Call Center Metrics

What is the key goal of every call center? This is an easy question! A call canter is created to serve customers, i.e. answer their calls, solve problems etc. There are also sales call center that performs sales via phones. However, operators of these call center should also be able to answer customers’ questions regarding company products or services. Level of call center service is all important. Of course, top managers of a call center should also pay attention to financial issues, like cost per call, training cost per employee and so on. At the same time, all this would not matter is the majority of call center operators are unable to promptly answer customers’ calls.

What makes an ideal call

Service level is measured in quite a simple way. This is ratio of all calls vs calls answered in x seconds. X value is individually set by company top management. Some companies think that one minute is OK while others consider it necessary to reduce this time to 30 or even 20 seconds. Call center operators should be aware of this time and do everything possible to answer customers’ questions ASAP.

Of course, this is only possible if call center managers and operators are trained well enough and possess adequate knowledge and skills. Thus, service level is directly related to training efficiency. For this reason, it would be quite helpful to use Balanced Scorecard to evaluate efficiency of call center in various areas. The 4 perspectives of BSC (financial, customer, internal processes, learning and growth) will cover the most important KPIs.

Service quality should be measured for particular types of calls. For example, if a customer has a general question that can be easily answered, call center operators should try to answer such a question in 20-25 seconds. At the same time, if a customer has a serious problem with a product (for example, purchased software or electronic device) more time is required to solve the problem in full.

As already said above, every company set own standards, depending on budget, business goals and current performance. If the current value is 1 minute it is impossible to manage to handle customers’ calls in 20 seconds at once. Gradual improvement is the key.

Service level is an excellent KPI that measures efficiency of the entire call center, from front line managers and operators, to call center coaches and top management.