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A Stitch in Time…

19 November, 2014 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Stitches

Running a customer service centre is hard It is a constant battle, trying to minimise cost and maximise customer service. But we all know the game, we get employed to play it: Squeeze your head count down as far as you dare Ride the variations in customer demand Manage the backlog Set up a turnaround […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: abandon rate, call centre, capacity planning, customer focus, service improvement, supply and demand

The Worst Thing That Can Happen in a Call Centre

1 May, 2012 by James Lawther 2 Comments

How bad can a day in a service centre get? Let’s be honest, nobody is going to die, not unless they are spectacularly unlucky and trip over a trailing cable What does a bad day look like? A bad day looks like this: Your colleagues in Marketing or IT or Pricing do something stupid to […]

Filed Under: Blog, Tools & Techniques, Wild Cards Tagged With: abandon rate, average handle time, bullwhip effect, call centre, capacity planning, queue

Surge Planning: I Hate the Snow

17 January, 2012 by James Lawther 1 Comment

Surge Planning

It was cold this morning Freezing It is going to snow, maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon Snow is a mixed blessing, great for sledging but for some of us, it’s a work disaster Pipes freeze People fall Cars won’t start Boilers fail If you happen to be in the game of mending pipes […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: capacity, capacity planning, risk assessment, supply and demand, surge capacity

Save Yourself Rich

8 March, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

All operations are too expensive, no matter how good they are there is always an obligation to reduce cost further, and when the cost has been taken out there will always be pressure to remove more. There are 5 key problems that are common to operations of all types: 1.  There are numerous opinions about […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: capacity planning, clarity, complexity, cost saving, purpose, rework, supply and demand

Running out of Doctors

4 December, 2009 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

The British Medical Association claims to have uncovered department of health data that shows that there was a shortfall of 3,000 junior doctors at the end of 2008.  Two factors are being blamed for this, changes to immigration legislation that prevents people from outside the EU coming to train as doctors and also the European […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: bureaucracy, capacity, capacity planning, medicine, recruitment

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