Call Center Metrics

Any experienced manager would tell you that it is impossible to work out plans for strategic development if you have not evaluated company’s current performance, its strengths and weaknesses. Well, frankly speaking, you can develop such a plan, but without proper analysis this will look rather like gambling. If you have luck you succeed, if you don’t you lose. But in business, losing can be very expensive. Having lost once, your business will never be able to rise from knees.

Evaluation of key performance factors (which vary from business to business) is an important process that should precede expansion of business or implementation of strategic goals. As known, many companies have call centers that answer customers’ calls. Some call centers are focused on selling products via phone, while customer support services resolve problems that customers might have with products and services. In any case a call center should work perfectly, otherwise the company may face serious problems.

To evaluate performance of a call center you need Balanced Scorecard system which is special software solution that focuses on business performance evaluation. The program evaluates only key performance indicators (KPI), i.e. factors that really influence performance of a certain business type. A call center as a specific business has own KPIs which are not numerous but nevertheless very important for managers.

With Balanced Scorecard you will not question kpi in call center metrics

Do you question KPI effectiveness?

So, what are the most important and indicative KPIs? Any call center should take care of:

1. Cost per call. This is a call center’s Bible. The cheaper the call, the more profit your company gets. It does not matter what are goals of a call center. What matters is how much money you spend to answer one call. If you manage to decrease cot per call without reducing service quality, you are quite an effective manager who knows how to save money.
2. Revenue per successful call. If your call center focuses on selling products and services, you need to make sure that you get as much as you can from one call. Of course, you need to keep the balance and not annoy customers by offering them the most expensive products. However, make sure that you try hard to get maximum profit.
3. Customer satisfaction. It is imperative that your customers are satisfied with the calls. All questions must be answered if possible and all problems resolved.
4. Employee satisfaction. Your employees should enjoy work and feel no pressure otherwise this will influence the way they talk to customers.

Without any doubt, a call center is a very important department of any large company that sells products or renders services. Call centers may have different functions, from selling products to providing customers and potential customers with support and guidance. Depending on how a call center works, it is possible to evaluate overall performance of a company.

Call center operators are the people who are at the forefront of the market. They are the linking element between customers and company management. Unsatisfied customers rarely buy products and services of the company they have been calling to. Sometimes, it happens that after calling customer support service, callers decide to refuse services of the company he/she has been rendered. Lost customer means lost money. It is a universal rule in business.

As you have already understood, this article dwells on how to improve work of a call center. First, it needs saying that in order to improve performance one needs to know what exactly needs to be improved. In other words, one should determine key performance indicators (KPI). What are KPIs? These are factors that influence performance of a certain business most of all. They can be primary and secondary.

Evaluate call center perofmance with customer indicators

Customer indicators help in performance evaluation

When we are talking about call center, we need to know which KPIs need to be evaluated. Sure thing, this is not done manually. Top managers from all over the world use Balanced Scorecard system which has been designed to evaluate business KPIs. With analysis results obtained from Balanced Scorecard system, a manager is able to see what should be done in certain direction of business and strategic development.

With the help of Balanced Scorecard system a call center manager can easily find weak points in the work of employees. Moreover, it is possible to find problems at each stage, which make it possible to avoid mistakes and losses in future.

Call center metrics is used in strategic development. For instance, a manager needs to know current performance of a call center before making decision to expand it. Balanced Scorecard system will provide users with analysis results in percents, or in form of graphs, if necessary. Such documents can be used at meetings and board sessions as they are informative and very easy to understand.

An effective call center manager needs to be aware of such KPIs as cost per call, customer satisfaction, abandoned calls rate, time on hold, revenue per one call, number of one and done calls etc.

Every company having a web site has a menu called Contact us. And most companies have special hotlines. As a rule these are tool free number which you can dial should you have any questions about products and services offered by a company. And as a rule a pleasant female and rarely male voice welcomes you. But sometimes, this is where pleasant things end. If you happen to talk to incompetent call center operator he or she can drive you nuts. We all have watched funny records of how angry customers calling their contact centers. These are exceptions from the rules. As a rule customers and call center operators are being polite. However, if a call center operator fails to fully inform you on the issue you are interested in, or failed to solve your problem you will think twice before making a final decision to stay with the company or buy precuts.

Call center has own key performance indicators (KPI) that show how well call center is performing. So, in order to see how your call center is doing, we recommend use of Balanced Scorecard system. This software evaluated different KPIs which altogether make a full picture of a call center performance.

