Call Center Metrics

Many top managers face with a common problem when implementing BSC in their companies and departments, including call centers and helpdesks. Balanced Scorecard looks OK when it is just a theory. However, when it comes to practice the real problems begin. One of the most common questions is “How can I crease an effective call center scorecard.” Without any doubts, there is no universal answer. Every call center might have different goals and role in the company. At the same time, in this article we will try to outline the basic procedure of creating an effective call center scorecard as well as offer tips for aspiring managers.

Benefits of training evaluation

First off, one needs to clearly understand goals and role of a call center in a company. Some call centers only solve customers’ problems and answer questions while others sell products and process orders. Strategic goals of a call center are all important when it concerns development of an effective scorecard. Why? The answer is quite simple. Choice of key performance indicators directly depends on strategic goals.

Links between call center KPIs

Perhaps, the most complicated stage of a call center BSC development is choice of key performance indicators and introductions of Balanced Scorecard to this business unit. Even nicely dev eloped call center KPIs may fail unless the majority or at least some of employees clearly understand what those indicators mean. It is useless to work with BSC if when measuring abandoned calls rate or time on hold call center operators do not understand meaning of such metrics.

When making a choice of KPI or creating your own metrics you should remember that all KPIs need to be measurable. Of course, there are call center metrics packs that are available for download online. However, they cannot be used in every company. Thus, you have to adapt downloaded KPI to your call center with its unique problems and concerns.

Depending on the goals of your call center, you should choose relevant KPI. For example, if a call center serves customers and solves problems (no direct sales) it is important to measure all KPIs related to customer satisfaction, quality of provided service etc. These can be such KPI as customer satisfaction with service, time on hold, average call duration, number of successful calls (solved problems), first resolution calls rate etc. There are also KPIs targeted at call center employees, their education, self improvement and training.

Call centers are specific business units in the companies. At the same time, some companies prefer to outsource and use services of external call centers. Both options are equally good as long as call center operators are competent enough to answer customers’ questions. For example, a call center specializing in ISP or Web Hosting will not be helpful for producer of laptops. Sure, before launch of a new call center project, operators undergo special training. However, the best way to optimize call center performance is to use Balanced Scorecard system. This article will explain why.

Some of major call center kpis

First and foremost, in order to implement Balanced Scorecard it is necessary to adopt a strategy. What strategy can be adopted for a call center? It depends on what kind call center it is. There are two basic types: sales call centers (those that receive orders by phone or call customer to offer new products) and support services used for post sale support. In the first case increase of accepted orders should make a nice goal, while a customer support service should concentrate on customer satisfaction. For example, such indicator as first resolution calls rate (one and done calls) vividly demonstrate whether or not customer support service is doing a great job. Thus, the decision to implement BSC in a call center is a nice opportunity to think about strategy, review or adopt it, if necessary.

Implementation of Balanced scorecard will harmonize work of a call center, as an internal or external business unit. Strategies and goals adopted for a call center must comply with the company strategy otherwise there is no point in functioning of a call center. For example, if a call center management makes a decision to improve cost per call, this should be related to company strategy. In other words, one should clearly see how this decision contributes to implementation of strategic goals. In order to see such cause and effect ties a comprehensive strategy map must be designed. Ideally, it should answer the question: “How do we implement strategic goals that we have set?”

The 4 perspectives of Balanced Scorecard

BSC use is associated with numerous benefits, but at the same time there are common mistakes and pitfalls. One of the most common mistakes is use of BSC only by several people in a call center. In such a way, BSC becomes a top secret document that is of no use to ordinary operators who actually do the job.

Very often we judge the company or service provider exclusively by quality of their call center. Indeed, we expect to listen to any answers to our questions and we want our problems to be solved by call center operators. That’s why every time we have a question or problem related to the purchase product and service we are looking for a toll free phone number and make a call. Naturally, we want to hear a pleasant voice and talk to a qualified specialist. Unfortunately, some call centers has nothing to offer but a pleasant voice and politeness.

Three key tasks of any call center

A call center is a company’s face. We never know who rules the company that has produced your laptop, cell phone or a TV. Moreover, we don’t care much. We are interested in quality products, and we greatly appreciate post sale service. Complete answers to our questions are part of post sale servers. That’s why every successful company should optimize work of a call center. This is the best way to attract new customers and retain those who have already made purchases with the company.

