Production Planning & Control

The Management of Operations

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Six-sigma for improving Top-Box Customer

Satisfaction score for a banking call centre

Vijaya Sunder M. & Jiju Antony

To cite this article: Vijaya Sunder M. & Jiju Antony (2015): Six-sigma for improving Top-Box
Customer Satisfaction score for a banking call centre, Production Planning & Control, DOI:
10.1080/09537287.2015.1021879

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2015.1021879

Published online: 01 Jul 2015.

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 Production Planning & Control, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2015.1021879

Six-sigma for improving Top-Box Customer Satisfaction score for a banking call centre
Vijaya Sunder M.a* and Jiju Antonyb
a
Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Assistant Vice President, Barclays, India; bDept. of Business Management, Heriot-Watt
University, Edinburgh, UK
(Received 6 August 2014; accepted 10 February 2015)

Six Sigma process improvement methodology has been accepted globally across the service industry. In past one decade,
the application and success of Six Sigma in Services is remarkable across Information Technology organisations, Hospi-
tality firms, Government, Healthcare firms and Banking & Financial Sector. The aim of this paper is to explore the role
of Six Sigma within call centres where the metric based environment complements the application of Six Sigma for pro-
Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 07:22 13 September 2015

cess improvements. The article establishes the literature for the need for Six Sigma in call centre environment elaborat-
ing on customer facing metrics in addition to internal performance measures and highlighting the advantages of Six
Sigma. A case study is presented in the second part of the article to study the DMAIC project management approach of
Six Sigma for improving the Top Box Customer Satisfaction score of a Banking call centre. The literature identifies the
possible opportunities for improving the performance of call centre metrics using Six Sigma. The project case study pre-
sented as part of the paper delivered a saving of USD 0.27 million to the bank, and is a classic example of how Six
Sigma can bring bottom-line impact to an organisation. The article is limited to elaborate the advantages of Six Sigma
in call centre environment, emphasising on its need and its compatibility to go along successfully with change accelera-
tion and project management processes. Managerial implications and lessons learned are discussed alongside the con-
cluding notes.
Keywords: Six Sigma; call centre; process improvement; metrics; case study

1. Introduction A call centre can serve different purposes for a com-

A ‘call centre’ is a generic term for help desks, informa-
tion lines and customer service centres. Call centres have
become the central focus of many companies, as these
centres stay in direct contact with the firm’s customers.
Call centres are of two basic types: those that handle
inbound calls, where customers call in for service, and
outbound call centres, where agents from contact centres
call customers to offer services. Call centres not only
offer phone-based support, but also support through
online chat, SMS and e-mail (Subramaniam 2008). Many
organisations choose to offshore their call centres for
multiple reasons. Few of them include low-cost and
effective workforce, lower telecom costs and efficient
utilities and infrastructure. In the last 10 years, the call
centre industry has experienced considerable growth on
both sides of the Atlantic. According to Reuters, the Wes-
tern European call centre market as a whole is expected
to grow by 12% annually. In European countries such as
the UK, more employees work in call centres than in
many traditional fields (Miciak and Desmanais 2001).
According to sourcingmag.com, India, Philippines, South
Africa, Ireland, Singapore are few of the locations where
most of the call centre offshoring has been happening
past a decade (Asangi and Sathe 2013).
pany, depending on the industry the firm is and the man-
agement strategy of the organisation. It may be used to
provide information (like phone numbers and flight
schedules), handle orders (like airlines and car rental
orders), or provide consulting services (like medicine
prescriptions, legal counselling). In some industries, call
centres are used for marketing purposes, to call the
prospective customers to sell or cross sell the products.
Few of the industries which have established call centres
include telecom industry, retail industry, airlines, technol-
ogy, health care, banking and financial services. Banking
and Financial services were early adopters of call centres
across the globe, providing incentives to reduce costs
and improve sales channels. Unlike the telecommunica-
tions industry, where call centres were commonplace and
subsequently expanded to include a wider variety of
functions, few banks had customer facing call centres
even before the 1990s. Many banks underwent dramatic
organizational change by shifting services from local
branches to remote centres and outsourcing services to
third party call centres. According to global call centre
study conducted by Holman, Batt and Holtgrewe, 70%
of the call centres in India support Banking and Finan-
cial Services. The proportion of Banking and Telecom

