Call Center Metrics

Implementation of balanced scorecard requires proper preparation.  It is extremely important to create are working group that will do the bulk of the job on development of strategy maps and their implementation in organization.  At a first glance, this seems like an easy task.  Indeed, creation of the working group looks easy.  But there are many pitfalls and hidden obstacles here.  Balanced scorecard is not just another accounting tool or a method to control personnel.  The concept of balanced scorecard must be promoted at all company levels.  First and foremost, company top management should show ordinary personnel their true faith in the power of balanced scorecard.  If ordinary employees see that their top managers are reluctant to use balanced scorecard why should they do that?

BSC working group members

When implementing balanced scorecard in a call center it is imperative to find the right people who will form a working group.  On the one hand, balanced scorecard is used to measure company progress on implementation of strategic goals, and that’s why such a working group needs competent and professional people who know much about strategic management.  On the other hand, ordinary employees in the company are the most well informed people on such issues as customer relations, current problems in the company, ways to solve these problems etc.

BSC preparation cycle

As a rule call centers either sell products and services via phone or provide customers with online support.  Strategic goals may vary from improvements in customer support service to sales growth and winning of new market shares.  Depending on the goals, relevant balanced scorecard will be developed.

It would be wrong to keep ordinary call center operators away from discussion of strategy maps and development of key performance indicators.  Sometimes, business gurus do not see obvious things which ordinary call center operators encounter every day.  They talk to customers and they know who they are.  During such discussions one may expect very creative and revolutionary ideas from call center operators.

Besides, inclusion of ordinary personnel to working groups in charge of implementation of balanced scorecard will guarantee that such a working group will develop fair and comprehensive reward system.  Motivation is very important, especially for ordinary personnel, as employees need to understand why they should use balanced scorecard and what benefits they personally will get.

Some companies consider this initial stage to be a final one.  They develop strategy maps, for a working group and that’s it!  They think the work is done.  But in fact it only begins.

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.

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.

The case study on United CallSoft highlights the significant role that techniques like Balanced Scorecard can play improving the employee productivity in call centers. A key insight that this case offers us is the fact that managers at call center should understand that the workstation conditions are appropriate for workers minimizing the negative effects on their health. This is because of the observation that several the health disturbances have direct impact on the employees’ performance. The developers of the call center should pay the desired attention to such aspects for creating comfortable surroundings. These should be able to assist the workers in their functional requirements of processes and job.

However, the intended users should pay attention to the fact that ‘not every countable measure is countable and not every countable parameter can be counted’. Collecting metrics just because those can be easily counted will not serve the purpose rather push the firm in a wrong direction altogether. Therefore, the key is to settle for only those pieces that are most likely to convey the ongoing situation in as precise manner as possible. To arrive at such a set, one can bank upon the best practices being followed by industry leaders. Read more in Call Center Balanced Scorecard Case Study.

KPI Name: Cell Phone Balanced Scorecard Metrics

Related KPIs: Customer Relationship, Call-Center, Help Desk, Interactive Voice Response, Customer Profitability, Customer Profiling, Customer Value, Customer Conversion, Customer Loyalty, Internet Access, VOIP

• Download Cell Phone KPI trial version
• Buy Cell Phone KPI full version

Customers also viewed: Personal Productivity

Sample reports:

Some reports were generated with Balanced Scorecard Designer for the Cell Phone Balanced Scorecard Metrics KPI to show both – Balanced Scorecard Designer functionality and a part of KPI content:

• Check Overview KPI Report sample.
• Check Full HTML Scorecard Report sample.
• Check Diamond Style Report sample.

Balanced Scorecard Designer Screenshot:

The Balanced Scorecard Designer software was used to create this KPI.

Description by authors:

There are number of reasons which force companies to provide corporate cell phones or network connections to their employees, which include better tracking, improved coordination, cost savings, etc. With KPIs these companies are able to judge the efficacy of the cell phone schemes used by them with ease. Cell Phone KPIs for user companies are basically configured under four parameters- cost savings, customization, operation and control, and lastly employee tracking.

Cost Savings Perspective shows the level of savings made by the companies with the use of corporate mobile networks. It consists of KPIs like % dip in internal phone costs, % dip in external or distant phone expenses, % savings in bulk purchase of cell-phones connections and % reduction in internet networking costs for employees.

Customization Perspective takes into consideration KPIs like customization level of corporate mobile network schemes, % rise in discounts on corporate employee mobile schemes, number of value added features enjoyed and rise in cheaper tariff plans.

Operation and Control Perspective talks about KPIs such as improvement in Connectivity Level on same mobile network, staff optimization level, control level over mobile usage and spending policies and security level adequacy.

Employee Tracking Perspective shows the effectiveness of mobile networks in enhancing employee tracking. It comprises of KPIs like improvement in employee tracking, rise in employee efficiency, employee coordination level and rise in employee safety.

KPI in Excel – Screenshot:

KPI Name: VOIP Balanced Scorecard Metrics

Related KPIs: Customer Relationship, Call-Center, Help Desk, Interactive Voice Response, Customer Profitability, Customer Profiling, Customer Value, Customer Conversion, Customer Loyalty, Cell Phone, Internet Access

• Download VOIP KPI trial version
• Buy VOIP KPI full version

Customers also viewed: Personal Productivity

Sample reports:

Some reports were generated with Balanced Scorecard Designer for the VOIP Balanced Scorecard Metrics KPI to show both – Balanced Scorecard Designer functionality and a part of KPI content:

• Check Overview KPI Report sample.
• Check Full HTML Scorecard Report sample.
• Check Diamond Style Report sample.

Balanced Scorecard Designer Screenshot:

The Balanced Scorecard Designer software was used to create this KPI.

Description by authors:

Since its inception, VOIP service has earned the attention of both small businesses and enterprises and has certainly surpassed the traditional communication techniques in many ways. From excellent network connection service to huge amount of cost savings, VOIP service offers great benefits to the users. One can easily arrange the KPIs for VOIP users under four perspectives- network quality, cost savings, VOIP service efficiency and customer service.

Network Quality Perspective helps in measuring the quality of network connection offered by the VOIP service provider. It takes into account KPIs such as connection success rate, reduction in connection delay, network efficiency ratio and call setup time.

Cost Savings Perspective talks about the KPIs in the form of % reduction in phone costs,
% reduction in bandwidth costs, % dip in personnel costs used for handling call operations and savings in infrastructure and maintenance redundancies.

VOIP Service Efficiency Perspective comprises of KPIs such as % of calls with one or more DSQ Event, % of time segments when the call quality was inappropriate, % of calls with listening/conversational quality less than desired and security level score.

Customer Service Perspective can be used to judge the level of customer service related to the VOIP service. It consists of KPI like average service response time, % reduction in network problems resolution time, number of associated features provided by the VOIP service provider and service access level.
KPI in Excel – Screenshot: