Call Center Metrics

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.

An induction process for a call center professional is a starting point towards a critical situation one might have to encounter in the future course of their respective career path.  A call center professional is often a front end communicator with the client and needs to be equipped with sound knowledge of the business process at all times to avoid any lapses on his/her part.

The key performance indicators (KPIs) are imperative for effective and smooth functioning of the process, whether inbound or outbound, without which it is most difficult to analyze and supervise the information provided to the client by the agent. First time resolution within an accepted time limit is vital to assess the performance metrics of the call.

A calculated and cautious approach towards the adopted help desk metrics system will certainly provide the desired results and consequently lead to considerable rise in employee efficiency and eventually contribute to greater achievement of business objectives and goals. Qualitative appraisal of the agent’s work must provide a strong benchmark towards application of such metrics to the overall business procedures besides enhancing productivity, along with providing a minuscule snapshot for undertaking future challenges.

The best idea to measure call center performance is to combine Call Center KPI from commercial library of metrics and BSC Designer PRO – with all its powerful features.

Consultants and owners of business-oriented web-sites will be interested in partnership program that is now available with BSC Designer.

With affiliate program that is now available for BSC Designer, it is possible to be affiliate and resell both - scorecards from commercial library and resell BSC Designer itself.

For more information about Balanced Scorecard Partnership check the partners section online.

Check the information above, if you are running web-site that focuses on call center and help desk performance management.

Managing call center metrics during recession periods should be given primary importance, because they provide valuable data on which to base decisions on the fly.

Managing call center metrics during recession periods may seem of secondary importance, but in fact, it is extremely necessary in order for a call center to minimize losses. Economic downturns usually trigger companies to go all out and try to cut expenses as much as possible. This is more often than not accomplished via such measures as budget cuts, bonus and salary cuts, employee layoffs, and other equally drastic steps. What companies should realize is that a longer term perspective should still be adopted, even in the face of very turbulent short terms.

Metrics are key parameters that serve to allow managers to get an idea of how particular aspects of a process or organization are performing. In the case of call centers, some metrics include average handling time, or the time that it takes for an agent to wrap up a query, and customer satisfaction ratios. These metrics are important strategic tools, as they allow managers to keep track of employee and department performance accurately. For example, the effects of training, salary raises, and other actions should be reflected eventually in these metrics.

During times of recession, it becomes more important than ever to keep a close eye on call center metrics. One big reason for this is so that management will be able to rein in cost cutting when it begins to have too big an impact on performance. Call center performance relies on a number of different factors, with morale being one of them. Salary cuts and termination of coworkers will presumably have a negative effect on morale, leading eventually to decreased performance. Not to mention the loss of manpower that terminating employees would result in.

All in all, managers should always be aware of the effects of their decisions on call center performance, and even more so during periods of financial recession. Decisions made during recessions tend to involve even more risk than usual, apart from usually having to be made quickly. These represent crucial turning points for the company, during which every bit of data available to base the decision on would help immensely. Call center metrics become much more valuable in crunch times such as recessions, and they should be paid as much attention as possible. Objective data, with the proper analysis, will prove invaluable to managers devising strategies and tactics for coping with financial developments such as recessions.

A complete business plan to weather a downturn in the economy should include, therefore, a comprehensive plan for keeping up the monitoring of performance through metrics. Past and present performance should be used as benchmarks for determining the acceptable extent and percentages of drops expected to be experienced during the recession. Using these estimates, budget cuts and other cost cutting measures should be carefully limited. Managing call center metrics during recession will act as a barometer to help managers ensure that the company’s performance is not suffering too much because of cost-effectiveness measures. This will minimize losses and maximize the chance of making it through.

The Product Knowledge Management balanced scorecard is available now. The scorecard helps to measure, control and improve knowledge management efficiency in the company. The scorecard is available for download.

Check if information and knowledge about the product is kept and managed efficiently in your company.

Applying metrics than helps to manage call centre may be more advantageous to come up with immediate resolutions.

Metrics than helps to manage call center – what are they and what benefits can they bring to the call center industry?

Helping the call center can be done by hiring analysts and experts to check the performance of call center agents and the environment of the working place. Analysts can be from independent or hired employees of a call center business. Outside help can provide the industry with sound business strategy, which can be necessary to meet its objectives and defined goals.

However, in managing a call center, help from experts may be costly or even ineffective at a certain degree. In call center management, one of the things that managers of contact centers can use to measure efficiency and efficacy of the business functions is the metric system. One of the metrics for measuring the performance of the call center agents, as well as the managers, supervisors, and other employees with direct relation to the business and its functions is the KPI.