*Corresponding author. Email: mvijayasunder@gmail.com

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

 2 Vijaya Sunder M and J. Antony
call centres in other countries with major call centre
presence is shown below in Figure 1 (Holman and
Holtgrewe 2007).
This paper elaborates the performance measurement
opportunities in call centres, which helps the top man-
agement to understand the health of various processes
involved. The primary objective of the paper is to high-
light the application of Six Sigma in call centres. The
literature presented identifies the possible opportunities
for improving the performance of call centre metrics
using Six Sigma. The project case study presented as
part of the paper highlights the practical implications of
Six Sigma implementation in Banking call centre. The
project delivered a saving of USD 0.27 million to the
bank, and is a classic example of how Six Sigma can
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bring bottom-line impact to an organisation. The paper
also elaborates the advantages of Six Sigma in call cen-
tre environment, emphasising on its need and its com-
patibility to go along successfully with change
acceleration and project management processes. Manage-
rial implications and lessons learned are discussed along-
side the concluding notes.
2. Measuring performance in call centres
Looking at the way many call centres measure and man-
age their performance today, it is easy to forget that the
world has moved ahead and evolved from scientific man-
agement of mass production organisations. In many
organisations, call centre performance measures are
dominated by stopwatches and with metrics such as
‘time to answer a call’ and ‘call duration’. Some scholars
claim that call centres are very competent in capturing
information about efficiency, but they pay little attention
to the qualitative employee characteristics that create and
add value for the organisations and its customers (Tayles,
Bramley, and Adshead 2002). In most of the stabilised
call centres, data for performance measures are collected
as part of the automatic call distribution (ACD) system.
These performance measures focus the actual delivery of
service and seek to monitor, evaluate and control the
quality of the interaction between the Customer Call
Representative (CCR) and the customer (Sirianni 1996).
In cases where the only contact a customer can have
Figure 1. Percentage of call centres across countries.
with an organisation is via telephone, the quality of the
interaction becomes critical and is often the only decisive
factor by which the product, service or organisation gets
judged. This is where the call centre metrics or key per-
formance indicators become important to be managed at
right levels.
The most important measure for any call centre is to
measure the call volumes over a stabilised environment
and apply appropriate forecasting methods to estimate
the future call volumes. Understanding a rough estimate
of the call volumes becomes important as it helps in
determining the right staffing. Another important KPI is
Interactive Voice Response success rate (IVR rate). IVR
is a menu system which customer accesses to connect
with the call centre. It becomes important to offer the
customer a right set of choices to pick in order to
connect to the right team to fulfil the purpose of the call.
It also becomes essential to keep the IVR options simple
with a two-three level decision tree. Many organisations
prefer to keep parts of IVR with an automated voice
response to provide information to customers. For
example, to know the bank balance of a particular
savings account, or to know the outstanding amount for
a telephone does not require a call centre representative
to look at the computer and respond to the customer.
This could rather be automated to a voice which can
pick the numbers from the computer and voice out to
the customer. This requires a computer-telephone
integration (CTI) system. Meridian research predicts that
more than 30% of the call centres use CTI (Melnick
et al. 1999).
Audrey Gilmore and Lesley Moreland identified the
following measures which were all reported on wall dis-
plays in various call centres to measure performance
(Gilmore and Moreland 2000).
• Number of calls answered within past ten minutes.
• Calls waiting to be answered, that is ‘in the
queue’.
• Number of agents currently taking calls.
• Number of agents free, waiting to take calls.
• Number of ‘not ready’ agents.
• Number of agents on outgoing calls or on a call to
another agent.
 Production Planning & Control
These KPIs help to understand the heath of the call
centre. However, they do not help to understand the
CSR performance, as they represent overall team perfor-
mance and not individual performance.
Research indicates that call centre manuals provide
some guidance about common measures of call centre
excellence (Tom, Burns, and Zeng 1997). Jon Anton of
the Prudence University in Indiana claims that the fol-
lowing measures help to track quality of call centre ser-
vice (Feinberg, Kim, and Hokama 2000):
• Average speed of answer.
• Caller Wait time (amount of time caller is in the
line for answer).
• First Call Resolution rate (the percentage of callers
who get the query resolved in first call).
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• Abandonment rate (the percentage of callers who
hang up or disconnect prior to answer).
• Average talk time (total time caller was connected
to telephone service representative).
• Average work time after call (time needed to finish
paper work, do research after the call itself has
been completed).
• Percentage of calls blocked (percentage of callers
who receive a busy signal and could not even get
in to the queue).
• Time before abandoning (average time caller held
on before giving up in queue).
• Inbound calls per eight-hour shift.
• CCR turnover (the number of call centre repre-
sentatives who left in a period of time).
• Total number of calls per day.
• Service levels (calls answered in less than x sec-
onds divided by number of total calls).
In addition, calls are often recorded and team leaders
observe by listening on calls. This is the possible way to
qualitatively evaluate a call performance. However, this
happens via sampling as listening to all the calls is
practically not possible by the team leaders.
3. Six Sigma in call centres
Six Sigma is a data-driven process improvement
methodology used to achieve stable and predictable pro-
cess results. Six Sigma not only focuses on reducing pro-
cess variation and defects, but also encourages creating a
process thinking mind-set in the organisation. Six Sigma
is a business strategy that seeks to identify and eliminate
causes of errors or defects or failures in business pro-
cesses by focusing on outputs that are critical to cus-
tomers (Snee 1999). While Six Sigma has been adopted
by many organisations both in the United States and
around the world, the main areas in the service industry
where Six Sigma has seen the most work are banking
and financial services, health care, construction, supply
3
chain management, accounting, customer relations, pub-
lic utilities, material procurement, education, libraries,
order processing, the airline industry, safety and even the
government and non-for-profits (Nakhai and Neves
2009). Through the use of statistical tools and tech-
niques, Six Sigma takes an organisation to an improved
level of process performance and capability (Kumar
et al. 2006).
Call centres are data centric as they record data on
performance over long periods of time. The availability
of such data along with the need for business improve-
ment offers the possibility of applying business improve-