Balanced scorecard is used in different business areas, and call center is perhaps one of the best places for BSC to be used. Call center operators directly contact customers and that’s why their efficiency and professionalism directly influences such an indicator as customer satisfaction. It is not a secret that customer satisfaction is related to growth in revenue and increase of company capital.

Call centers increase number of regular customers

Before using balanced scorecard in a call center, it is really important to create a special working group that will start implementation process. Call center chief manager as well as company top management must understand that it is impossible to implement balanced scorecard without changes in organization and involvement of company personnel. Of in order to develop an effective set of key performance indicators it is necessary to listen to opinions of call center operators. Of the talk to customers every day, and they know what customers actually need and what problems call center has to solve.

Of course, ordinary call center operators do not have knowledge of strategic management. Leave that to top managers and strategic planners. But an ordinary call center operator can make suggestions as to the right choice of KPIs, these indicators directly influence their work, or in other words, their work is measured with these indicators.

Have you ever asked yourself what makes a good customer support service? Is it just a pleasant voice of an operator? Or is it instant solution of your problems and prompt answer to your question? Well, perhaps both. When we call customer support services we expect to listen to polite speech, but what is more important we want to receive answers and fix problems.

What is a good customer support service from managerial point of view? Of course, this is an efficient call center requiring moderate investments and providing customer with high class services. If you are running a sales business, you might also want your call center generate sales, i.e. sell products/service via phone.

Imagine that you are a call center manager. You have certain amount of money to maintain call center and average number of caller every day. You job is to make sure you are using funds efficiently. However, you need to keep balance, and keep both employees/operators and customers satisfied.

Measure customer service performance to find weak points

Use Balanced Scorecard system to evaluate customer service performance

This is where Balanced Scorecard system can help. This is special software that measures key performance indicators (KPI). What are KPIs? These are values that measure certain aspects of business performance. For example, in case of a customer support service the central KPI would be cost per call. You spend a certain amount of money to answer one call (wages to personnel, telecom expenses etc). Logically, the less you spend the more efficiently your call center works. However, be moderate and do not save too much on compensation to operators and telecom solutions.

Customer satisfaction would be the second most important KPI. There is nothing worse than an angry caller. If this person is a current customer of your company you are risking to lose him/her. Ask your personnel to be polite and observe communication etiquette. Besides, call center operators must be 100% competent in the issue related to products or services you sell.

There are also such KPI measured by Balanced Scorecard system as time on hold, one and done calls rate, abandoned calls rate, blockage and a number of others. They all represent certain aspects of a call center performance.

With Balanced Scorecard system you will be able to improve performance and separate KPIs. For instance, you may have lost cost per call, but high rate of abandoned calls and low rate of first resolution calls.

Call center metrics will help you optimize work of a customer support service.

What do you usually do when you have problems with a product or a service you have recently purchased? Sure, you want to talk to representatives of a producer/provider of a service. You cannot meet managers or company CEO in person, so, you need to call a customer support center. As a rule, big companies maintain own call centers to answer customer’s calls and provide them with support and guidance.

Much depends on how you talk to a call center representative. If you made a call but your problem was not resolved you will have a bad feeling about such a company. It may happen that you leave this company and go to competitors. If you are a potential customer you will forget about it just after you hang up.

So, as you can see a call center is an important element in the business structure. Many companies use call centers to accept orders and sell products/services. But most often call centers provide customers with support.

Use Balanced Scorecard system to evaluate call center performance

Evaluate call center performance to find strengths and weaknesses

It is imperative that you regularly evaluate call center performance. Why do you need it? Well, your call center may seem to work normally, while in reality you suffer losses or losing customers because of imperfection in the work of a customer support service. There are many factors and aspects that influence work of a call center. It is very difficult to evaluate them without proper software solutions.

Balanced Scorecard is an effective tool to evaluate call center performance. This software measures certain indicators, commonly known as key performance indicators (KPIs). Call center metrics has own set of KPI which influence call center performance directly or indirectly.

Balanced Scorecard will make it possible to a manager discover weak points in the work of a call center. Thus, you will be able to find problems at different stages: answering calls, finding solutions, making an effective use of IT technologies, saving costs etc.

What are the most important KPIs to be evaluated? Without any doubts, this is cost per call. You need to spend some money to answer one call (wages, expenses for equipment, rent, power expenses). If your calls are too expensive you will suffer losses and run your company into bankruptcy. Think of efficient telecom solutions, and organize your work in an efficient way.

When talking to customers, your call center operators need to answer all questions and solve any problems that customers might have with the product/service. Customer satisfaction is something a call center manager needs to take care of.