Contact scorecard system makes business evaluation effective

Evaluate your call center performance with contact scorecard system

In order to evaluate customer support service dialing a number and talking to an operator is not enough. Balanced Scorecard system will help you find and evaluate most important factors that make you call center effective.

With a Balanced Scorecard system you will be able to find weak points in the work of a call center. Sometimes, it seems that everything is OK. You operators professionally solve customers’ problems and answer their questions, but still the revenue is decreasing.

Balanced Scorecard system can do magic. Don’t believe it? Imagine how your employees will be motivated if they will be aware of own weak points? And what if you introduce a special system of bonuses for those who manage to improve a set of KPIs?

So, when using Balanced Scorecard, which KPIs are most important?

Firstly, this is revenue per successful call and cost per call. Any call center should bring profits (or if this is customer support service it should not be unprofitable). These call center metrics are considered most important and representative.

Of course, you need to take care of customer satisfaction, time on hold, blockage rate and rate of abandoned calls. With a Balanced Scorecard system this will be quite easy to do.

What do you usually do if you are not satisfied with the quality of products and services? Yes, you dial number of a contact center to which calls are usually toll free. You naturally want to talk to representatives of companies that produced this product or rendered you particular services. You may know very little about the company and its approaches. You are not familiar with company policy and management strategy. In fact, you don’t care. Everything you are interested in is solving problems related to products and services.

For you, the person who answers the phone on that end, is a person who represents the entire company. This is the company’s face or, in case of call center, the “voice” of the company. If you have had an unpleasant experience with a particular call center you will not like the entire company. Why are we talking about this? It is to explain how important a call center is. Poor performance of a call center (customer support service) may result in poor performance of all company departments and overall performance of the company.

Evaluation of a call center performance is very important in financial terms. As said above low sales rate may be a direct consequence of a poor call center performance. If the products are not sold well or customers do not receive full information and support on the purchased products/services, your business may be in jeopardy.

Contact KPI shows performance of a call center

Use contact KPI to assess and improve business performance

Top managers from all over the world are actively using Balanced Scorecard system for business performance evaluation. This system evaluates separate key performance indicators (KPI) to provide you with the full picture of overall business performance. Each business has own KPIs, while call center managers need to focus on:

1. Cost per call. If your call center is unprofitable, then why does it work anyway? You need to observe the balance and keep cost per call at affordable level, so that your employees get decent compensation and your company does not suffer major losses. Think of the ways to reduce cost per call, and in several months you will see real results.
2. Revenue per successful call. If you call center sells products or services you need to make sure that you earn at each call as much as you can.
3. First resolution call. Such calls are called one and done. It means that a caller resolves hiw problems with just one call.

If you have ever gone through a call to customer support service or a sale department of a company you know what it means to talk to incompetent or impolite operators. This is not just a waste of time. It is very difficult to master your emotions and ask your initial question for the fifth time. As a rule such calls end up abruptly – you simply hang up.

So let’s talk about specific nature of call center business and major factors that influence its performance. First, it needs saying that a call center is the face of your company. Your potential customer will never see company management in person (except for VIP customers). So, when a person dials number of a call center he forms his judgment about the company by his first conversation with a call center operator. If he does not like something about his call he would never buy from this company ever again, or what is worse, he might refuse services of a company and go to competitors.

Theoretically, your call center may scare all potential customers off. A call center that works inefficiently is a disaster. Thus, if you want to have consistent profits, you need to make sure that your call center works just perfectly.

In order to evaluate overall performance of a customer support center (call center) you need to evaluate support indicators, or key performance indicators if we are talking in general business terms. These key performance indicators influence performance of a call center, attitude of customers to your company, organization climate in your business etc.

Evaluate most important support indicator

Use support indicator evaluation in business assessment

Supports indicators are not numerous. There are certain factors that need to be taken into account in order to make sure that your call center is doing OK. So, let’s review the most important of them. And, yes…it needs saying that in order to effectively evaluate KPIs in call center business one should definitely use Balanced Scorecard system. This is a very efficient business evaluation tools used by thousands of managers all over the world. So, what KPIs will Balanced Scorecard system evaluate in case of call center metrics?  We will name two most important factors.

Cost per call. This is the cornerstone of a call center business. If calls are too expensive then you inefficiently invest funds in the work of a call center. Balanced Scorecard system will evaluate this KPI for you to take counter measures.

Customer satisfaction. This is one of the most important factors. In fact, a customer should be 100% satisfied with the call, otherwise you may lose money.