ment methods that have been developed in other sectors.
One such approach is that of Six Sigma where there is a
reciprocal challenge for call centres to avail the full
range of Six Sigma-based improvement. The other high-
light for call centre is being a service environment; Six
Sigma could be adapted to address strategic and opera-
tional issues for significant results (McAdam et al.
2009). The Six Sigma methodology recommends two
roadmaps for process improvements – DMAIC and
DMADV. DMAIC roadmap is generally used to reduce
process variation by making improvements or enhance-
ments over the existing process. It has five sequential
phases, namely Define, Measure, Analyse, improve and
Control. However, the critics of Six Sigma often claim
that the DMAIC methodology of Six Sigma is not funda-
mentally different from those of other quality movements
(Senapati 2004). DMADV methodology stands for
Define, Measure, Analyse, Design and Verify, is used to
help designing or redesigning the processes for the
highest level of defined optimal performance output.
Literature shows that DMADV methodology was further
enhanced as DMADOV methodology by successful
corporate findings, where ‘O’ is ‘optimise’ phase of the
overall project management by Six Sigma way. Six
Sigma is a well-defined structured methodology used for
process improvements. Though the origin of Six Sigma
was from manufacturing sector, the top-down application
of Six Sigma focuses on the operational methodology of
Six Sigma rather than wider strategic interpretations.
Hence, there is an emphasis on applying the key
methodology in DMAIC way and focus on the key suc-
cess factors that need to be addressed to implement
DMAIC in specific service-based contexts (Antony et al.
2008).
There are five main reasons why call centres need to
apply Six Sigma methodology.
• Adaptiveness towards Customer: for many cus-
tomers, call centres are the first point of contact
with an organisation and their experiences can play
a major role in their decision to stay or leave that
organisation (Taylor et al. 2003). The customer
clearly expects call centre employees to adjust their
 4 Vijaya Sunder M and J. Antony
behaviour to the customer, and adapt to various sit-
uations. Six Sigma helps in understanding cus-
tomers through structured Voice of the Customer
(VOC) tools.
• Data-centric approach: call centres deal with large
amounts of data and in order to identify customer
segments and trends in the customer behaviour, it
becomes important to analyse the data. Six Sigma
methodology helps call centres to analyse data in a
structured way.
• Need for Measurement system: call centres deal
with monotonous work. Call Centre representatives
spend the whole day responding to the customers
and their queries. Job monotony impacts the pro-
ductivity of the employees and hence measuring
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performance on a periodic basis becomes very
essential. Lack of measures and failing to realise a
completed measurement system (Wheeler and
Lyday 1990) can seriously jeopardise any improve-
ment effort. Sigma scale being a measurement sys-
tem helps call centres to keep a track of the
performance levels of various metrics.
• Customer Assurance: the call centre employees are
expected to provide security and explanation, treat
customer data discreetly and assure customers of
confidentiality. Six Sigma helps in generating con-
trols in the system which helps organisations to
help secure information.
• Uniqueness: though it is easier to categorise the
calls to different call types, every call is unique
and every customer is unique. Hence, there exists
variation amongst the reason of call, the way call
is handled and the after effects of the call. This
variation being inherent in the process of call cen-
tres creates a need for reduction of variation in the
processes. Six Sigma helps in reducing process
variation.
Using Six Sigma in Call centres not only help create
a measurement system, but also helps in improving pro-
cesses. This further has a positive effect on the way of
working and the mind-set of the call centre representa-
tives. In the current times of economic recession and
slowdown in demand, every corporation looks at any
possible issue of cost cutting and wise deployment of
scarcely available funds. So it is worthwhile to deliberate
on Six Sigma with intent, rather than an impulse
(Senapati 2004). Alongside cost cutting, improved metric
performance, standardisation, use of the right technology
and understanding evolving customer requirements are
few of the advantages of using Six Sigma in customer
call centres. According to Tony, in order to balance both
customer and employee satisfaction, there are multiple
benefits of using Six Sigma in call centres, which
include resource optimisation, enhanced customer
support, improved employee morale and elimination of
waste (Jacowski 2008). The below points highlight these
in detail.
• Resource Optimisation: Six Sigma helps in stream-
lining call centre operations, which results in better
utilisation of available resources, and helps in
reducing operational costs.
• Enhanced Customer Support: by improving inter-
nal as well as external customers, Six Sigma makes
way for enhanced customer care services and sup-
port. This in long term helps customers to recog-
nise and build positive perception and brand about
the organisation.
• Improved Employee Morale: Six Sigma blended
with innovation and technology helps call centres
to reduce overall work load and has a positive
effect on employee morale.
• Elimination of Waste: Six Sigma blended with
Lean methodology helps reducing waste and non-
value adding steps alongside reducing process
variation.
It is evident from the literature that Six Sigma could
be a game changer in call centre environment. It is clear
that Six Sigma methodology being a data-centric
methodology, can be applied in call centres easily as the
call centres deals with lot of day-to-day customer data.
The added advantage of a call centre while compared to
other organisational units of the firm is that call centre
has opportunities to deal with evolving customer needs
on a daily basis. This forms the key factor for under-
standing the Voice of the Customer (VOC). This again
complements the fundamental principle of deploying Six
Sigma methodology which is to deliver defect-free out-
put to customers based on their evolving needs. Having
understood the literature, it is now important to study the
application of Six Sigma in call centre environments for
understanding the practical perspectives. Few questions
to ponder upon at this stage are ‘how can Six Sigma
benefit a call centre from an application perspective,
what are the practical aspects of dealing with Six Sigma
in call centre environment, what kind of impact can Six
Sigma bring into a customer-centric organisation?’
4. Research methodology
In order to cater this understanding to academicians,
researchers and corporate professionals, a case study is
used to present the organisational views of Six Sigma
deployment in a banking call centre. The case study
helps the readers to understand the experiences of using
Six Sigma for improving Top Box Customer Satisfaction
score for a Banking call centre. The managerial implica-
tions and the impact Six Sigma can bring into a call
 Production Planning & Control
centre environment are further discussed as part of the
study. A case study entails the detailed and intensive
analysis of a single case – a single organisation, a single
location or a single event (Bryman and Bell 2006).
According to Lee (1999), the unit of analysis in a case
study is the phenomenon under study and deciding this
unit appropriately is central to a research study. In this
