The system of distribution of orders among the performers by the method of angels

Imagine that the company has a streamlined process of regular receipt of orders (calls, applications). And there are several possible performers who can do this work.
The task is complicated if the contractor performs work on the customer’s territory. And the service he provides can easily be performed without the support of the employer’s company. For example, agreeing at half the price of the official price. Familiar? Plumbers, tutors, or even call girls — all of these businesses remain low-level hacks, largely due to the complexity of control by the employer. And the dispatcher performing this work will have to become an angel in order to distribute all orders and not offend anyone.

Our task is to choose the best performer, among several possible.


However Sometimes the performer does not even want to receive the order. For example, he has a good salary, but there is no intangible motivation. We will not consider this sad story for a client - there is a merciless capitalism in the yard, forcing these companies to die out. We will assume that orders (call, bid) cost the company money. And she is interested in effectively converting them into profits and satisfied customers.
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And is it important? Imagine for a minute, a serious problem happened, you call the police (HOA, ECD) and usually, you immediately encounter a problem: your dispatcher doesn’t need your application, they are not in a hurry to accept it. Then, you talk to the performer and notice the low level of his motivation. The performer will keep you waiting and will not try too hard. Agree, cost-effective behavior for him - do nothing for the salary and earn extra work. Are you curious how a precinct can be turned into a motivated performer?

Then let's go. The method of Angels will be considered on the example of the service of exit computer service for individuals. Real numbers are available for us in this industry. St. Petersburg, autumn 2008.

At the start, several principles were laid

1. First of all, the interests of the client must be taken into account, then the company of the employer and the performer.
2. Where automation is possible is a tribute to our laziness.
3. Excess total performers performance. This reduces the dependence on staff.
4. For the best performers , the salary is set higher than is customary in the industry.

We have a stream of applications and a dozen performers of roughly equal qualifications.

September 2008
To compile a work schedule on the internal website, the performers filled in the matrix: the days of the week / districts of the city so that there are no free “windows”. Received a new application was distributed among the performers in turn, or rather with a probability equal to P = 1 / [number of performers in the area].

The number of calls - 550
Transferred to the work of performers - 240
Canceled - 68 (28%)
Average check 700 rubles.
Margin 120t.r.
Share in performer / employer margin 50% to 50%.

After three months of work, the problems were revealed:

1. Customers call the office, demanding a computer master, who promised to come and disappeared.
2. He did something and does not work again.
3. Artists complain about customers who are stupid and can not really explain what they need.
4. Artists are unhappy with low pay and require more work.
5. Customers are rude, late, do not pay.

It turns out that we are losing almost 30% of all applications (for various reasons). Customers are not satisfied, although our prices are much lower than market prices. And the performers are disappointed with the level of their RFP.

And more. The service is on-site, so we do not know what is actually happening in the client’s apartment. We will not know the actual amount that the contractor took from him. They, as accomplices, are both interested in lying if they have bargained for a negotiated price.

It was beneficial for the contractor to mark all districts in the schedule, all the days and receive a maximum of applications, and then choose the best ones for him: geographically, at cost, or, for example, only go to girls with a pleasant voice. The remaining applications - ignore. The worst thing, as it seems to me, is that the performers (excellent guys - students of technical universities) now themselves began to believe in the inadequacy of clients. The scheme pushed them to degrade as specialists.

It was required as much as possible to seat the employer and the performer in the same boat. To profit and loss they happened at the same time. This should eliminate the divergence of interests and remove the ground for deception and disputes ...

In the old scheme, there may be another bottleneck. The application was distributed by a person (dispatcher, administrator), and the income of the performers directly depended on this. Even if an employee who distributes applications is crystal-clear, the distribution mechanism is not transparent for performers and this demotivates them. It is more profitable for them to “be friends” with the dispatcher, and not to accumulate professional knowledge.

We squander a couple of months in advance - we will lower the chain of our thoughts, experiments and implementation.

As a result, they came to the conclusion that the more effective option is to sell the application to the performer. The automated system debits a fixed amount from the account of the contractor immediately after the order is distributed to the contractor. Unusually for the industry it was that the amount charged was fixed for all orders. It was generally accepted to divide% of the amount received from the client. But it was clear to us that such a scheme was pushing employees to cheat. Contractor was beneficial to underestimate the cost of services rendered. Therefore, in our method, regardless of the total amount of the check, the performer had to pay a fixed amount.

Must warn . The method has a known flaw. The contractor will pay for customer failures, even if the refusal is not his fault. The system returns money for “sold” applications only when an error is made when the operator forms the application.

Now we need to fix another frequent problem. You met her in situations where the seller receives most of the income from the sale of additional services, for example, in a car dealership. In order to protect the client from the services imposed on him, a strict price list was approved with precise prices for all typical works. Neither the artist's work hour. Neither attempt and diligence. And only the result. When drafting an application, the operator must clearly announce the price. An additional service, beyond the agreed upon in the preparation of the application can be performed, but only with the prior voluntary consent of the client.