Are you familiar with the situation when you contact call center of a certain company and you cannot have your problem solved for 20 minutes? In other word, have you ever contacted a BAD call center? Believe it or not, this is a real challenge for a caller. There can be nothing worse than an incompetent call center operator who can only say “I understand your problem, let me see what I can do.” And that’s it. No solution at all. Eventually, you lose your temper, hang up and make a firm decision – never to deal with this company ever again.

This is a typical example of how companies lose customer, even the most loyal ones. Is call center of your company working OK? Test call center performance to find that out. Of course, you may call your own call center to see how your personnel work. But even if you hear pleasant voice and polite speech that does not means your customer support service has a perfect performance. There are many factors that have a strong influence on the work of a call center. You should know KPIs, i.e. key performance factors relevant to the call center business.

We recommend that you use Balanced Scorecard system to evaluate performance of a call center. Why would you need to do that? It is simple. You cannot work out any plans as to the further development without being aware of current problems and weak points. There may be some things to which you pay too much attention and spend too much money, but these things have very little impact on overall performance. Efficient fund allocation is a key challenge in business.

Test call center performance with Balanced Scorecard

Use Balanced Scorecard system to test call center performance

So, you need to know what should be improved in your call center. For example, if your have a very high cost per call rate, while some of your employees have much time in between the calls, it means that your personnel is too large. This is only a hypothetic example. With Balanced Scorecard system you will find the most important KPIs and their evaluation in percents.

For instance, if customer satisfaction has barely reached 50%, take urgent measures, as with such an attitude it will only decrease. If only 1 of 20 callers actually buys something, your conversion rate leaves much to be desired, and thus something needs to be done about it.

Business performance evaluation is perhaps one of the most important business processes. Net revenue is not the only indicator of how well you company is performing. Of course, making more profits is an ultimate goal of any company and net revenue is a very important indicator. But still, there are so many other factors and indicators showing how your business performs in the market.

Perhaps, you have noticed that almost all companies have own call centers and contract independent call center companies to work for them. Why would a company need a call center? In the modern age of telecommunication, ordering products or services by phone is a very common practice. Besides, potential customers often have questions about products and services, while current customers may have problems or concerns about purchased products/services.

Thus, call center is a linking element between customers and business. If this element fails to perform its core functions, the business is likely to have problems. The result of this may be decreased revenues and even losses.

To evaluate performance of your call center, you need to use specialized software that does all the hard work for you. Balanced Scorecard system is known as a reliable and trusted business performance evaluation system. This program will help you find strong and weak points in the work of a call center. Sure, you need to answer one question that may not seem easy for you: “Which service desk benchmark is most important for call center?” The answer is quite ambiguous. The reality is that there are several most important key performance indicators (KPI) having the most influence on business performance. Call center metrics includes KPIs directly related to calls, their cost, customers, employees and their attitudes.

Which service benchmark to choose? Use BSC to find answers

Service desk benchmarks

So, of you want to know weak points in the work of a call center you need to use Balanced Scorecard system and evaluate the following KPIs:

1. Customer satisfaction. Ask you customers to rate conversation with the call center operator. Were all questions answered? Did call center operator talked to you politely? Were you fully informed on the issue you have been interested in? Customer satisfaction has a direct impact on revenues and number of new customers.
2. Cost per call. If you are an ineffective manager who makes wrong decisions it may turn out that cost of one call may equal to the cost of a cheap product you sell. Try to analyze what factors influence cost per call, and what needs to be done to reduce it.

Sure, there are many more KPIs in call center metrics, which will be covere din the next articles on this blog.

Most big companies have own call centers which perform different tasks. If a company sells products, there should always be a call center which takes orders by phone, as not all people prefer using the Internet to place orders. Big companies producing or selling products usually have customer support services, which are call centers that answer customers’ phones calls. As a rule, customers have certain questions and concerns are to products and services provided by the company. Call center operators deal with these issues.

Specific character of operating a call center implies special knowledge and business skills. Call center does not work like traditional business. There are special aspects of work and factors influencing performance of a customer support service or a call center.

Every single call matters for a call center. There are indicators that show how well a call center is operating. If your customers are not satisfied with how call center operators handle calls, you may suffer certain losses. If your call center operators fail to describe the product or payment procedure, or if they are not being polite enough a potential customer may not become a real customer. Thus, your conversion rate will leave much to be desired. This will result in reduced revenue for the whole company. Thus, as you can see, call center may spoil performance of the whole company. Problems in sales department may arise from problems in the call center.

