How to make sense of a pile of call center data?

September 20, 2006 8:05 AM

I've been tasked with analyzing call records for a small software support call center. Neither I nor the company have ever done this kind of thing before and I'm not sure what to do.

I have a pretty decent handle on making pie charts and so forth of information like "y% of calls involve issue x" or "we're spending x% of our time on issue y." I have Crystal Reports and it does a fine job of this. What the powers that be want, however, is information about the "interesting" calls, e.g., "what specific things do users want to know how to do" or "what are commonly asked questions that we can address in a FAQ." Thus far, I have been doing this by reading through the records and writing down information that seems useful. This strikes me as very inefficient, but I'm at a loss to think of a better way to do it at the moment.

Calls are tracked using an in-house app that stores information in a MySQL database (to which I do not have access). The data is given to me in CSV format, which I have been importing into yet another MySQL database running on my workstation. I have requested that pertinent data be replicated directly to a separate database to which I can be given access, but I don't know if that will pan out. Does anybody out there have a better idea (nothing is unreasonable at this point), information about established practices for this kind of thing at other companies, books/web sites to research, etc? I'm making this up as I go along and pretty much flying blind. Thanks.

posted by cdavis to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

When I was working with a call center (outbound, sales), we tracked interesting calls by having a series of post-call questions that the reps had to answer. Two of the questions were, "Did anything out of the ordinary happen during this call?" and "Were you unable to answer all of the customer's questions?" We logged/recorded every call for 48 hours, and every day the customer service leads would review all of the flagged calls. Someone else in management also had your job of randomly sampling based upon typewritten call logs... but it was in ADDITION to all of the other things that we did.

The goals *we* had in asking those questions was to improve our training and the information that we supplied to the rep. I think it would behoove you to find out exactly what your management's goals are for having you go through the records.

If I were you, I'd go back to management and ask for something like this to be implemented. Tell them that it will give them a much more complete picture of the issues that face the call center if they have the actual call handlers answering those questions.
posted by SpecialK at 8:12 AM on September 20, 2006

I've been in a very similar situation myself. It ain't that bad!
Woohoo! You're using an in-house app for tracking calls, which probably means that it can be modified relatively easily. This assumes a lot, but let's go from here.

You also have people answering these phonecalls, right? Use them! They may just be phone monkeys in many peoples eyes, but the chances are good that they know what the customers are dealing with and what could make the customers (and the reps) lives easier.

I'd suggest adding a field/checkbox that is selectable by the phone reps. Selection of the box means "Flagged for potential FAQ creation". You could be fancy and provide more options, but anytime that you're helping ease the burder of the downtrodden call-taking masses, they'll love you and help out.
posted by terpia at 11:55 AM on September 20, 2006

Oh, and to add to what terpia said: Add an incentive for people who take on the tough issues and give good answers that are then picked up in the FAQ. Could be anything small, but remember that they're making your job/live easier.
posted by SpecialK at 5:39 PM on September 20, 2006