We are living in a highly competitive business world. If you want to be successful in your business you cannot stop developing. The moment you stop is the moment your business goes down. Tough competition in the markets has its advantages and drawbacks. Sure, customers like the fact that they have several choices to choose from. But business owners need to solve serious problems in developing strategies of future development.
In order to work out a strategic development plan you need to know how well you company is doing now. You cannot build a house without building basement and ground floor first. The same concerns business. If you decided to expand your business with existing problems, these problems will only increase. Thus, evaluation of business performance is a very important procedure which helps you find out strengths and weaknesses of your company.
Every day, millions of people are contacting call centers of different companies to perform purchases, get instructions or file complaints. Call centers are so much different from traditional business models. Different call centers have different goals. Some companies sell products by phone, while others provide customer support service. But in both cases, call efficiency is the most important facts. A customer needs to be satisfied. In other words a customer should end a call with a purchase or with realization that his/her problem is solved by call center operator.
Of course, you are confident that call center managers are the best specialist in sales. These are the people who talk to customers. They are your company’s face, as when a new customer is calling he evaluates the company by dialogue with a call center operator. As a progressive and smart manager, you need to know what strong and weak points in the work of your call center are.
Balanced Scorecard software will help you evaluate performance of your call center by key performance indicators (KPI). Different businesses have different KPIs. Of course, you need to take into account specifics of call center business. Now, let’s analyze key KPIs in the work of a call center to give you a full picture of how you can improve work of your company.
Improved customer service. Perhaps, this is the most important KPI in the work of a call center. A customer must be satisfied with the dialogues and results of the conversation. In different call center a customer is supposed to end the talk with a purchase, or saying: “Thank you, everything works now”, or “Oh, thanks. I have got no further questions.” If your call center operators fail to keep customers satisfied then you are in a trouble. Customer service need always to be improved. This is not even questionable. Ask your call center manages and random customer such questions: a) are your customers fully information on all discounts and hot offers? b) was customer’s initial question answered? c) did the conversation contribute to the customer’s loyalty to the company? These questions will help you evaluate performance of your call center.
Discovery of potential customers. As said above, you cannot stop developing in business. Your call center specialists need to look for new customers (if this is a sell by phone company). These are so called direct sale strategies. Call people and inform them on new offers. In such a way you can both enlist new customers and get statistics on how popular your products/services are.
Reduced revenue at risk. Statistics show that only less than 3% of customers may turn to your competitors if they were satisfied with the first call. So, the truth is – if you manage to get customer satisfied with the first call to your company he is likely to become loyal to your business.
Employee (call-center operators) satisfaction. Work in call center is not an easy one. People are different and some of them are calling in an irritated state. If you are receiving angry call all day long, you are likely to get angry yourself. However, when employees receive proper training and guidance to deal with angry callers, they are more likely to stay calm.
Service level and response time. Perhaps, these are key metrics in the work of any call center. What is service level? For example, 70% of calls are answered within 20 seconds. What does that mean in practice? It means that your employees need only 20 seconds to answer most of customers’ questions. This is an indicator of how well your contact center is performing. The longer the calls, the less of them you can process. Thus, your profits are decreasing. Besides, if a customer failed to get his question answered, he would call again. Repeat calls and unnecessary contacts take the call center down.
Adherence to schedule. Operators need time not only to talk to customers. This is also after call time, making necessary calls or registering an order. Of course, you cannot know how long the call will last, because sometimes it is necessary to repeat some things 10 times for a customer to understand. However, call center operators attempt to decrease this time and stick to a schedule.
Blockage. This is a very indicative metrics. Blockage in the number of customers are not able to contact call center operators because insufficient number of employees who can take calls. There are several solution here: increased number of operators and improved service (operators need less time to process calls, and thus they can quicker welcome new customers).
Abandon rate. This indicator is not totally under caller center’s control since it also depends on caller’s tolerance, availability of service alternatives, time of day etc.
First resolution rate. Call center operators call it “one and done” which means that that a potential customer needs just one call to have his problem handled or order processed. “One and done” calls are great indicators of call center’s perfect work.
Communication etiquette. You can check random conversations of your call center operators to make sure they are talking to customers with due courtesy. Are they polite? Do they use standard greetings?
Staff shrinkage. This is basically the time when your employees are not available. This time includes, breaks, times off, offline work etc. this is a very important figure that helps you calculate how many operators you will need in the next half an hour or an hour.
Cost per call. Business is about making money. People invest money to get profit. It is that simple. In the work of a call center all calls cost certain amount of money. This is wages to the operator, costs related to telecommunication services, facilities etc. In order to evaluate cost per call one needs to find ALL elements and factors influencing it. In such a way you will be able to see if financial recourses are used efficiently.
Conversion rate. If your call canter sells products or services, conversion rate represents number of calls and number of completed purchases. If only 20% of calls end in registering a new order, then you either sell poor quality products or your call center does something wrong and scares potential customers off. In lucky days, conversion rate may reach 80%.
Sure, there are more KPIs influencing performance of any call center. They depend on the ultimate goals. Some call centers provide support and guidance while others sell products and services or enlist new customers. But in all cases it is imperative that you evaluate every KPI to see what needs to be improved. Being aware of own strengths and weaknesses is very important for any successful business, including call center.
Balanced scorecard metrics make it possible to learn weak points of the huge business structure. Sometimes, even a minor detail can make the whole business fail. BSC is a helpful solution in this case. Besides, being aware of own weak points, managers and employees will work harder to become better. If you do not know what you are doing wrong, how can you correct your mistakes? Balanced Scorecard will provide with answers.
Even if you improve some of the KPIs your employees will have the motivation for self-improvement. Any of these factors will increase revenue of the company, and if employees are getting fair compensation they are sure to work better.
It may happen that managerial evaluation of strengths and weaknesses may be not entirely correct. Balanced Scorecard will provide you with graphs and figures (including historic ones) which will let you see how your company was evolving in time. For example, if you saw a direct dependence of revenue of cost per call or customer satisfaction, you know what you need to do to improve situation and increase profits.
To sum it up, it needs saying that efficiency of using Balanced Scorecard has been proved by thousands of business managers and companies. This tool is the best evaluation solution you can use to improve performance of your company. If your personnel is properly motivated and people are aware of weak points in their work, they see new horizons and development strategies.