article, a case study is designed to study the underlying
problem of customer satisfaction scores in Banking call
centre, so that solutions can be implemented through
process improvement. The extent to which generality can
be claimed from a single case study is limited, but by
documenting case experiences in the light of existing
literature, each case adds to the sum of knowledge avail-
able for future practitioners and researchers (Antony,
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Gijo, and Childe 2012). The case study methodology is
preferred over other research methodologies due to the
following reasons: (Chapter 3, Qualitative Case Study
Research in the book ‘Qualitative Research: A Guide to
Design and Implementation’ by Sharan B. Merriam. by
John Wiley & Sons Inc)
• Qualitative research methods like ‘Case study’
offers flexibility in design and application which
are more sensitive to the complexities of social
phenomena than quantitative methods.
• The case study offers a means of investigating
complex social programmes, consisting of multiple
variables of potential importance in understanding
the phenomenon.
• Case study has proven particularly useful for study-
ing evaluating programmes.
5. Case study
Background: A multinational bank manages inbound
customer service and sales calls for US customers. The
organisation is based in India as part of the bank’s off-
shore business and is one of the early starters in the mar-
ket competing with other established customer call
centres. Hence, customer satisfaction score becomes an
imperative metric for the bank’s performance from the
customer call centre perspective. A customer need is a
description, in the customer’s own words, of the benefit
to be fulfilled by the product or service (Griffin and
Hauser 1993). To understand the needs of the customers,
a questionnaire is presented to the top management of
the bank. Here, the customers are the bank’s manage-
ment personnel. The purpose of the questionnaire is to
understand the burning need of the management which
could be taken up as an improvement project based on
scope, criticality and estimated benefit. The Kano model
survey method is adapted for the questionnaire to min-
imise the human bias while responding. As per Kano
model survey conducted across 28 bank’s stakeholders,
5
the Customer Satisfaction score (CSAT score) falls under
the “ONE DIMENSIONAL” category as a good CSAT
score may have a direct impact on other key metrics
such as First Call resolution% and Net Promoter Score.
But a poor CSAT score can potentially put future busi-
ness at risk. The Kano model survey results provided the
voice of the customer (stakeholders) and need for the
hour; however, the management team was also interested
to understand the voice of the process. The customers of
the bank who makes calls to the call centre are e-mailed
with a scale of 1–10 where every customer rates the
experience of the call, with 1 being lowest and 10 being
highest. This score is called as Customer satisfaction
score or CSAT. The proportion of calls which are rated
as 9 or 10 are called as top box CSAT scores. It was
found that the CSAT score from baseline data is running
at 78.5% with a correlation 0.89 with top box CSAT.
The First call resolution rate which was found to be 52%
from the six months baseline data also was found to
have positive correlation with the top box CSAT scores.
Based on the inputs from the ‘Voice of the Customer’
survey and looking at the key metrics as part of ‘Voice
of the Process’, the Critical to Quality (CTQ) metric is
derived. CTQ tree (Figure 2) is used to decompose the
broad customer requirements into more easily quantified
requirements, based on customer needs.
Baseline data from the bank’s management dash-
boards for six months revealed that the top box CSAT
scores were running at 58.70%. Stakeholders strongly
felt that there was a need to improve the top box CSAT
score for the bank’s call centre on an immediate basis.
Hence, the management found the case to be taken up as
a focussed improvement project.
The Head of call centre operations had no clue about
the causes for the low top box scores. The focus of the
projects selected for deploying Six Sigma is to meet the
stated goals within budget and time constraints. Hence,
management participation and exhibiting leadership traits
become very essential (Kun-Shan, Yang and Chiang
2012). Management felt it essential to follow Six Sigma
methodology to identify the root causes of the problem
and to solve and control the problem with appropriate
measures. Another reason why management wanted to
tackle the issue with Six Sigma methodology was the pro-
ven success of earlier Six Sigma projects conducted in
the organisation, where the controls placed as part of the
project created a robust system in place for the process to
sustain improvements in long run. It should be noted that
the DMAIC methodology is used in different ways; some
companies use a five-step approach while others divide
the DMAIC approach into smaller more specific pieces
(Krueger, Parast and Adams 2014). The project in case
here was led by the normal five-stage DMAIC methodol-
ogy, the purpose of each phase of the roadmap is
described below (Kaushik and Khanduja 2010).
 6 Vijaya Sunder M and J. Antony
(1) Define: the purpose of the Define phase is to
delineate the business problem and scope the pro-
ject and process to be improved.
(2) Measure: the purpose of the Measure phase is to
understand and document the current state of the
processes to be improved, collect the detailed
Voice of the Customer information, baseline the
current state and validate the measurement system
wherever applicable.
(3) Analyse: the purpose of the Analyse phase is to
analyse the data collected related to the Voice of
the Customer and the Voice of the Process to
identify the root causes of the process problems,
and to develop the capability of the process.
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(4) Improve: the purpose of the Improve phase is to
identify improvement recommendations, design
the future state, implement pilot projects, train
and document the new processes.
(5) Control: the purpose of the Control phase is to
measure the results of the pilot projects, and man-
age the change on a broader scale; report score-
card data and the control plan identify replication
opportunities and develop future plans for
improvement.
A benchmarking study was conducted by the man-
agement consulting team in order to understand where
the customer call centre under study stand across various
other call centres run by the bank across different coun-
tries; shown in Figure 3. The study results show that top
box score for Japan is 65% and is ahead of India by 9.2
percentile points. New Jersey and Canada are top on the
list with 68.5 and 68 for the top box CSAT values. Man-
agement has decided to target the next seen milestone
target of Japan – 65%. A management consultant was
appointed as the project manager for the project who is
certified in Six Sigma at a Black Belt level.
One proportion test is performed at 95% confidence
level to check if the target set by the management is
Figure 2. CTQ tree.
statistically significant. The test concludes that the target
set is statistically valid as the p-value is less than 0.05,
and confirms that the sample proportion is statistically
less that the target set for the project (accepting the alter-
nate hypothesis), shown in Figure 4.
With this due diligence on improving the top box
CSAT for the bank’s call centre, the project charter is
designed (Figure 5). According to PMI, the project char-
ter is a document issued by the project initiator or spon-