Call center ratios will help you evaluate business performance

Use call center ratios in evaluation of your call center performance

If you want to know roots of the problems and your weak points you need to evaluate performance of your call center by key performance indicators (KPI). Moreover, you need to establish primary and secondary KPIs, as some of them have very little impact on how your call center is doing.

With the help of Balanced Scorecard system you will be able to evaluate your call center and see where you need to work harder to improve overall performance. This system needs from you certain values to assess KPIs, i.e. factors that make your business successful.

Call center metrics is very important for top managers as ordinary operators may not know what they are doing wrong. It is manager’s job to inform employees on weak and strong points in their work. So, for instance, if having used balanced Scorecard system, you discovered that your operators keep callers on hold for quite a long time and some customers do not have enough patience to wait, you need to seek relevant solutions.

In order to successfully run business, it should be properly managed. Business management is about identifying problems, setting development goals and evaluation of business performance over time. These days, business cannot work without IT support. In some businesses computers and the Internet are inseparable part of operation process, while other business types use IT technologies to serve business and evaluate it.

Automated tools for business evaluation are widely used ion many spheres. It is impossible to develop strategic plan without being aware of company’s current performance and existing problems. It is like building a house with an indecently built a basement. The higher the house will get, the shakier entire structure will be. This comparison vividly represents business development. Thus, in order to evaluate business, one should know which indicators of business performance represent real situation.

This article focuses on evaluation of key performance indicators in call centers. Many big companies have call centers or customer support services as a link to real and potential customers. Call center differ from other business models, as they have different goals. Often, the key goal of a call center is to generate sales. Some call centers consult customers and solve problems.

The goal of any business is making profits. If you call center works inefficiently, you will probably suffer losses because of sales rate decrease. Or your customers may simply find other company because they failed to receive competent answers to their questions.

Compare your call indicators to those of your competitors

Call indicators will help you evaluate overall performance of a call center

If you want to improve performance of your call center you need to know where you should start at. In other words, you need to evaluate certain KPIs. What are they in call center business?

1. Cost per call. This is, perhaps, the most important indicator, which represents overall performance of the call center. If you manage to keep cost per call low, it means that you managed to organize work in a very efficient way.
2. Customer satisfaction. Not matter what goals you call center pursues (sales, consulting etc.) customers should be satisfied with their calls. Unsatisfied customer will not buy from your company. And unsatisfied customer may refuse your services if your call center operators failed to solve his problem.
3. One and done call. This is a slangy expression meaning that customer solves his problem or has his question answered during one call. So, he does not have to call once again, which reduces number of unnecessary calls which reduces cot per call and increases revenue.

We are living in a highly competitive business world. If you want to be successful in your business you cannot stop developing. The moment you stop is the moment your business goes down. Tough competition in the markets has its advantages and drawbacks. Sure, customers like the fact that they have several choices to choose from. But business owners need to solve serious problems in developing strategies of future development.

In order to work out a strategic development plan you need to know how well you company is doing now. You cannot build a house without building basement and ground floor first. The same concerns business. If you decided to expand your business with existing problems, these problems will only increase. Thus, evaluation of business performance is a very important procedure which helps you find out strengths and weaknesses of your company.

Every day, millions of people are contacting call centers of different companies to perform purchases, get instructions or file complaints. Call centers are so much different from traditional business models. Different call centers have different goals. Some companies sell products by phone, while others provide customer support service. But in both cases, call efficiency is the most important facts. A customer needs to be satisfied. In other words a customer should end a call with a purchase or with realization that his/her problem is solved by call center operator.

Of course, you are confident that call center managers are the best specialist in sales. These are the people who talk to customers. They are your company’s face, as when a new customer is calling he evaluates the company by dialogue with a call center operator. As a progressive and smart manager, you need to know what strong and weak points in the work of your call center are.

Balanced Scorecard software will help you evaluate performance of your call center by key performance indicators (KPI). Different businesses have different KPIs. Of course, you need to take into account specifics of call center business. Now, let’s analyze key KPIs in the work of a call center to give you a full picture of how you can improve work of your company.

Improved customer service. Perhaps, this is the most important KPI in the work of a call center. A customer must be satisfied with the dialogues and results of the conversation. In different call center a customer is supposed to end the talk with a purchase, or saying: “Thank you, everything works now”, or “Oh, thanks. I have got no further questions.” If your call center operators fail to keep customers satisfied then you are in a trouble. Customer service need always to be improved. This is not even questionable. Ask your call center manages and random customer such questions: a) are your customers fully information on all discounts and hot offers? b) was customer’s initial question answered? c) did the conversation contribute to the customer’s loyalty to the company? These questions will help you evaluate performance of your call center.

