serious business: playing serious games to accelerate learning & deliver better outcomes
DESCRIPTION
How do we re-design a big call centre for better performance?TRANSCRIPT
SERIOUS BUSINESS Playing serious games to accelerate learning & deliver better outcomes
David Colls - [email protected]
p l a y i n g g a m e s
A BIG CALL CENTRE How do we re-design a big call centre for better performance?
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THE GM STRUGGLED to improve his call centre. Time for changes was running out. He was down to his last $3. The crowd urged him to upskill agent Charlie. We ran the simulator.
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$3?
Crowd?
Simulator?
What kind of business is this?
CONTEXT
A BIG call centre 200,000 calls per day
10,000 agents
500+ products
24 hours
7 days
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CONTEXT
A BIG improvement program New paradigms for:
■ Staff management, and
■ Telephony technology
To better design which agents get which calls With the aim of continual learning-led performance improvement:
■ Customer satisfaction
■ Cost
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APPROACH
Big Bang Launch is Risky! New design can’t be tested on current systems.
We can build new technology and implement new management processes.
But, when we switch it on,
Can we be sure the design will work?
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UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS
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Can we find a design that
works?
Success of improvement program at stake!
UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS
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Can we find a design that
works?
Maybe games can help us…
BUSINESS VS GAMEPLAY
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Goal
Environment
Limited Resources
Moves
Taking Turns
Scoring
Results
More freedom.
Don’t break the law!
Less freedom.
Don’t break the rules!
Simplification highlights essential features
Simplification conceals
necessary complexity
THEORY IN PRACTICE
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Goal
Environment
Limited Resources
Moves
Taking Turns
Scoring
Results
Build a simulator
Devise and play
a game scenario
VISION FOR SIMULATION
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Call Arrives Call Classified
Class. Rules
Call Targeted
Targeting Rules
Call Queued Agent With Skills Available
Agent Skill Assignment
Call Serviced
Customer Calls Agent Connected
Classified call arrival
file
Production Systems
Production Systems
Simulation wrapper
Simulation ofreal systems Call event
log
Realbehaviours
Realbehaviours
Simulatedcustomerpatience
behaviour
Simulatedagent
transferbehaviour
Reality
Process
Design
Simulation
GOAL – TO MINIMISE ABANDONED CALLS Abandon = when a caller hangs up before talking to an agent
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ENVIRONMENT The state of the world
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LIMITED RESOURCES $20 and 4 minutes – later reduced to 2 minutes
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MOVES Given the information so far, your choices determine your performance
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TAKING TURNS Competitors take it in turns to move, under constraints, with helpful and less-than-helpful suggestions from the crowd
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SCORING Simulation is run and the crowd waits anxiously for the result.
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RESULTS Scores are posted, Top-Gear Style
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“What [the winner] has done is add agents and implement default routing, just like [our newest
operation]!”
CONFIDENCE BOOST
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Can we find a sufficiently good design to launch?
The game produced the
same design as the real world!
MORE OUTCOMES
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We have a great communications and
training resource
Management and technology change teams, and other stakeholders,
now understand one another
There is value in further simulator development
AND THEN WE CHANGED SOME MECHANICS AND DID IT ALL AGAIN This time with the aim of minimal transfers
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NEW GOAL, ENVIRONMENT AND SCORING Transferred calls now part of the game
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NEW RESULTS New measures of performance yield a new strategy
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MORE OUTCOMES
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What we measure will affect what we design
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
More people played the game Effective communications about the program
Simulator scaled to production complexity To find the launch design
New system launched! Which was the real game after all
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BUSINESS OUTCOMES
Validation
Focus
Knowledge sharing
Accelerated program
Better launch design
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NO SIMULATOR?
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Goal
Environment
Limited Resources
Moves
Taking Turns
Scoring
Results
Simulation
Live systems A/B tests
User testing Role playing
SMEs Excel
