3 Italia enhances customer experience using predictive simulation

The challenge

Finding the most efficient way to implement a new customer service delivery model

H3G designed a new customer-centric organisational model where people would be assigned to a specific operator pool when contacting support. The pool would be responsible for all follow-up interactions – and, therefore, the entire customer care experience.

“In a saturated market like telecommunications, the customer relationship is a competitive advantage that strengthens and supports loyalty. We also wanted to empower call centre operators with trackable targets that ensure service levels are maintained. The new organisational model aimed to distribute responsibility across operators, expanding their field of action and increasing their skillsets,” said Antonella Lenardi, Customer Care Operational Planning and Control Manager at H3G.

Once H3G had designed the new model, they needed to determine the best way to implement it.

“We needed to identify the minimum number of operators for each pool so as to guarantee a one-to-one relationship with customers. However, in such a complex model, we couldn’t use traditional sizing techniques like the Erlang C formulas,” explained Antonella. “We needed to answer questions like: what’s the model’s operational efficiency? If workloads increase, what happens? Before introducing such a risky change, we had to test our plans. And what better tool to use than simulation?”

H3G selected our Witness predictive simulation software and our Italian partner Studio Zeta to design an implementation process that would achieve their customer experience objectives while maximising operational efficiency.

The solution

Simulating operations to define ways of working, validate targets and inform contingency planning

The first objective was to determine the minimum number of operators required to meet 2 key targets:

• Abandon call rate (ACR) – the percentage of abandoned calls
• 20-second service level – the percentage of calls answered within 20 seconds

To achieve this, Studio Zeta used Witness to simulate contact centre operations, accounting for the following variables:

• Daily call volumes
• Call distribution by time slot
• Staffing
• Distribution of management resources
• How inactive frontline resources affect the target service level
• Operator skills, both general service and sales

Based on the simulation results, H3G decided to adopt a ‘bench management’ style of delivering the organisational model, together with skills-based call routing. As Riccardo Guarnieri, H3G Customer Care Operational Planning Manager, explained: “Bench management involved minimising resources dedicated to frontline work and bringing in back-office teams during peak call times or when frontline operators weren’t available.”

Then, H3G and Studio Zeta used the simulation to understand the organisational model’s capacity, determine how bench management would affect back-office activities and test call routing rules. This involved simulating sales calls and general customer service calls, which require different skillsets (and therefore different operators).

The final simulation use case involved validating the organisational model across varied workloads to find the best way of maintaining service levels during peak times.

The impact

More customer-centric service – with confidence targets can be met

The Witness simulation enabled H3G to stress-test its organisational model and put resourcing contingency plans in place for peak periods. The analysis showed that if:

• Call volumes exceed standard levels by 20% – all back-office staff need to be deployed to the pool
• Call volumes exceed standard levels by 30% – calls have to be sent to other pools
• Call volumes exceed standard levels by 40% – calls need to move outside the pool to a ‘supergroup’ where the first available operator answers

Thanks to the insight from Witness, H3G has been able to deliver a more customer-centric service while achieving its targets. They continue to use Witness when implementing continuous improvement initiatives.

Riccardo concluded: “Simulation helps us realise strategic objectives like delivering high-quality customer service with small operator pools – while ensuring efficiency and meeting targets. We now test all new processes before implementation, so simulation is a part of our everyday life at H3G."