KPI is perhaps one of the popular metrics, either financial or non-financial, for measuring the activities that may be too complex to quantify, but are still quantifiable. This metric tool, known as key performance indicator, can be used to assess factors that are crucial to the functions and strategies of businesses. The factors which may be seen as key performance indicators may be critical in meeting the objectives of a business enterprise, in this case, the call centre business.

The factors that may be crucial to a call center business may include the proficiency and competency of employees, particularly agents, the average response time of calls, the rate of abandoned calls, the cost per call, and customer satisfaction.

The things that need to be quantified and measured can be kept at a minimum number. As they say, less is more. Thus, the factors that can be considered key performance indicators should only be those that have direct connection and response to the performance of a call centre business.

KPI of call centers can be used not only to measure the performance, but also to help identify strengths and weaknesses in the work setting. The performance metric can, likewise, be utilized to determine and diagnose the problems and drivers of performance gaps.

Moreover, KPI may also be applied in call center businesses to come up with prescribed actions for performance enhancement. In some cases, it can be benchmarked to industry peers so other players of the call center industry can come up with ideas for performance measurement. Further, the use of KPI can help a call center business in establishing the performance goals for the entire organization.

The balanced scorecard is another metric that can be used in call center management to assess the performance in the call center agent level and other departments in the call center business. It is also a performance measurement that can assess quantifiable and complex activities that have importance in the call center business. Balanced scorecard software is a tool that can help call center managers in determining the performance level and rate in the business.

Assessing performance involves measures than helps to manage call center. Other tools and methods proven to be effective can also be applied in call center management.

Identifying the metrics or key performance indicators (KPI) that really matters is crucial for managers to measure call center performance.  These metrics should not be entirely agent-centric. Rather, customer satisfaction and loyalty should also be taken into account.

Many experts now consider the important role that key performance indicators (KPIs) play in measuring call center performance. Along with this, they recognize the need to narrow down KPIs to the metrics that really matters.

Traditionally, performance management systems in call centers used to really on simple measurements like handling times, talk times, wrap times, and idle times as the primary criteria for evaluating agent efficiency. With certain technologies like predictive dialers and automatic call distribution (ACD) systems, it was very easy to access, compile and interpret data on agent-centric efficiency metrics that have been mentioned previously.

While these information do provide call center managers accurate information about how their agents perform, they do not necessarily dwell on overall customer experience. Likewise, these efficiency measures do not take into account the performance of a call center in line with its corporate goals.

The emergence of new technologies that enable call centers to obtain customer interaction analysis has benefited call center managers by enabling them to run their usual operations and at the same time, determine how the entire organization vis a vis their corporate goals. Unlike traditional call center efficiency reports, these new technologies focus on improving the overall productivity of call centers in conjunction with improving customer satisfaction ratings.

Call center management are faced with the dilemma of balancing productivity goals of the entire organization and the improvement of call center customer experience.  Managers, more often than not, hire additional agents especially during peak times when frequency of inbound calls is expected to rise. At the same time, they can not hire as many agents as they want because agent salaries account for almost 70% of call center expenses.

Along with this balancing dilemma, it is also a challenge for call center managers not to rely more on agent-centric measurements as indicators of success. Doing so tends to disregard other KPIs such as customer satisfaction and loyalty which should have been considered as primary critical success factors. Experts on call centers, upon thorough analysis, now find the need for call center managers to identify metrics that will help them identify which among the agents are able to meet quantitative goals at the same time, provide top-notch customer service.

By obtaining data on talk time and first call resolution (FCR), it becomes easier to identify which among the agents excel in solving customer problems within the least amount of time.

Most call center technologies can easily provide information of up to 25 metrics at a time. While these can be used as indicators of agent and call center efficiency, experts recommend that only 5 metrics ideally measures overall call center performance. These five KPIs are cost per call, customer satisfaction, first contact resolution (FCR) rate, agent utilization and aggregate call performance. These metrics are based on the Pareto or 80/20 principle which states that from these 5 indicators, 80% of performance measurement and call center management values is obtained. These success factors, likewise, determine the Balanced Score of a call center which quantifies the aggregate efficiency of a call center over time.

For a call center to determine just how efficient it is at its chosen field, call center metrics should then be developed.

