity is the no. of emails responded in 2 hrs. o Average Current Productivity is 88% (May-09) & 89.5% (June-09) for the Noida centre. 6. Experience VS Productivity and Quality o Agents with equivalent experience handling less number of mails with drastic drop for some agents. o Approx 30% of old Agents & 80% of New agents are not able to maintain quality score above 95% 7. Fatal Errors & Quality Parameters o 57% (13 out of 23) Agents are not able to achieve 95% score on overall Quality o Efficacy % is very less for Correct and Accurate Info, Grammar and FTR 8. Auditing Quality o Non uniform audit practice (Some Agents are being audited for more mails and some are being audited for less) o o Approx 15% of total mails are not marked in bcc to Quality Auditor 6-7 Agents out of total are not marking more than 35% of their mails to Quality Auditor

Improvement
1. Manual mail allocation process o Allocation process should be automated/proactive. i.e. ability to automatically allocate the mails in the queue of resources o Screener/Lead should strictly monitor resource utilization after looking at inbound e-mail volume 2. Incoming email flow Vs Actioned email flow o Swapping of old and new resources Option - 1 old Agent from 6am shift to 9 am shift and vice versa, also 2 new Agents from 9 am shift can be swapped with 2 old Agents from 12 pm shift o Rostering should be changed every 2 weeks depending on the inbound e-mail volume & availability/requirement of the resources 3. Actioned Mails Trend o Attendance and resource utilization should be properly monitored o Buffer resources (10%) should be available to cover up the absent resources

4. Unit Productivity o Lead should monitor the productivity of underperforming resources (Productivity < 90%) o o OJT should be introduced for such resources Best practices from well performing resources should be used to train the underperforming Agents 5. Productivity Trend o The mails should be allocated within 10-15 mins to the agents giving so they have enough time to respond and are aware of the queue at their end.

6. Experience VS Productivity and Quality o Quality Trainings should be introduced for the old Agents who are under performing o Reward scheme should be introduced 7. Fatal Errors & Quality Parameters o Trainings should be planned for resources who are weak in any particular parameter. o Grammar improving Activities should be introduced

8. Auditing Quality o Increase in the sample size of mails being audited o New Agents should be audited more than old Agents o Lead/Auditor should try to audit the mails which are being not marked in bcc o Strict action should be taken against the agent who does not mark mails in bcc

Control phase
o Achieved the target of SLA as 95% on Time Response for Normal Mails. The resolution of the mails resulted to receive in 2hrs. o Improved higher Productivity by 45 Mails/Agent/Day for maintaining the other quality factors and KPIs.

Conclusions
By improving root cause analysis of Manual mail allocation process and Productivity the expected benefits were: 57% (13 out of 23) Agents are able to achieve 95% score on overall Quality 13% (3 Agents out of 23) Agents are able to achieve 95% accuracy in 'Greetings' 13% (3 out of 23) Agent are able to achieve 95% accuracy in 'Customer Account History'

 All Agents are able to achieve 95% accuracy in 'Service' 22% (5 out of 23) Agent are not able to achieve 95% accuracy in 'FTR' 13% (3 out of 23) Agent are not able to achieve 95% accuracy in 'SLA'

Recommendations
Allocation process should be automated/proactive. i.e. ability to automatically allocate the mails in the queue of resources The mails should be allocated within 10-15 mins to the agents giving so they have enough time to respond and are aware of the queue at their end.

Appendix
Six sigma green belt training module(ISI) All about Six Sigma- Warren Brussee