Creating a World-Class Call Center in North America’s Current Healthcare Environment: Performance Metrics, Operations, Structures and Trends

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

Best Practices, LLC

Strategic Benchmarking Research

Creating a World-Class Call Center

in North America’s Current

Healthcare Environment: Performance Metrics, Operations, Structures and

Trends

Copyright © Best Practices, LLC

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

Table of Contents

I. Executive Summary

Research Project Overview

Participating Companies

Key Insights & Benchmark Findings

Key Performance Metrics at a Glance

Definitions

II. Call Center Structure & Focus

III. Operations

IV. Complaint Management Process

V. Performance Metrics

VI. Technology Use & Impact

VII.Future Trends & Issues

2


BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

Objectives & Methodology

Research Objective:

Provide participants with current metrics for call center performance in the

pharmaceutical, medical device, biotech, diagnostics, consumer health, and

consumer packaged goods industries

Benchmarking Methodology:

Create and deploy custom benchmarking survey

Deploy survey tool online to call center leaders across the industry

Develop key performance metrics and ratios from quantitative survey data

Develop insights through conducting in-depth executive interviews with selected

participants

Research Project Overview

Best Practices, LLC conducted this benchmarking study to identify performance benchmarks

for the size, cost, service delivery efficiency, structure, leadership, processes, technology, and

operations of call center organizations within pharmaceutical and related industries.

3


BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

Best Practices, LLC Studied Call Centers at 35 Companies

Participating Companies: Benchmark Class

Forty call center leaders from 35 pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, diagnostic, OTC (Over

the Counter), and consumer packaged goods companies participated in this study. Participation

was limited to call centers operating in the United States or Canada.

4


Participating Companies: Abbott (Molecular & Diabetes Care units), Advanced Sterilization Products, Alcon, Alexion, Amgen, Astellas (US & Canada),

Baxter, Biogen Idec, Biosense Webster, Boehringer Ingelheim, Colgate Palmolive, Cordis, Daiichi Sankyo, Endo Health, Ethicon, Genzyme, GlaxoSmithKline,

GSK Consumer, Janssen, McKesson, Medtronic, Merck Consumer, Nestle Health Care, Novartis Consumer, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (2 units), Pfizer,

Pfizer Consumer, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, Roche, Shionogi, Shire, Sunovion, Takeda, Teva, UCB, United Therapeutics.

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

5


Call centers support 160 products on average, with

a range from one to 2,534.

Participating Call Centers: A Brief Profile

Reporting 35% report into Medical Affairs. Others are widely distributed, reporting into

functions ranging from Marketing to Technical Services to Safety.

Leadership Leaders most often work in director-level

positions and report up to senior executives.

95% are located in the United States and 5% in Canada.

45% operate as internal corporate functions, 28% are run by vendors, and 28%

are mixed internal/vendor models.

80% have regional/country specific structures. Approach

Nearly half the centers support at least two different industry segments.

The percentage of respondents supporting each industry segment is:

55% prescription drug business

40% devices or diagnostics

35% OTC and consumer packaged goods products

Industry

Top focus areas are medical inquiries & medical

or technical complaints.

Focus

Area

Structure

Products

Location

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

6


Key Insights - 2

INVESTMENT: Differing rates of technology adoption across

participating call centers may be driven in part by the extent to

which executive leadership values the call center’s rich pool of

customer data.. Those who will leverage the data to feed other

corporate functions are more likely to invest heavily in

technology acquisition and upgrades.

SELF-SERVICE: Benchmark participants are exploring ways

to increase self-service for customers with common call center

queries. Knowledge bases and artificial intelligence will

expedite this process, increasing consumer access and,

potentially, reducing costs.

GLOBALIZATION: Benchmark participants anticipate

increased globalization of call centers in the next few years to

provide standardized service to a global customer base. Those

who have already begun globalization noted that a common

technology platform and centralized leadership are basic

requirements. Regional variations in regulations, however, will

continue to create globalization challenges.

