Optimizing an evaluation of the call center performance may be daunting task. We have already forgotten the times when customer support centers consisted of several technical specialists who try to answer all calls and solve all the problems, whenever possible. The times have changed now as customers became very demanding and sometimes even picky. When picking up the phone and dialing number of a customer support center one hopes not only to hear a pleasant voice and a polite language. One hopes to have his problems solved and questions answered.
Call centers have become inseparable parts of all pay companies that sell goods or services. Since customer support service has very few financial indicators (they do not earn money) it is quite difficult to evaluate performance of such a call center. This is where Balanced Scorecard System comes into play. Balanced scorecard was specifically designed to include financial and nonfinancial indicators in evaluation process. Moreover, BSC helps in communicate in operational management with strategic goals. Company strategic goals may be quite clear. This is gaining profits. But what about a call center or a help desk? Let’s review cases of two types of call centers: sales call centers and customer support service.
Major call center KPIs
If a call center has one key goal of performance sales then generate in revenue and gaining a larger market share would be the key strategic goals of such a call center. However, in order to achieve financial success one should pay attention to operational management and performance of a call center. Customer satisfaction, sales attempts, cost per sale, revenue per sale and a number of other indicators would represent performance of a sales call center. At that, financial indicators seem to be the most important here. But this is not entirely true. Customer satisfaction with the conversation would play a great role on decision-making by a customer.
Customer support service has one ultimate goal to resolve problems and answer questions as well as keep customers informed on general and technical issues related to products and services. It would be fair to say that customer satisfaction is the key indicator here. Also, one should pay attention to the number of one and done calls (also called first resolutions calls), abandoned calls rate, time on hold, average waiting time etc. And efficient and professional operator needs to make sure that all concerns and questions of customers to answer so that the customer has no need to make the repeated call.
What makes an effective call center?
Tags: call center evaluation, call center KPI, helpdesk metrics