Call Center Metrics

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.

Help Desk metrics focus on measuring customer service performance.

 

This metric focuses on more specific details than Customer Relationship metrics providing more indicators for evaluation of customer support service.

Help Desk indicators are grouped into fours categories:

• Service Excellence. This group contains four customer service specific indicators: Customer Satisfaction, Response Time, The call abandon rate, Employee Proficiency.
• Program Excellence. This group helps to evaluate how good are solutions that customer service provide, indicators for this group are: Call Volume, Solution Accuracy, Reliability of Predefined Solutions, Tracking Accuracy.
• Performance Excellence. Helps to estimate overall performance of customer service, include such indicators as First Time Settlement, Resolution Excellence, Resolution Time, Agent Commitment.
• Quantitative Control. This group of indicators give a quality control over help desk performance, use indicators: Number of calls, Time controller, Opened tickets, Closed tickets.

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CRM Metrics Scorecard helps to find out if your Customer Relationship processed are running well.

Customer Relationship Metrics focuses on some general indicators that helps to measure performance of customer relations unit within company.

This Balanced Scorecard focuses on four main groups of indicators:

• Market Invasion. Helps to evaluate the scope and speed of market invasion. This group contains the following indicators: Accession Rate, Diminution Rate, Market Penetration, Retention Rate.
• Customer Quality. Contains quality specific indicators. This group contains the following indicators: Customer Loyalty, Customer Value, Customer Long-Term Value, Customer Life Span.
• Customer Segmentation. Metrics that help to check basic customers’ segmentation. This group contains the following indicators: Happy Customers, Satisfied Customers, Dissatisfied Customers, Customer Potential.
• Damage and Recovery Manager. Helps to evaluate possible loses due to customer relationship problems. This group contains the following indicators: Risk Factor, Dissatisfaction Management, Damage Control, Customer Recovery, Service Quality.

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Call Center Balanced Scorecard focuses on measuring and controlling of Call Center performance.

 

This Scorecard contains indicators that are highly specific for measuring the performance of phone support services. The four group of indicators provides manager with balanced analysis over call-center performance.

• The Financial perspective - Calls revenue, costs, conversion. Includes indicators that helps to measure financial aspects of call-center performance. Indicators within this category are: Revenue per successful call, Cost per call, Conversion rate.
• Internal Process perspective - Calls handling and processing. This group of indicators helps to measure Average call-handling time, Number of Sales attempts, Caller’s Segmentation, Support Service Availability.
• Coaching in call-center perspective allows to find out if education and growth processes are organized well. This perspective includes such indicators as Coaching time, Supervisor responsibilities, Coaching methods.
• Another group of indicators is Calls quality, this group includes such indicators as Response time quality, Customer loose rate, First-call resolution, Save rate.

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