© communication perspectives 20051 messaging metrics productivity and roi development marty parker...

© Communication Perspectives 2005 1

Messaging MetricsProductivity and ROI

Development

Marty ParkerCommunication [email protected] 408-420-5539

IAMP ConferenceOctober 18, 2005

If you can’t measure it, it’s just an opinion.

mailto:[email protected]


Topics

• Major Forms of ROI• The Roles of Measurements and Metrics• Using the Information from Your Systems• Action Summary


Major Forms of ROI – Cutting Costs

• Cut Costs (always the favorite) – Avoid or stop payroll expenses

• Staff time/positions; Overtime• Increase amount of Self-service

– Reduce variable transaction/production costs• Long distance tolls• Cellular minutes/plan charges• Administration

– Reduce Equipment, Network and TCO costs• Fewer, larger servers – leveraging Mr. Erlang• Reducing admin, monitoring and maintenance staff time• Reducing service contracts – number and prices


Major Forms of ROI – Increase Volumes

• Increase Volumes, with Fixed (Same) Costs– Help each person complete more transactions per day

• Same payroll, same cell phone bill, etc. so more profitable

– Queue transactions for group responses• The “single bank line” concept

• Increase Volumes, with Variable Costs– Shorten transaction completion times, but still have costs of

production, travel, proposals, service, etc. • Extend the business day (e.g. 24-7 services)

• Eliminate transaction steps (e.g. auto-reply, training, presence)

• Shorten the time for each task (e.g. faster prompts, canned replies)

• Shorten the “inter-task” wait time (e.g. notifications, find-me)


Two Basic Forms:

Cost Based Example Volume Based ExampleBUSINESS IMPROVEMENTS

Transaction Type Find Info Comments

Number per Month 6600 100 reps x 3/day

Time/Find Now 12 minutes

Time/Find New 4 minutes

Change/Transaction -8 minutes

Average Payroll/Rep $10,000 per month

Average Quota/Rep $100,000 per month

Payroll Benefit ($50,000)

Revenue Benefit $500,000 PER MONTH!

COST REDUCTIONSMethod 1:Transaction Type Answer Calls Comments

Number per Month 110000 1000 users x 5/day

Change Factor -90% Voice Mail, less 0 out

Cost per Transaction $1 Per message slip

Change in Costs ($99,000) PER MONTH!

Method 2:Messages/Operator 6160 40 /hour/day x 7 hrs.

Operators reduced: -17.9

Wage/Operator/mo $2,000

Labor Savings ($35,714) PER MONTH!


Roles of Measurements and Metrics

• Prove the expected/promised results occur• Get feedback for improvement or adjustments

– Can good concepts be expanded, increased? – Can problem areas be addressed, mediated?– Can low value areas be eliminated entirely?

• Provide performance feedback– Are the services meeting their SLAs?– Are the users meeting their SLAs?– Does feedback allow self-improvement?

• Capture information for more accurate planning• Build Credibility for future investments


Using Information from Your Systems

• Most suppliers only provide reports to manage and maintain the systems. – Port use, Error Logs, Mailbox Configs, COS, etc.

• However, most also provide data output tools– Ability to get details out into Excel, Access, Crystal

• Creating a data base allows for “data mining” • A good measurement system or “Dashboard”

can be created with the extracted data– Allows for reporting over consistent time periods– Often requires correlation with other information


AVST Information and Reports

• Good package of standard reports

• Well documented data export formats

• Embedded Crystal Reports tool


AVST Information and Reports

• Example of a message usage report that could be very effective in analyzing message traffic and “hot spots”.


Avaya Information and Reports

• Avaya offers a basicset of standard reports.

• All other reporting is based on either:– Exporting to a file– Extracts from the detailed

Operational History file– Use of the iVize® package


Avaya Information and Reports

• Example of a graph that shows the message elements by day, to highlight the usage and inferred value of the various system features.

With the iVize package from Vitel/Concord Communciations eHealth


Typical Data Output FormatsAvaya Modular Messaging AVST CallXpress


An Example at Microsoft

• Extracted 8 top metrics to produce a daily “Dashboard”– Included Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on:

• Caller and user experiences• Internal system performance, queue lengths, etc.

• Produced periodic application summary– Published as a white paper at

• http://www.avaya.com/gcm/master-usa/en-us/resource/assets/whitepapers/mis2150.pdf

– Shows that a UM system basically becomes a call answering engine, and with low voice traffic volumes at least for MSFT:

• 42,000 users• 1.5 million calls per month; 78% from RNA; 15% from Busy• 45% of callers leave a message (36% in Japan, 30% in Brazil)• Only 2% press “0”• 8% of calls are log-ins for messages (most use PC or mobile data)

– I.e.: less than one call answer message per workday per user!

http://www.avaya.com/gcm/master-usa/en-us/resource/assets/whitepapers/mis2150.pdf


Questions to ask…

• What is the feature usage? • What is the caller behavior? • What are the various levels of usage?• How do those correlate to job types/titles? • What are the trends in usage?

– Total system as well as per user, per job types

• How can those be converted into analysis?


Requires Going “Outside the Reports”

• In most cases, will require exporting to a database• Importing related data will also be useful

– E-mail use, if known and accessible– Cellular phone usage, if you control this– Autoattendant usage and reports related to the MBs

• Often better reporting in AA, IVR or Speech products– E.g. Avaya Speech Access gives feature usage/user/day

– Cost tables or rates for the various elements

• With such information, real analysis can show how usage is delivering results for your company


And, Just for Fun, but On the Point

• With measurements and metrics, Billy Beane and his analysts:– Put the Oakland As

baseball team into the top quartile of all Major League teams

– While keeping the player payroll in the bottom quartile of all Major League teams


Summary

• Measurement and Metrics are essential to justification, operation and returns from your messaging and unified communication systems.

• Include metrics and measurements in all your planning and investments.

• All investments can be measured.• ROI can be proven and tracked.

There is no such thing as a “soft dollar justification”, there is only “soft data analysis”.

mfp, 2005

© communication perspectives 20051 messaging metrics productivity and roi development marty parker...

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