sor that formally authorises the existence of a project,
and provides the project manager with the authority to
apply organizational resources to project activities
(Project Management Institute 2000). As a comprehen-
sive overview of the project, the project charter allows
all stakeholders involved in reaching agreement and
document major aspects of the project such as the objec-
tives, the scope, the deliverables and the resources
required. The charter supports the decision-making pro-
cess and is also often used as a communication tool.
Hence, project charter in Define phase is essential to
obtain consensus from the sponsor to go ahead with the
project. According to Ming and Jung, Define Phase of a
Six Sigma project should help understand the Voice of
the Customer, recognise Critical to Quality parameters,
declare the problem and the goal of the project and team
formation (Chen and Lyu 2009).
The process mapping exercise was performed in
order to understand the end-end process, shown in
Figure 6. A Swim-lane process map is used to represent
the process. The benefit of using the swim-lane map is
that the stakeholders and others who may not have a lot
of knowledge of a process will be able to quickly iden-
tify the actors responsible for each activity through this
way of depicting the process. This further serves as a
visual accompaniment to written policies and procedures
(Richards 2010). The map shows that every customer
gets greeted by the IVR and then IVR options are used
to resolve the customer query. A set of IVR options are
pre-recorded for the most generic call types like account
balance, credit card payment date and credit balance. If
 Production Planning & Control
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Figure 3. Internal benchmarking across countries.
Figure 4. One proportion test.
the customer query is not resolved through IVR, the call
gets connected to Customer Call Representative (CCR)
for resolution. Further process is elaborated below in
Figure 6.
Call customers are asked to rate the overall satisfac-
tion of the call response on a scale of 1–10, where 1 is
the lowest and 10 is the highest score. All customer
responses to the survey which gets a score of 9 or 10
are considered as top box scores. Process level sigma
calculation was performed using DPMO method for the
top box metric. It was found that out of 19,494 customer
responses, 7514 responses did not fall at top box, and
hence considered as defects. As part of the calculation,
the DPMO value is 406,293, with yield at 58% and pro-
cess sigma value at 1.74.
Pareto Analysis was used to identify the vital few
call types contributing to the defects, as shown in
Figure 7. A Pareto analysis breaks a big problem down
into smaller pieces, identifies the most significant factors,
shows where to focus efforts and allows better use of
limited resources (Awaj, Singh, and Yimer Amedie
2013). Calls related to Account activation, general
enquiry, reward points, disputes and some security clo-
sure calls contribute to 80% of non-top box response
calls. This analysis was submitted to the management as
7
part of first cut analysis report. Management was inter-
ested to call the team managers for these teams and
understand if CCRs in their teams are facing any specific
challenges with respect to providing customers with a
convincing and accurate call response. However, the
team managers could not have any legitimate reason for
the low top box score in these areas. The Project man-
ager conducted a brainstorming session with a sample
group of CCRs in order to understand their standing on
the low top box reasons. The session was concluded
with the root causes of low top box scores. Based on the
outcome of the session, a Fish Bone analysis was per-
formed; (Figure 8).
Following the high-level understanding about the
root causes of the problem through Fishbone analysis
(Figure 8), a series of Chi-square tests were performed
(with 95% confidence limit) on various factors identified
shown in Table 1 and Appendix 1. These tests are per-
formed to validate if the root causes identified though
brainstorming are valid or not. Internal management
information reports and employee database served as the
source of data for the factors identified. Grammar-
Fluency test and Voice-Accent tests were conducted to
the CCRs in order to arrive at the scores to quantitatively
analyse their skill sets.
Based on the chi square analysis, the project manager
was clear about the valid root causes affecting the prob-
lem. Another brainstorming session was held with all the
stakeholders and the analysis findings were presented to
them. A round robin method was followed to ideate on
the solutions in order to eliminate the root causes and to
improve the top box score. Ideating for improvements
becomes a very important exercise as part of the
Improve Phase of the project. During this phase, team
creativity often helps to generate solutions that results in
maximum gains (Vinodh, Gautham and Anesh 2011). It
was a known fact that improving top box score requires
 8 Vijaya Sunder M and J. Antony
Table 1. Chi square test summary.
P value at 95%
Chi square test confidence level
CCR tenure vs top box score 0.000
Week day of call taken vs top box score 0.050
Week day of survey vs top box score 0.058
FCR vs top box score 0.000
CCR grammar and fluency test score 0.000
(on scale of 5) vs top box score
CCR voice and accent (grade A is best 0.022
and C is worst) vs top box score
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Figure 5. Project charter.
a lot of significant improvements as it is a metric which
depends upon just 9 and 10 rating by the customer on a
scale of 1–10. The improvement plan as an outcome of
the brainstorming session is shown below in Table 2:
With an investment of USD 85K, highly advanced
headsets were deployed for all CCRs on the call centre
floor. The team further developed a module on ‘Easy to
Understand’ by brainstorming with the associates, unit
Managers, trainers and quality analysts. The module is
designed as a workflow tool which has five sequential
steps to stop unwanted repeat calls. These initiatives
improved the FCR rate and further the top box score.
The system is further integrated with the language profil-
ing tool to understand the opportunities at agent-level
Inference
As the p < 0.05, we can conclude that agent tenure has an impact on
the top box score
As the p = 0.05, we can conclude that the day on which the call is
taken has an impact on the top box score
As the p > 0.05, we can conclude that the day on which the survey is
completed does not have an impact on the top box score
As the p < 0.05, we can conclude that FCR has an impact on the top
box score
CCR grammar-fluency test score has an impact on the top box score
as the P value is <0.05
As the p < 0.05, we can conclude that CCR V&A skills have an
impact on the top box score
communication. When a CCR takes the initial assess-
ment on the tool, depending on the results of the assess-
ment, the tool will automatically prepare a customised
training module for each individual to improve on identi-
fied communication gaps which include grammar, accent,
voice and fluency. Duration and content of training mod-
ule vary between individuals. The highlight of the tool is
that it is fully automated with least manual intervention.
The tool has the capability to automatically generate the
CCR level and team level reports on the performance
metrics Figure 9.
It has been accepted beyond any doubt that mainte-
nance, as a support function in businesses, plays an
important role in backing up many emerging business
 Production Planning & Control 9
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Figure 6. Process flow.

