Everyone knows the situation described below from our own experience, or based on the descriptions of colleagues. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Call- or Contact Center project or a business project within a company outside the industry. Try to think about the following situation: You’re sitting in a meeting for the final evaluation of a project and at the end of the meeting you can’t answer exactly whether the project was successful or not.
In most cases it is not the lack of KPI’s and parameters that leads to this, but rather the fact that projects are initiated without defining and documenting the essential framework parameters in the beginning of a project.
The points described below are essential, regardless of the project type, to be able to control projects during implementation and to evaluate their success after implementation.
Question 1: What do I want to achieve with my project?
Any project should essentially contain the following points, which should be defined and completed in a simple and understandable way according to the specific project requirements:
A) Actual situation
B) Problem description
C) Target situation
D) Project benefit
Example A) – Actual situation
Site A processes with 34 agents the telephone and written customer concerns of the client B. The planning on profitability is based on an average processing time of 3.5 minutes in the synchronous and 6 minutes processing time in the asynchronous concern resolutions. Although telephony is already on target, agents take significantly longer to handle written concerns.
Example B) – Problem description
The average processing time for the month of May 2023 is 8 minutes. The difference therefore is about 2 minutes, which means that the average processing time of written customer concerns is 33% higher than the target.
Example C) – Target situation
Based on the current situation and problem description, we can now define a measurable, realistic and scheduled target in order to be able to reduce the actual value to achieve the target.
Notice:
Only if you clearly define the starting and target situation at the beginning of a project is it possible to measure success in the end.
Example D) – Project benefits:
Whenever you set up a project, you should familiarize yourself in advance with the effort and costs associated with the implementation and changes. Examples can be: additional personnel costs, training efforts, system costs, […]. This is contrasted with the expected benefit (project benefit) and the central question: What do I hope to achieve by implementing the project?
The project benefit should always justify the effort and costs incurred. According to our example this could mean that with a reduction of the written processing times monthly up to a period to be defined X productive hours could be saved and thus one does justice also to the financial aspect of the project.
In summary, it can be said that the success of a project always depends on the right preparation. However, if you follow points A to D, the foundation for a successful project is laid. We as junokai are happy to support you in all matters concerning your planned or already started projects.
Aaron Schmidt – Consultant
junokai