If you visit web site of any company selling products or services, you will most certainly find Support menu there with contact details of the company call center. All reputable companies have own call centers to handle calls from existing and potential customers. The importance of a call center can be hardly overestimated. Imagine that you want to purchase a hosting plan from a web hosting provider and you are calling their tech support or a call center. What decision would you make if you do not like conversation with a call center operator? Perhaps, you will look for other companies. What if you have already purchased a hosting plan for 1 month and during this month you had a negative experience in talking with call center operators? Most certainly you will search for another web hosting provider.

Having a call center does not automatically mean that it will work efficiently. A call center should be managed in a smart way. That is why it is important to evaluate call center or helpdesk performance in order to be aware of problems, weak points as well as strengths. It is impossible to make any plans as to further development of a call center without being aware of current problems.

For performance evaluation purposes use of Balanced Scorecard system is highly recommended for top managers. Sometimes, knowing net profits or total expenses for a call a center is not enough to evaluate its performance. In order to get a full picture it is necessary to measure a series of key performance indicators. These values represent different aspects of a helpdesk performance.

Measure helpdesk performance with Balanced Scorecard system

Use BSC system to measure helpdesk performance

It may happen that you spend too much to maintain helpdesk or you make inefficient investment in the customer support service. Balanced Scorecard system makes it possible to evaluate KPIs (key performance indicators) and compare results to previous indexes. Thus, you will be able to see a trend (positive or negative).

Call center metrics differs from KPIs for other business activities. As the main goal of a helpdesk is providing customers with support and guidance, customer satisfaction is a NUMBER ONE KPI. A customer should like conversation with a call center operator. All his questions must be answered and all problems resolved, if possible.

With a Balanced Scorecard system you will be able to reduce cost per call or increase revenue per successful call, as well as improve time on hold, one and done calls rates, abandoned calls rate etc.

At a first glance a call center has a very simple structure. Customers are calling and call center operators are answering calls. So simple! But in reality a call center is a complex organization with a number of factors that influence performance of the entire company. “What depends on call center performance?” you might ask. Well, the answer is quite clear. With an inefficient call center you will probably earn less money or even suffer losses.

Have you ever called a call center? Perhaps you have. Have you ever had a negative experience in dealing with call center operators? If you haven’t then you are lucky. There can be nothing worse than hearing “We understand your problems and let’s try to find solutions” while no solutions are available. After 5 minutes of a futile conversation, angry caller eventually hangs up with the decision never to deal with this company every again. Loss of existing or potential customers is loss of money.

So, in order to make sure your call center works in an effective and efficient way you need to regularly evaluate its performance. Balanced Scorecard is the best tool to perform business evaluation. This is specifically designed software that measures certain key performance indicators, i.e. values that fully represent company’s performance. Key performance indicators are different in different business types. It is also very important to pick the right indicators having true representative value.

Use call center scorecard to measure business performance

Call center scorecard is the best tool to eveluate call center performance

Call center managers need to pay attention to several KPIs (key performance indicators), depending on goals and tasks of call center operators. Let’s review performance evaluation of a sales call center and a customer support service.

Sales call center. There are two major goals – selling products/services and keeping customer satisfied. Call center operators should focus on revenue per successful call and customer satisfaction. The more money a call center earns the better business performance it has. Of course, such KPIs as time on hold and abandoned calls rate, are very important as well.

If we are talking about customer support services, operators of such a call center need to provide callers with support and assistance. In other words, they answer questions and look for solutions to existing problems. Tech support operators pay a special attention to one and done calls rate, blockage, time on hold, communication etiquette (especially with angry callers) and customer satisfaction.

Use of Balanced Scorecard system is recommended to call center managers and strategic planners who want to expand and further develop call centers.

What is the most important aspect in evaluation of business performance? First of all, evaluation process must be timely. In other words, business should be regularly evaluated in order to take counter measures to fight against problems and imperfections. Secondly, one should evaluate the most important indicators. If you are paying attention to the profits only, you may be ignorant on many other factors that directly or indirectly influence well-being of the business.

As known, a call center is an inseparable part of any big company that takes care of relationships with its customers. A company that values its customers and is willing to find new ones, always takes care of customer support and call center services.

As a part of a big business (usually customer support services do not earn money but consult callers on tech problems), a call center needs to be regularly evaluated. Evaluation process should not necessarily take much time and effort. In the age of IT technologies millions of managers from all over the world are using special automated performance evaluation system. Balanced Scorecard is one of the most popular of such systems. This software needs certain figures and values to measure performance of a company.