Additional key insights from data and interviews follow.

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

7


80% of Centers Have Regional/Country Specific Structures

The large majority of benchmarked companies use a regional or country specific structure for

call center operations.

Q. What type of structure does your call center reflect? (choose one)

Call Center Structure

(n = 40)

Other models:

• Regional model for commercial/

Global for clinical trials

• Regional with global component

Regional/ country-

specific call centers,

80%

Globalized center

covering multiple regions/

countries, 15%

Other model, 5%

% of Responses

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

8


20%

5%

8%

8%

10%

10%

10%

30%

Other

Hybrid with Medical Affairs

Quality

Sales

Medical Information

Technical Services

Marketing

Medical Affairs

Call Centers Most Often Report to Medical Affairs

Q. To what function does the leader of your call center report?

% of Responses (n = 40)

Other:

• Commercial Ops

• Consumer Relations

• Finance

• Medical Operations

• Operations

• Safety

• Sales & Marketing

Function to which Call Center Reports

Although 35% of participating call centers report into Medical Affairs, the remainder are widely

distributed throughout the organizations, reporting into functions ranging from Marketing to

Technical Services to Safety.

35%

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

9


Median Call Center Budget Is $2.5 Million

(n = 23)

Call Center Budget

$ B

ud

get

Q. Call center’s operating budget for the current fiscal year ($US). (Exclude large, one-time capital expenses)

Call center budgets for participating companies ranged from a low of $200,000 to a high of $35 million,

with a median average of $2.5 million.

Top Expenses :

Interviewed call center

leaders cited their top

expenses categories as:

• Vendor fees,

• Systems costs

• Telecommunications

• Ensuring data quality

• Training

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

Call Centers Take Median Average of 5,340 Calls per Month

Q. What is your average number of inbound and outbound calls per month?

The average number of monthly inbound calls ranges from a low of 203 to a high of 140,000 across

the benchmark class. Outbound calls are generally a small fraction of the total, although outbound

volume exceeds inbound for 6% of centers. High call volume is directly linked to low budget per call.

Higher average monthly call

volume correlates with lower

budget per call. For example,

companies with more than 5,000

calls per month had an ‘cost per

call’ of $21.68—less than one-

third of $72.44 cost at centers

with less than 5,000 calls

Volume/Cost Correlation

Average#

Calls/Month

Average

Budget/Calln=

< 5K 72.44$ 10

>5K 21.68$ 10

SE

RV

ICE

LE

VE

L

11,500

5,340

1,550 1,959

456 233

75thPercentile

Median 25thPercentile

Average # inbound calls

Average # outbound calls

# C

all

s

(n = 31)

10


Average Number of Calls per Month

=Top quartile *

*

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

11


Two-Thirds of CRMs Have Capability to Capture All Case Types

(n = 33)

Customer Relationship Management System Capability

% of Responses

Q. Which of the following statements best describes the capability of your CRM? (choose one)

CRM has ability to capture all case types including medical and technical complaints,

medical inquiries, marketing cases, etc.,

67%

CRM needs to link into separate

databases to store medical

complaints, technical complaints, etc.,

33%

While 67% of participants’ CRM systems have the ability to capture all case types, others must link

into separate databases to store different types of records.

BEST PRACTICES,

®

LLC

Best Practices, LLC 6350 Quadrangle Drive, Suite 200

Chapel Hill, NC 27517

www.best-in-class.com

919-403-0251

[email protected]

About Best Practices, LLC

12


Best Practices, LLC is a research and consulting firm that conducts work based on the simple yet

profound principle that organizations can chart a course to superior economic performance by studying

the best business practices, operating tactics, and winning strategies of world-class companies.

Return to Table of Contents

http://www.best-in-class.com/





Creating a World-Class Call Center in North America’s Current Healthcare Environment: Performance Metrics, Operations, Structures and Trends

Health & Medicine

llcbest practices

center performance

trendsbest practices

center operations

center leaders

consumer health

center organizations

center queries