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.

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.