Major call center kpi

Evalution of call center KPIs is evaluation of call center business performance

In our case (a call center) Balanced Scorecard evaluates KPIs relevant to call center and customer support service. KPIs are key performance indicators, i.e. values that represent performance of a call center. In other words, these are figures that show how well a call center works.

It needs saying that there are primary and secondary call center kpi. Of course, everything depends on goals and tasks of a particular call center. For instance, if sales are the main goal, then revenue per successful call and conversion rate will be most the important KPIs which need to be measured as often as possible.

If we are talking about tech support or customer support service, then customer satisfaction is the main thing such a call center should focus on. Operators need to take care of such KPIs as cost per call, one and done calls rate (also called first resolution calls), average time on hold, abandoned calls rate etc.

In the first case a call center should do everything possible to keep expenses low and sales rate high. In the second case tech support need to do everything possible to keep customer satisfied, i.e. answer all questions and resolve all controversial issues.

What do you usually do if you are having problems with the product or service you have just purchased? Sure, you call tech support or a company call center. It does not matter which products you have bought or what service features aren’t working. You still pick up the phone and dial a number to hear pleasant voice saying: “Tech support welcomes you.” Of course, you do not only want to hear a pleasant voice, but also have your problem solved or question answered.

Many customers form their judgment about the company based on their experience of talking to call center operators. You may have bought the best products or services ever, but if customer support service is unable to answer your questions about the products you may get discouraged with the company or even get angry.

Call center or service desk efficiency is a must for all companies providing such services. Tech support does not earn money, so in a way this is unprofitable department of the company, and that is why many managers do not pay due attention to call center performance. But as said above, inefficient call center may take the company down and lower sales rates. It will be increasingly difficult to find new customers while existing customers may go to your competitors.

Measure service desk efficiency with Balanced Scorecard system

Use effective software to measure service desk efficiency

From time to time service desk efficiency must be evaluated. Balanced Scorecard is an ideal tool to perform evaluation of business performance. This system can be used by managers at all levels, since it is very easy to use and provides very accurate evaluation results.

Balanced Scorecard will help you concentrate on major factor5s influencing performance of a call center. For example, increase time on hold (period of time customers have to wait to talk to an operator competent in the certain area) may have more serious and dreadful consequences for a call center than increased cost per call.

So, Balanced Scorecard system evaluates a number of KPIs (key performance indicators) which altogether represent overall performance of a call center. These indicators are not numerous, however extremely important for anyone who wants to optimize call center work.

Balanced Scorecard will provide you with evaluation results of such indicators as cost per call, time on hold, revenue per one call, one and done calls, conversion rate and others. With figures and graphs you will be able to analyze business performance and find solution to existing problems.

Have you ever wondered what makes an efficient call center or customer support service? Is it only pleasant voice of an operators and politeness? Well, these are very important factors for customers. But the most important is the ability of a call center operator to solve customer’s problems and answer his/her questions. A customer will be only then satisfied when all his problems are resolved and questions answered.

From a managerial point of view a perfect call center is a call center that need not much money to be maintained or a call center that can generate sufficient profits (for example by selling products and services).

Support efficiency plays an important role in the work of any company or a service producer. If customers have no one to address with their problems or concerns such a customer will leave the company and find another business which will offer support and guidance.

Customer support efficiency

What makes customer support efficiency?

Taking into account the abovementioned facts, an effective manager should evaluate support efficiency from time to time. This sounds easy, but in practice this process can become very complex. If you call center earns enough money it does not mean that it works perfectly. You are to take into account numerous factors and indicators representing REAL performance of a customer support service.

What is the best way to evaluate performance of a call center? This is certainly Balanced Scorecard system. With this powerful tool any manager will be able to see how well his business is performing. Balanced Scorecard evaluates key performance indicators which are different in different business types. By evaluating, for instance, 5 KPI (key performance indicators) it is possible to have a full picture and be well informed on current and potential problems.

What are major KPIs in the work of a call center and support service? Sure, everything depends on the goals. If a call center aims at selling products and services then revenue per successful call will be a NUMBER ONE indicator.

In case of a customer support service, operators need to concentrate on customer satisfaction, abandoned calls rate, time on hold, blockage, cost per call and a number of other KPIs. Balanced Scorecard will provide users with evaluation results in forms of graphs, figures and percents. If you regularly use this system it is possible to track change dynamics and analyze trends, which in its turn can help develop strategic plans.