Figure 7. Pareto analysis.

 10 Vijaya Sunder M and J. Antony
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Figure 8. Fish Bone diagram.
and operation strategies like Six Sigma (Ahuja and
Khamba 2008). As the improvements are automations
and training enhancements, maintenance team is formed
with two analysts to monitor and control the improve-
ments. These analysts are part of the quality assurance
team and hold the key responsibility of sustaining the
improvements. This team is further supported by an audit
team in order to adhere to system maintenance and to
work any corrective actions beyond the controls placed.
After the improvement, the data is collected to check
if the improvements have made significant impact of the
top box score. Two proportion tests were performed on
the before improvement and after improvement data sam-
ples, with 95% confidence level. P-value is <0.05 which
concludes that the improvement is statistically signifi-
cant. Also, p-chart shows that the data post improvement
is stable and without any special causes variation;
(Figures 10 and 11).
Process sigma is calculated post improvement to
check if the process improvements have contributed to
improve the sigma value. As per the DPMO method,
amongst 8202 calls examined, 2919 call responses
obtained non-top box values. This determines the process
yield at 65.41% and a sigma value of 1.87. DPMO value
stands at 355,888. This resulted in an annual save of
0.27 million USD.
6. Managerial implications and lessons learned
The project manager was successful in implementing all
the changes as per the improvement plan in a short per-
iod of six months. The overall saving for the bank due
to the project was USD 0.27 million. Alongside the
monetary benefit, the process enhancements added more
process improvement mind-set and helped management
build the quality awareness and culture into the call cen-
tre. Many CCRs conveyed their delight being part of the
project team and their leanings include Six Sigma tools
and techniques. A few of the team leaders in their formal
feedback sessions conveyed that they understood how
simple tools like brainstorming could be so effective in
idea generation process. They also added saying that
working on the project has helped them to shift the para-
digm from ‘blame the people’ to ‘blame the processes’.
The top level management acceptance is very critical
and essential for any process changes or new imple-
mentation in organisation (Vinodh, Vasanth Kumar, and
Vimal 2014). The project when presented to the senior
management was well appreciated. One of the senior
leaders looking at the project conveyed his consensus in
providing sponsorship to future initiatives to improve
the other critical metrics of the bank. This clearly
outlines the interest which Six Sigma methodology
brought into the organisation from a process improve-
ment perspective.
Research shows that for successful implementation of
Six Sigma (or Lean Six Sigma) in organisations, the fol-
lowing factors are important for investigation as pre-
requisites (Zhang et al. 2015):
• Full Participation: all employees of the organisa-
tion should be encouraged to participate in the Six
Sigma programme. Basic knowledge on Six Sigma
methodology and tool kit could be imbibed
through formal training programmes.
 Production Planning & Control 11