You just cannot discount the fact that call centers today are amongst the most successful businesses all over the world. And it is because of this fact alone that has caught the attention of many investors worldwide. Now, you just might be one of the many aspiring entrepreneurs who are considering delving into the call center business. But seriously, operating and manning a call center is not as easy as it may seem. By looking at the huge call centers that are operating today, you cannot help but wonder just what do they have? What is that certain gusto behind their success? If there is something that successful call centers have in common, aside from the superb quality they get from the agents that they hire, it is metrics. Yes, call center metrics.

In fact, no call center can ever do without call center metrics. This is because these are the metrics, the indicators themselves, which show you in quantifiable terms just how good, or bad, your call center is performing at the moment. If you own a call center, and you ask yourself how your center is doing, just how can you answer that question? Do you refer to the yearly revenue your call center is garnering? Would that answer your question satisfactorily? With the many aspects underlying the success of call centers, revenue alone does not really answer the question. This is why call center metrics are very much needed in the setting.

So, in developing call center metrics, you have to consider the need to develop KPI’s, or key performance indicators. These are the indicators of performance that you need to place into the context of your call center, the markers, to be more specific. Bear in mind that there is actually a need to keep the number of metrics to be used at a moderate amount. If you use too many metrics, then too much time and effort would be exerted in analyzing performance. When you use too few metrics, then the evaluation would be too broad as well. In the call center setting, it is actually recommended to use just 5 metrics. The commonly used ones include: Customer Satisfaction, Call Cost, First Call Resolution, Agent Efficiency, and Overall Call Center Performance.

In developing call center metrics, you will surely notice how some of the metrics are related to other metrics. For instance, customer satisfaction is related to first call resolution, as well as call quality. So, what constitutes customer satisfaction, to be exact? Let us then look at first call resolution and call quality as individual metrics. If you were the customer, what determines call quality for you? Wouldn’t it be first call resolution? If the agent is unable to resolve the issue you are calling about in his first attempt, then this would not spell out that much quality for you. Thus, first call resolution constitutes a bigger part of customer satisfaction, when compared to call quality.

There is indeed a need to be as organized as possible when developing call center metrics. This way, you are sure to have an objective perspective when choosing which metrics to use and plot on your scorecard. With the scorecard in tow, you can then proceed to measure just how efficient and successful your call center is when it comes to performance.

Agent and call center efficiency should be measured based on crucial customer service KPI as these indicators will help evaluate the performance of both agents and call centers vis a vis company goals.  

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurements that can be quantified. These critical success factors vary depending on the nature of an organization. In the case of call centers, customer service KPIs are crucial indicators of overall call center performance.

It is undeniable that many call center managers are unaware about the crucial role that KPIs play in the management of call centers. Instead, they focus more on agent statistics such as average speed of answer and abandonment rate which industry experts consider as unimportant metrics. In contrast, KPIs are given importance for their ability to monitor and predict performance as well as identify, diagnose and resolve call center performance problems.

The average customer service call center employ technologies that can give them information access to more than 25 metrics. While these can assist managers in evaluating agent performance and utilization, some of these are unnecessary that they need to be narrowed down to those metrics that really matter. Call center experts identify five metrics that they consider most important. These metrics include cost per call, customer satisfaction, first contact resolution (FCR) rate, agent utilization and aggregate call center performance.

Cost and quality should be among the essential metrics as call centers exist to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible cost. In call centers, the most important cost metric is cost per contact. On the other hand, the best metric for quality of services is customer satisfaction. This explains why cost per call and customer satisfaction are two of the metrics included in the five essential call center KPIs as identified by experts.

First contact resolution (FCR) or the number of contact resolved during the initial contact with customer, is another metric that should be given importance as statistics show that call centers with low FCR rates also had low customer satisfaction ratings. While customer satisfaction could also be influenced by other variables such as Average Speed of Answer (ASA), and Handle Time, FCR is considered to be the single biggest driver of customer satisfaction. Agent utilization is also among the essential KPIs of call centers as it is the best measure of labor efficiency. Cost per call is decreased if agent utilization is high. Salaries and incentives of call center agents comprise more than half of call center expenses.

Reducing call per cost is the only leverage available to call centers to counter the effects of labor costs. Agent utilization, however, should not be kept at extremely high rates as this may result to employee burn out which in turn, leads to turnover. Lastly, aggregate call center performance is an essential metric as this is an indicator if the call center is improving or declining in terms of performance. The Balanced Score is established as the single score that measures the overall performance of a call center. This metric, when monitored over a period of time, will show stakeholders exactly how the company is doing.

There are other common metrics that were not included in the list of essential 5 customer service KPIs like call abandonment rate and average speed of call. While these can measure agent efficiency, they are less important and less effective as critical success factors.