Call Center Metrics

Modern business undergoes a very difficult stage of development. The worst economic crisis has hurt thousands or perhaps millions of businesses all over the world. In the post crisis economy suffering even minor losses or inefficient spending of money means that your business will not survive for a long time.

Thus, in order to make sure you are not losing hard earned profits or wasting money you could have invested in your business, one needs to evaluate it and find all strengths and weaknesses to develop a comprehensive strategic development plan.

Most companies have call centers which either sell products/services or provide customers with support and guidance. Customer support services should employ only competent operators who know the subject matter (for example, network technologies if this is a web hosting provider). You cannot afford having an ineffective call center as your customers may turn with their backs to you and your company which will be a disaster.

To properly evaluate performance of your call center it is not enough just to calculate revenue or total expenses related to maintaining it. Of course, these figures will tell you much but they will not tell you what caused negative performance of a call center. In such a case an effective and progressive manager should use Balanced Scorecard system.

Call center benchmar will indicate business performance

Which call center benchmark to use to evaluate overall performance?

What is it? In order to better explain it, let’s take a hypothetic example of an imaginary call center. So, you are a top manager in the call center who needs to know what goes wrong with it. You are armed with basic figures like net loss or revenue, number of call answered for a certain period, number of employees etc. All these figures can say just one: something is wrong.

Balanced Scorecard system is represented by software that takes all these figures into account to evaluate all key performance indicators (KPI). KPIs are factors that influence business performance, in our case call center performance.

You will be surprised at how efficiently the program can work. You will get to know about all weaknesses in the company which you will be able to address directly. Besides, your employees will know what they are doing wrong which will contribute to motivation, self-confidence and positive organization climate.

Balanced Scorecard system and call center metrics are the best tools to evaluate performance of a call center, optimize its work and improve indicators.

Much in your company will depend on call center performance, of course of you have any. But usually, well reputed companies always have a call center. Operators either place orders or consult customers on different issues. Thus, a call center may have two major goals: sell products and services by phone, and provide customers with ongoing support.

If your call center shows poor performance this may result in: a) decrease of revenue since operators will sell less products/services by phone, b) low customer satisfaction which may result in customer churn, while new customer are unlikely to buy from you if they did not like their conversation with a call center operator.

So, as you can see, you can be the best manager in the entire world, but your call center may spoil just everything you managed to accomplish. You need to keep your nose to the wind, or in other words regularly evaluate performance of your call center to be aware of most serious problems and hardships in work.

In order to be well informed on strengths and weaknesses of your call center, you should definitely use Balanced Scorecard system. Specialized software will do all the job for you. All the program needs is figures, like average time of one call, total expenses related to call center maintenance etc.

Test call center performance with Balanced Scorecard software

Use call center metrics to evaluate call center performance

Balanced Scorecard concept employs the ideal of evaluating separate indicators which altogether represent overall performance of a company. In case of a call center these are special indicators that show how well your operators cope with their job.

There are not many of such KPIs (key performance indicators) related to call center metrics. However, it is very important to pick the most valuable ones. If you focus on secondary factors, you are risking to waste money for nothing.

So, be careful when picking the right KPIs. This list will surely help you make the right decisions and properly evaluate call center performance.

Concentrate on cost per call as too expensive calls make take your company down. There are many ways to reduce cost per call, however, you need to make sure your operators get proper compensation.

Customer satisfaction is another indicator which is very important to any call center manager. Angry customers rarely become loyal to a company. So, all questions of callers need to be answered.

First resolution calls. These calls are called one and done calls. It means that a customer needs only one call to resolve his/her problems.

Imagine you want to purchase a laptop, or buy web hosting plan from a web hosting provider. You have found numerous web sites with attractive offers. But, perhaps, the first thing you will do is finding a toll free number to which you can call and ask questions about the products and services you are about to buy. So, basically, your decision to buy products/services pretty much depends on how successful your call to the company will be.

Why did we start this article with hypothetic situation? It is to describe how important a call center is. It does not matter what goals a call center pursue it is definitely a mediator between customers and business itself. Call center operators are soldiers who are located at the forefront of a business. These are the people who persuade potential customers buy products and services, and thus they generate income.

It is important to feel sure that a call center works perfectly. Sure, there are no perfect things, and if you are aspiring to perfection you will most certainly succeed. In order to develop and expand any business, one should first evaluate it. The same concerns call center. If you plan to increase the number of operators or organize training sessions, you fist need to evaluate current performance to find strengths and weaknesses.

Using Balanced Scorecard system you will be able to perform evaluation of call center performance within a short period of time. With the help of automated software it is possible to find out all weak and strong point. The program will provide you with results in form of graphs, figures and percents.

Start with support control in evaluation of call center performance

Support control is one of the ways to monitor call center performance

What exactly does Balanced Scorecard system evaluate? There is such a notion as key performance indicator. In case of a call center, these are indicators that directly influence work of a call center, thus making it either effective or ineffective.

So, if you want to organize support control you need to take into account the following KPIs (key performance indicators):

1. Revenue per successful call. Balanced Scorecard system will divide total revenue generated by call center operators by total number of calls. If it turns out that net revenue per successful call is lower than cost per call, your call center does a poor job.
2. Cost per call. This is the amount of money you have to spend to answer one call.
3. Customer satisfaction. Ask your customers to rate calls. Satisfied customers turn into the most loyal customers of your company.

Evaluation of business performance can be one of the most difficult and daunting tasks. Net revenue rate is a good indicator, however, there are so many factors that influence business performance and measure success. At that, each business has own factors and indicators. A retail sales company will take care of sales rate while a customer support service should focus on customer satisfaction and first call resolution.

It should be noted that all respected and trusted companies have own call centers, no matter what kind of business they run. Naturally, current, former and potential customers have questions and concerns related to products and services they have purchased or are about to purchase. A call center is a linking element between business and its customers.

It is very important that your call center does not scare customers away. You need to understand that this is your business face. It is a call center operator that represents the company during the call. A caller does not know what a good person CEO or head manager is. A caller judge the company by a conversation with a call center operator.

Without any doubt, an effective manager needs to evaluate performance of a call center to find solutions to existing problems. We recommend use of Balanced Scorecard system which is a special program that performs calculations to evaluate business performance by KPI (key performance indicators). As already said above, each business has different KPIs, and call center is not an exception here. There are certain factors and indicators that make work of a call center effective and efficient.

Request kpi is an inseparable part of call center metrics

Evaluate performance of call center with request kpi

Balanced Scorecard system will help you detect the problems before they have harmful consequences for your business. Call center metrics include numerous KPIs, but some of them are very important both for callers and call center operators.

There is one common thing about all businesses. An enterprise must be profitable. In case of a call center, this business should make profits if this is a sales call center. In case of customer support service, we cannot talk about profitability. However, effective customer support service contributes to overall performance of business.

Balanced Scorecard system will help you evaluate such indicators as cost per call, revenue per successful call (if this is a sales call center), customer and employees satisfaction, time on hold (time a customer spends waiting for a specialist competent in his problem), blockage and abandoned calls rate, number of one and done calls etc.

Balanced Scorecard is an inseparable element of a manager’s tool kit. This software will make it possible to improve business performance and develop future development plans.

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.