Lean Six Sigma projects identification in BPO

In a BPO, the following types of projects are commonly carried out.

 

• Reducing the number of errors for XYZ team to 0.5%
• Reduction of FTEs by 30 by process reengineering in XYZ team
• Transitioning support staff into billable slots after 3 months of stabilizing
• Ensure that 90% of the jobs do not require reworking for XYZ team
• Reduce sloppy errors to 1 per week day
• Reduction of IRR across XYZ, ABC
• Improvement of average productivity of XYZ
• Improve skill index of production staff across the company
• Achieve a utilization of 75% across production lines in XYZ
• Achieve an overall internal quality target 98% for the client in ABC
• Enhanced revenue generating opportunities by proper capacity management
• Improve the updating process of the client's databaseAchieve 80% capability among production staff to function at priority level
• Increase through-put by removing unitization QC processReducing the timeline of roll-out of new process

 

 

 

Examples of companies who have been implementing Lean Six Sigma in BPO-

 

 

• Among Banking BPO's, ICICI OneSource, AMEX, BoA, HDFC have been benefiting from Six Sigma. WNS Global Services, Office Tiger, GE Capital are others who have benefited.

• Among users in the Call Centers GENPACT, Wipro, Accenture, HCL, EXL, Patni BPO have been utilizing Six Sigma methodology.

 

Benchmark Six Sigma has been conducting in-house training and has tie up with several leading BPO's.

 

What if 'X' input  factors which are affecting my output 'Y' are out of  scope? i.e. these 'x' factors are not controlable  either by client or by BPO (they are due to work which is outsourced by client to multiple third parties)?also because of certain regulatory issues changes in operating procedures are not easily possible? for e.g. A process is receiving queries from customers of client that the units on which company have billed the customer are incorrect. While the work to measure units used by customer is outsourced to some third parties? Now interesting part is process in BPO works as per SOP's agreed between BPO and client and SLA Targets are meeting correctly (in terms of  cases closed)but that doesn't mean that customers query is geting resolved. Process is receiving multiple queries i.e second/third time contacts by customer  OR time to resolve query is very high. More to that more than three subprocesses are involved in this and SOP's are entirely different for them. It's classic example of CSAT and SOP's are entirely different.  What are the likely solutions if reasons are out of scopes? specially if such kind of problems are affecting very less customers out of total customer base? If Client and Outsourcing firms are strategic partners will such issues solved in much better way?

2 ways of looking at it...

1. The SOP or for that matter the SOW will always have a clear CSAT alignment, considering there will be measures for both - specific to this process that you have centered on. Your accountability ideally ends there. Your process's CSAT measures must have a clear definition/demarcation among people, process or policy impacted scores.

2. Again, if you are not strategic partners - not a captive let's say, you can't really do more than just escalating this to your client and laying an ad hoc corrective procedure to be applied to these affected % of calls. You could offer to capture specifics and arrange a call back/transfer to a resolution or grievances team who will flag it off (collate and send) and follow up with may be the third party which is dealing with the actual activity of measurement. (Gets you some brownies and opportunity to sell add on services to the client!!). This also helps freeing up the incoming lines and thereby not affecting your SLAs - ASA, SL%, AHT etc... On the other hand, if you are a captive this becomes easier if the big guys onshore are willing to support you.

Thanks!

I think the problem can be solved only if the customer support executive have a good knowledge about what they are dealing with, i.e., they should have the product knowledge and the questions they can get and the ways of solving them.

The client should provide all the details and information about the process which in turn will help the CSR to handle the call in a more effective manner.

Before doing telemarketing of a particular product, it is better to collect the whole information about the product and also the pros and cons and educate the callers properly before they start doing their marketing through calls

Correct and necessary information from the client, proper training about the product to the caller, I think will solve the problem.

In fact, we were facing a similar problem where we were advising customers with only 50% clarity and most of them have to contact the client company to get their queries cleared.  We sorted it out by asking for a proper documentation from the client regarding the process and now the problems are much lesser, the process is on right track now

Dear Suresh,

That is a very good point. It is one of the concepts also taught in Lean "Genchi Genbutsu" which means "Go see for yourself". If a CSR is not familiar with the product or service it would be very hard to answer all the questions the customers may have.

One way is to have the CSRs walk in the customer's shoes and experience the product/service for themselves - if it is too expensive to do this in real life, at least they should have good training / simulation to experience the product or service.

In summary, it is not the person (CSRs) to blame but the process that is put in place.

SJ

Six Sigma philosophy revolves around the principle that more than 90% of the problems are due to process deficiencies and very few of them should be attributed to human error. 

Common thinking is just the opposite.

When you attend our training, you get numerous examples on how the Six Sigma philosophy works. 

The most common and fruitful six sigma projects in BPO is "Enhacing RFT and CT" where RFT is "Right First Time" which can be also classified as "First Call Resolution", and CT is "Cycle Time"

Hi,

Please clarify on few of the above points.

For point #:

2. Is the FTE reduction or process reengineering would be done through software based improvements or any streamlining that can be done otherwise?

5. What is "sloppy" errors?

6. What does IRR stand for?

RFT is applied in the courier industry too . Operational excellence is acheived in bulk movemnts and control is excercised by being right the first time and every time .

Dear Adhiraj,

Please find the answers to your questions below.

• Software based improvements relates to solutions many cases. In quite a few cases, improvements are brought about by other means like elimination of steps, re-sequencing, scripts etc. Improvement ideas are to be generated when the critical X's have been identified. Often, the most difficult part is identification of critical X's.
  

• Sloppy errors are "unintended" errors.
  