Table 2. Improvement plan.

Problem Observation Solution

Low tenure of CCR An increase in tenure showed higher top box scores To deploy a ‘Easy to Understand’ module in the
fourth week of training to take back learnings and
best practices from tenured CCRs while hiring new
CCRs
Impact of day of the It was observed that the performance for calls taken Increased presence of team managers on the floor on
week impact on top on Sunday had lower top box scores. It was further all days of the week from an additional support
Box performance observed that Sundays are holidays for team purpose
managers
Impact of FCR on top It was observed that lower FCR scores result in
box lower top box scores • FCR visual display dashboard was
introduced on the operations floor to
improve awareness. The dashboard captures
CCR level, team level and total call centre
level FCR on a digital dashboard.
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• Increased call monitoring, usage of

Impact of hiring on top It was observed that associates who were hired with
box score a merit track score of less than 3 on grammar and
fluency resulted in lower top box scores
Voice and accent It was observed that an associate who were at grade
grading standards “C” would run lower top box scores
Impact from It was observed that disturbance in the call had a
technology significant impact on top box scores
Lack of understanding Some associates had an opportunity in identifying
what would lead to lower top box scores
technology for coaching bottom line CCRs
with lower FCR scores are also introduced.
Hiring standards were made stringent and individuals
with scores of less than 3 on grammar and fluency
are not selected to be a part of the programme
Special training programmes introduced for CCRs
with lower grades
Superior sound proof quality headsets were
introduced to improve the quality of audio output
Integrated Call centre tool ‘Language Profiling tool’
was deployed to conduct assessment on individuals
to understand top box opportunities and corrective
actions on lower top box
Team level calibration sessions were conducted with
the bottom 10 teams; This is done through getting
the entire team to hear a few calls and assess the call
on CSAT score. This made CCR understand the Do
‘s & Don’ts on obtaining higher top box score

Figure 9. Process improvement – workflow system application.