Discovery of potential customers. As said above, you cannot stop developing in business. Your call center specialists need to look for new customers (if this is a sell by phone company). These are so called direct sale strategies. Call people and inform them on new offers. In such a way you can both enlist new customers and get statistics on how popular your products/services are.

Reduced revenue at risk. Statistics show that only less than 3% of customers may turn to your competitors if they were satisfied with the first call. So, the truth is – if you manage to get customer satisfied with the first call to your company he is likely to become loyal to your business.

Employee (call-center operators) satisfaction. Work in call center is not an easy one. People are different and some of them are calling in an irritated state. If you are receiving angry call all day long, you are likely to get angry yourself. However, when employees receive proper training and guidance to deal with angry callers, they are more likely to stay calm.

Service level and response time. Perhaps, these are key metrics in the work of any call center. What is service level? For example, 70% of calls are answered within 20 seconds. What does that mean in practice? It means that your employees need only 20 seconds to answer most of customers’ questions. This is an indicator of how well your contact center is performing. The longer the calls, the less of them you can process. Thus, your profits are decreasing. Besides, if a customer failed to get his question answered, he would call again. Repeat calls and unnecessary contacts take the call center down.

Adherence to schedule. Operators need time not only to talk to customers. This is also after call time, making necessary calls or registering an order. Of course, you cannot know how long the call will last, because sometimes it is necessary to repeat some things 10 times for a customer to understand. However, call center operators attempt to decrease this time and stick to a schedule.

Blockage. This is a very indicative metrics. Blockage in the number of customers are not able to contact call center operators because insufficient number of employees who can take calls. There are several solution here: increased number of operators and improved service (operators need less time to process calls, and thus they can quicker welcome new customers).

Abandon rate. This indicator is not totally under caller center’s control since it also depends on caller’s tolerance, availability of service alternatives, time of day etc.

First resolution rate. Call center operators call it “one and done” which means that that a potential customer needs just one call to have his problem handled or order processed. “One and done” calls are great indicators of call center’s perfect work.

Communication etiquette. You can check random conversations of your call center operators to make sure they are talking to customers with due courtesy. Are they polite? Do they use standard greetings?

Staff shrinkage. This is basically the time when your employees are not available. This time includes, breaks, times off, offline work etc. this is a very important figure that helps you calculate how many operators you will need in the next half an hour or an hour.

Cost per call. Business is about making money. People invest money to get profit. It is that simple. In the work of a call center all calls cost certain amount of money. This is wages to the operator, costs related to telecommunication services, facilities etc. In order to evaluate cost per call one needs to find ALL elements and factors influencing it. In such a way you will be able to see if financial recourses are used efficiently.

Conversion rate. If your call canter sells products or services, conversion rate represents number of calls and number of completed purchases. If only 20% of calls end in registering a new order, then you either sell poor quality products or your call center does something wrong and scares potential customers off. In lucky days, conversion rate may reach 80%.

Sure, there are more KPIs influencing performance of any call center. They depend on the ultimate goals. Some call centers provide support and guidance while others sell products and services or enlist new customers. But in all cases it is imperative that you evaluate every KPI to see what needs to be improved. Being aware of own strengths and weaknesses is very important for any successful business, including call center.

Balanced scorecard metrics make it possible to learn weak points of the huge business structure. Sometimes, even a minor detail can make the whole business fail. BSC is a helpful solution in this case. Besides, being aware of own weak points, managers and employees will work harder to become better. If you do not know what you are doing wrong, how can you correct your mistakes? Balanced Scorecard will provide with answers.

Even if you improve some of the KPIs your employees will have the motivation for self-improvement. Any of these factors will increase revenue of the company, and if employees are getting fair compensation they are sure to work better.

It may happen that managerial evaluation of strengths and weaknesses may be not entirely correct. Balanced Scorecard will provide you with graphs and figures (including historic ones) which will let you see how your company was evolving in time.  For example, if you saw a direct dependence of revenue of cost per call or customer satisfaction, you know what you need to do to improve situation and increase profits.

To sum it up, it needs saying that efficiency of using Balanced Scorecard has been proved by thousands of business managers and companies. This tool is the best evaluation solution you can use to improve performance of your company. If your personnel is properly motivated and people are aware of weak points in their work, they see new horizons and development strategies.