• IRR stands for Internal Rate of Return. It is used to find out whether a single project is worth investing in. In Six Sigma choosing an appropriate improvement project that makes business sense is one of the most important steps. To read more about IRR, click here
  

• Please note that Six Sigma Green Belt/ Black Belt is not responsible for calculation of IRR in most companies. This assessment is done by finance people who provide a go ahead for a cross functional Black Belt project that may require reasonable investment in terms of time and effort from key people in the company.
  

Hi All,

How do i go about a project to enhance the soft skills of the analysts in production when the issue has more to do with resistance to learn and adopt new things.

Can SixSigma help me? If yes how? If no why?

Deepak Bhat K

 

Give them knowledge. The resistance to accept or learn new things issue comes up when there is insecurity and the trust factor & rapport for some reason goes out of hand. Eg A manager announces on the production floor that henceforth frisking will be done for every person. The reasons are only known to the top level management & to a few favorites. The remaining advisors who weren't frisked before are going to react adversely. However, if the manager first informs the advisors that the company is going in for a certification to obtain better contracts. Hence, security measures are going to be enhanced & improved. Henceforth, frisking has been introduced and all the advisors who cooperative are helping the company achieve the certification. Through the grapevine put in positive thoughts. Keep updating the floor about the success of the changes made. Here, inform the analysts how the soft skills enhancement will benefit the company as well as to the analyst, the goal & simplicity of the process.  Appreciate their cooperation even before you start making changes. Remind them of instances wherein they have been cooperative & successful before.

Thanks Rashmi, I understand that is the problem and we have tried doing the explaination part of it, butthis seems to be an issue with the tenured analysts who have been in the system for quite a long time, they have a question "why suddenly" to which we respond saying it is high time that we enhance what we are good at to build up tyhe credibility of the process, it stays consistant not more than 3 days (max) and back to square one... they seem to understand things momentarily but not consistantly..Probably a constant follow up is required. Please let me know your views on this.

in softer elements, the QC form works best to reduce the defects on soft skills parameters. For eg : empathy/sympathy is something which is difficult for any officer to understand as they have mutiple calls, however if the same is done through a call listening session, they are the first ones to point out. And if people get into the self analyse mode then it is much easier for you to drive the point and get a reduction of defects. Change is something which can only be bought if self realization is present.

Thanks

Haresh

Thanks Haresh, makes sense completly, now the last part i have a is the self realization.. the floor is running completely low on self motivation and analysis of ones performance, in this case we need to start by building up the motivation... we have been doing this for quite sometime now, can you help me with some steps/tips to enahance the motivation level.

Motivation is intrinsic in nature, what can be done is you start rewarding good behavior or start a contest where in trehy can nominate their calls for excellent customer handling skills and once you start awarding tehir peers everyone would want to ape and get tehir names on the boards and highlighted to senior management.  It worked at my end, you can try for the same.

Deepak, from what I see here the tenured analysts do understand the problem & trust the system & the managers because there is consistency upto 3 days. Check out for ‘stogies' that are criticizing or making fun of the new additions in the calls. Colleagues often use demotivation techniques in BPOs to overcome their own growth insecurity. Here, the tenured analysts are habituated to the old system & hence, are resistant to change. They are afraid about their performance after the change. This is a will issue. As Haresh has suggested a QC form, listening to calls & self analyze mode will help a lot. Let each one of them rate the call on the new QA form. Then give out the actual score for each part of the call. To improve cooperation & confidence each advisor could be given a scenario or statement & asked to prepare an empathy statement whilst modulating the voice. Follow it with part-by-part mockcalls with each advisor. A printout of their statements could be provided to take home & learn. Initial resistance will fade away once they get comfortable using soft skills on the actual calls. It will also help the advisors change the stagnancy in their mindset.

Thanks Rashmi, i will try this and i now know if i have a problem where to post it and get a snsible answer..

Thank you once again.

Hi All,

Can you help me on topic : Improvement of average productivity of XYZ team in BPO backoffice process.

Sometimes number of input means cases assigned for work are very less so how we can improve productivity of particular team using Six Sigma project.

Input in BPO depends on customer,we can not fix the input so can anyone help me in above situation...

 

Hello Everyone,

I found this valuable link on this website. Read the story of relevance, innovativeness and simplicity of Six Sigma methodology from its learners and followers across various domains in BPOs and KPOs. The pioneers of Six Sigma tools in ITES speak of its utility with common six Sigma projects in BPO. To read their direct comments and feedbacks, click here

Or you may paste the following link in your browser:

http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/topic/1101-bpoites/

Warm regards

AbhishekM

Suvendu Mahapatra - AVP Quality and Transition, Zenta Technologies, shares his Six Sigma experience after his Black Belt and Lean certifications from Benchmark Six Sigma.

Gauze R&R was one of the very interesting topic which I found during the training which was being conducted by Shantanu in kol Dec 2009 Taj Bengal!It corelates to the BPO industry and is very similar to the CALIBRATION process which is being followed wide across!To apply this to my organization what I did was i re defined the internal call calibration process the process after re defining was one call selected randomly evaluated and scored by the QA the next day again the same call was being evaluated by hm if the score matches the score is RELIABLE and post that the call was being jointly audited by OPS TRAINING and QUALITY in presence of me if all the scores used to match the score was REPRODUCIBLE!People got exicted and started following this!

My question is this the right APPLIED Gauze R&R process I have moulded it! 

Yes, the first check was REPEATABILITY, the second was a check on REPRODUCUBILITY as well as ACCURACY. 

Regards,

VK

Dear All,

Here is a KPO success example from one of our MBB participants

Asad Siddiqui participated in one of our initial programs. He shares his experiences with the community in this video.