Call Center Metrics

There are a number of ways to measure call center performance, but a few should be enough to give you the most useful results.

Call centers are becoming very important to the operations of many companies. Call centers provide them the ability to connect with customers more effectively and efficiently and allow them to focus more on developing products that consumers will find useful. Ultimately, the most accurate way to measure call center performance is to relate it to how well call center services contribute to improvement in terms of company sales and product quality. However, this is largely dependent on the way companies analyze and utilize call center generated data.

For a call center, the process of measuring performance can be a bit complicated since as a separate company, it has its own performance measures. These measures, however, must be flexible enough to accommodate the expected outputs of clients. And call centers may be servicing a couple or more clients at any given time.

Depending on the requirements of client companies or accounts, call centers employ several performance measures common to the industry. They can employ average talk time (ATT), average handling time (AHT), percentage of resolved issues, service level, cost-per-call, abandon rate, customer satisfaction, and delay time, which refer to the time spent by customers waiting for call center representative to pick up their calls.

These different measures make it easier to assess the performance of the center itself, although other measures are needed to come up with a complete and more reliable assessment of performance. Favorable results in the evaluation of these measures do not automatically mean success; they must contribute to the operations of the client’s accounts. The number of measures employed also does not matter much –, what is more important is the relevance of said measures. A few will do the trick as long as they have the ability to capture performance levels accurately and effectively.

Among the different techniques enumerated above, customer satisfaction is perhaps the best when it comes to measuring performance. This is because customer satisfaction is the ultimate objective of any company, including a call center. The levels of customer satisfaction mostly stem from the quality of product or services being offered; thus, it is a good gauge of how well the center is performing or the quality of the clients’ products and services.

Negative customer satisfaction evaluation results tell a lot about the performance of the center and product of the company. Other measurement metrics will be helpful in providing details to the evaluation. Abandon rate, for example, tells how many customers decide to abandon calls they themselves initiated. Clients cannot be expected to wait patiently until somebody picks up their calls. A few of these and you can expect to receive negative feedback from them, and complaints are decidedly clear manifestations of dissatisfaction that does not bode well for the call center as well as its clients. Abandon rates may be caused by long lines of customers calling. It is very important to determine the reasons behind high abandon rates so that solutions can be found and applied.

There are many techniques used to measure call center performance. The number employed is not as important as the quality of metrics utilized to measure the performance.

As successful as call centers may be today, there is still a need to manage and control call center performance. Here are some tips on how to do this.

The call center industry has been experiencing boom after boom for so many years now. This is a strong indication that there is much revenue to be earned in this industry! And for the many investors considering delving into the call center industry, you must be prepared to tackle every single aspect to be tackled, just to ensure the success of your call center. Yes, call centers are indeed quite successful these days. But this does not go without much effort from the many people behind it, as well as the different technologies that support the operations of such centers!

The typical call center does not just cater to the needs of one client. In fact, in the most common setting, a call center could very well cater to the needs of banks, travel agencies, financial institutions, and the like. And these establishments have different needs and operations to handle. The call center itself would then have to hire different sets of representatives who would then be trained to handle the problems and issues the customers of these clients would be calling about. Let us say that a call center has an Internet Service Provider for a client.

The call center would then have to hire representatives who would have sufficient background and experience when it comes to the technologies and such in providing Internet services. The same call center could then have a financial institution for a second client. The representatives hired for this account should then have a certain level of background in accounting or banking and finance. Thus, there is a need for any call center to be very flexible when it comes to catering to the individual needs of their clients. So, what can be done to manage and control call center performance?

The perfect approach to take here is actually the Balanced Scorecard. This is actually metrics and metrics management combined. The metrics to be used here should represent the business in its entirety. These include the calls, the operators, the expenses incurred, and the revenue gained. In managing these metrics, the proper order should be implemented. But it is equally important to keep the number of metrics to be used at a moderate level. So, just choose the metrics that are relevant to your business as a call center.

You should also have a financial perspective when deciding which metrics to use here. Most call centers actually perceive that more revenue is garnered with more calls. But this is not true at all. This is not just about making as many calls as possible. There are also conversion rates to consider, as well as maintaining costs at the lowest possible rate.

Next to consider are the internal processes. Just how is a phone call handled in your very own call center? How do the queues of calls go about? Is there a particular segmentation of incoming calls that takes place? How long is the call-handling time that you perceive as average? And what about your service window? Is it available 24/7? These are just some of the questions you need to ask when it comes to the internal processes of your call center. By keeping these things in mind, the plan to managing and controlling the functions entailed in maintaining call centers is indeed made easier to achieve.