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.
Tags: call center, metrics, performance