Further, it is necessary to form objective and measurable signs of a good employee. And make a public rating of performers. The system response to the rating is the probability of distribution of the future application. We think the most important criterion may be a repeated desire of the client to order a service. Not guaranteed, of course. Was the performer technically not competent, late, rude or kicked the master's dog? Which of the following will prevent you from re-ordering the company's services is not important. If the client does not want to see him a second time - he is less professional performer than the one they want to see. After all, for example, everyone wants to deal not only with an experienced doctor, but so that he is a pleasant person.

And if not? Then he is a bad specialist. For example, Ham / non-punctual / not pleasant to people in communication or steals customers, leaving all your personal mobile phone. What exactly is being made from this list is not so important. No repetition is a signal that he is a bad performer. The automaton decreases the rating and it is less likely to receive a new application.

It remains to make an independent control of customer satisfaction. This is done by an internal employee from the office who asks a couple of open and closed questions in order to understand satisfaction and emotional coloring after the visit of the performer. Transcripts of feedback, as well as ratings, are available to performers. This gives them an objective feedback on their actions with customers.
I will clarify. In the new system, control is performed rather for the client. The application becomes closed after he has confirmed that he has - everything is ok. And not after he gave the money to the performer.

The refined scheme began to look like this:

1. Call a potential customer
2. Obligatory informing by the operator of the client about prices and terms
3. Fixing in the online application system (name, address, phone number, required work)
4. Automatic selection of the artist by the method of Angels and its notification by SMS.
5. Independently call the contractor with the client, arrangements for the time of the visit.
6. Performance of work, report.
7. Calling customer service quality control. Application closing or warranty repair.

Additionally:
Rewritten the price in a big way, the staff of active performers was reduced by 2.5 times - the rest in reserve. Increased the bid price for the performer. Made an additional premium for closing the application in the first day. Approved the award for repeated applications and treatment on the recommendation. The client received: clear prices, confidence and 30 day guarantees for all services.

And finally, the main thing. The attitude of performers to customers has become completely different. For customers made an unconditional guarantee for 30 days.

September 2008 vs September 2009 (to exclude seasonality)

	It was	It became
Number of calls	550	680
Created applications	244	270
Transferred to the work of performers	240	264
Actually done with the receipt of money	172	245
Average check	700 rub	1 100 rub
Margin	120 000 rub	270 000 rub
Average performers	13 000 rub	20 000 rub
Ratio in Margin Executive / Employer	50% / 50%	45% / 55%
The conditional profit of the company	62 tr.	148t.r.
Satisfied customers,%	not known	95%
Replays from clients established during the reporting period	79 (33%)	124 (48%)

The reorganization took two months. During this time, the system itself has adjusted the ratings in such a way as to provide applications, first of all, to employees with the best rating. Customer demand was inelastic for the price - people chose quality over price. In this form, the system exists for more than 3 years.

Where is the Angels method applicable?
Where there are many performers, and it is required to effectively distribute the work between them. At the same time, the quality of the service provided should largely depend on the skills of the contractor. First of all it is a service industry. In the call center, in the police, in the corporate sales department, in the solarium, at the tutors, in the sphere of entertainment.

What to do if the performer performs an intermediate service to the client?
Reduce the bid price for the performer. KPI should be as much as possible tied to the factors that can affect the performer.

How can you protect personnel from excessive cruelty of the method?
You can divide the money received by the performer into salary and piecework. Accordingly, there are reasons for a drop in efficiency.

How to ensure the conditions of survival of new performers?
We must give them a head start. Reduce the requirements for the transfer of applications for new ones. For example, in the first two months.

How it works inside
In addition to employee access to the area and a specific type of repair, 2 factors were introduced - the number of repeat orders and the number of completed orders. These factors were considered for the last 2 months. (For beginners, the average for the hospital was established).
For each of the performers, a certain rating was calculated, according to this rule - who has more repetitions and more work done (who does not merge them into others, but performs them himself), as well as who has fewer cancellations - he has a higher rating.
Then the algorithm of the probability distribution of applications was launched, taking into account the ratings of the performers. The higher the rating, the more likely that the application will fall to you.

And yet, why should the performer pay for the unmotivated refusal of the client from the service?
Therefore, why a neat driver pays for insurance, even if he did not get into an accident. Healthy pays taxes for medical services.
The question is not simple, it leads to moral and even political reflections.
We are aware of the severe efficiency of this system. A police officer and a health worker motivated only by money is not something that we would like to receive for our family. However, while the ruble is the best interim solution. What do you think?

Ps. The text has already been written and here it happened. Officials thought of paying doctors for cured patients. Probably, it will be better than now. Here are just in the USSR, the efforts of doctors were aimed at prevention.

UPD1
People are wondering where do we have regular applications from?
We answer. Applications are received in two main ways:
Firstly, telecom operators, with which we in partnership advise us to contact our subscribers (usually these are viruses, consultations, etc.)
We have established working relationships with SkyNet, R2, LuxTelecom, Filanko and others. Signed but not working contract with St. Petersburg Beeline.
In many ways, this method appeared as a response to the requirements of operators for the quality of services provided.
Secondly, these are repeated requests from customers who use our services.
These customers are very loyal, not infrequently they ask for a particular master.