The value of analyzing data is well established in industries like manufacturing and mining, but data-driven process and quality improvement is increasingly being adopted in service industries such as retail sales and healthcare, as well. Here I'll discuss how a simple data analysis may be used to improve processes in the service sector.

Suppose we want to improve the way incoming calls are processed in a call center run by a large insurance company. We are interested in analyzing duration metrics, which are very useful in assessing both the experience of customers—who always appreciate quick processing of incoming calls—and issues of employee productivity, such as which tasks are the most difficult to deal with.

If two customers call with exactly the same objective, process durations will certainly differ because each employee will process the calls in a slightly different way. In addition, the customers may react differently to questions asked by the call center operator. Many factors will influence the duration of the call.

Collecting process data

The process map below illustrates the 12 sequential steps involved in processing the incoming calls in this example.

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