 12 Vijaya Sunder M and J. Antony
Figure 10. Two proportion test.
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Figure 11. Control chart – P chart.
• Organisation Structure: the organisation structure
should be empowered at four different levels for a
successful Six Sigma deployment. The first level
encompasses quality-related teams or projects,
related to complete processes, systems and long-
term activities. The second level comprises
‘contract’ project teams aiming at solving specific
quality problems and optimisation of management
processes; team members consist of technical and
management specialists and experts. The third level
comprises ‘Quick Six Sigma’ teams with projects
focusing on existing problems and quick improve-
ments. Depending on the depth and breadth of the
study, projects are categorised into those for Black
Belts (BB), Green Belts (GB) and Yellow Belts.
The fourth level is based on Lean Six Sigma pro-
jects, addressing work standardisation as well as
operations quantification and control.
• Continuous Improvement: leadership should play a
critical role in driving the continuous improvement
mind-set across the employees. Ideas across differ-
ent levels of the organisation should be welcomed
for analysis. The multi-level structure of Six Sigma
implementation teams is formed to solve business
problems at both strategic and operational levels to
promote continuous improvement.
7. Limitations and future research directions
In this research paper, the case study has not only clearly
highlighted the improvement in the top box metric, but
also showcased the holistic progress and positive impact
on the FCR rate and the improvement in the CCR way
of treating customers. The project brought in a new
workflow system which turned the CCRs and the team
leads into win–win situation. The project experiences
were documented and archived for future reference. The
senior management welcomed the project work with
positive feedback and conveyed their interest in deploy-
ing further process improvement projects through Six
Sigma in the organisation. The Head of the call centre
was highly impressed the way the Six Sigma project
brought benefits to the team contributing towards the
metric improvement. Management was keen to initiate
more Six Sigma projects in the call centre for other key
performance indicators.
The authors have identified few limitations of the
study, which could lead to future opportunities for
research. Though the project followed the DMAIC
approach, structured stakeholder management was not
performed as part of the project. This is due to the
aggressive timelines scheduled for the project. Measure-
ment system analysis was not performed as part of the
Measure phase, as the metric top box is calculated based
on customer ratings as a system-generated report. The
current study elaborated about the application of Six
Sigma in the context of call centres. Generic conclusions
cannot be made based on a single case study, leaves a
platform for further research on the subject. Other limita-
tions of the study include its limited scope towards the
Banking call centres. Though this could be extrapolated
to Banking and Financial Services, there is more
opportunity to explore the application of Six Sigma in
call centres from others sectors. Another major limitation
of the study is that the attributes of Six Sigma presented
in the paper are service sector centric, and cannot hold
correct for manufacturing set-up.
The paper leaves a platform for many future research
opportunities. The case study presented is a prototype of
practical challenges faced during a Six Sigma project
and to highlight how a rightly conducted Six Sigma pro-
gramme can bring bottom line impact. The below men-
tioned are few of the questions which researchers could
ponder upon for future research:
 Production Planning & Control
- What are the impacting factors in call centre envi-
ronment which can affect or influence a Six Sigma
Programme?
- What are the key complementing metrics which
need to be tracked while improving the key process
indicators in call centres?
- How is Banking call centres different from other
industry call centres for Six Sigma Programmes?
- Can Lean Six Sigma be looked as a progressive
alternative for Six Sigma in call centres?
- How to access the maturity level of Six Sigma pro-
grammes in call centres?
8. Conclusion
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The rapidly growing interest on Six Sigma across indus-
tries has made a significant impact on how the organisa-
tions handle process-related problems. The call centre
which is the direct contact centre of the organisation has
to play a critical role in building the impression and the
brand in the minds of the customers. The case study pre-
sented is a classic example how Six Sigma methodology
can change the process and the mind-set of the frontline
workers. In the case study, the project focussed on two
important aspects. One being the total employee engage-
ment throughout the project right from ideation to
improvement, and the second important aspect is
leveraging technology for process improvements. The
change acceleration process with proportionate level of
project governance would facilitate the organisational
change. Alongside building the improvement mind-set
across the operations, the project brought in saves worth
USD 0.27 million. Six Sigma deployment for organisa-
tional change has multi-fold benefits including – creating
a quality DNA, structured governance, building ideation
mind-set, creating data orientation and promoting process
thinking. Six Sigma, being a data-driven methodology,
has a higher benefit in call centre environments. Call
centres deal with huge amounts of customer data and
day-to-day metrics like FCR, CSAT and NPS being
direct customer facing metrics. Six Sigma deployment in
call centres helps promote organisational brand by
delivering customers a delightful call experience. Six
Sigma becomes more helpful in Banking and Financial
Services Call centres as every defect could have a sig-
nificant financial impact over the firm. Hence, Six Sigma
leads building and retaining customer relationships
through call centre for Banks by delivering a defect-free
delivery practice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest were reported by the authors.
13
Notes on contributors
Vijaya Sunder M. is a Lean Six Sigma lea-
der with experience in leading cross-func-
tional projects for process improvements
and operational effectiveness. He is a Six
Sigma Master Black Belt from Indian Sta-
tistical Institute, and Lean facilitator. He has
led and mentored various re-engineering
and process improvement programmes that
helped improve the customer experience,
employee satisfaction, eliminate process defects, increase pro-
ductivity and reduce costs across service organisations. He is a
Lean Six Sigma trainer – trained more than 1000 people in
Lean Six Sigma Yellow, Green and Black Belts till date. He
also is certified in Business Process Modelling and ‘Six Think-
ing Hats’. He is a distinction holder in Master of Business
Administration from Sri Sathya Sai University and Gold
medalist in Bachelor of Engineering from Anna University,
India. He has publications in International journals on topics
relating Leadership and Lean Six Sigma. Vijaya Sunder is cur-
rently working as Assistant Vice President with Barclays India,
leading their Change Management initiatives. Alongside his
job, Vijaya Sunder practises research, and teaching for MBA
students in subjects like Lean Six Sigma and Total Quality
Management, as a visiting faculty at B-Schools.
Jiju Antony is recognised worldwide as a
leader in Six Sigma methodology for
achieving and sustaining process excel-
lence. He is a professor of Quality Manage-
ment in the School of Management and
Languages at Heriot-Watt University,
Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a Certified
Master Black Belt and has trained over 600
candidates across Yellow, Green and Black
Belt levels. He has published over 250 papers of which 80 are
Six Sigma-related papers. He is currently serving as the Editor
of the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma by Emerald
Publishers. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Operations
Management, Chartered Quality Institute, Royal Statistical
Society and Institute of Six Sigma Professionals.
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 Production Planning & Control 15

Appendix 1. Sample Chi square tests

Chi square tests.
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