Why use business metrics for call centers? They seem to work without any proper strategy. Well, the word “seem” explains everything. In fact, call center without strategy is unlikely to make progress. Tough competition in the markets makes producers look for different ways to attract customers. An efficient call center is one of the elements of a successful and customer focused company.
Perspectives in call center BSC
Balanced scorecard has become one of the most popular business metrics tools used in different industries, including call centers and customer support services. Indeed, when a company adopts a strategy all business units should bring their goals and measures to conformity with the company strategy. A call center is a business unit that directly contacts customers, and that’s why one have to be very careful when implementing changes there. This article will focus on how the four balanced scorecard perspectives can benefit a call center.
Financial perspective. Any company spends a certain amount of money to maintain call center. This includes expenses related to maintain ends of telecom equipment, electricity, the Internet, as well as wages for call center operators and senior managers. Balanced scorecard helps optimize such indicators as cost per call, telecom costs per call, revenue per one successful call etc. There are more financial indicators which BSC team can choose to evaluate.
Ties between call center BSC perspectives
Customer perspective. Are all customers satisfied with quality of support service? What is the number of first resolution calls? What is abandoned calls rate? BSC will give answers to these questions and help find weaknesses in the work of a call center.
Learning and growth. Every call center should constantly develop and improve quality of service. BSC will measure such KPIs as learning hours per employee or number of coaching techniques used by senior managers. This will help improve service quality and find out what call center operators have problems with.
Internal business processes. This is perhaps one of the most BSC perspectives, especially in case of a call center. BSC evaluates such indicators as averages time to handle a call, number of problems solved, time to answer call etc. In other words, this perspective can give answers on how to make call center service better.
Of course, BSC is in no way guarantee for successful operation of a call center. Many managers treat BSC as a magic tool that solves all problems. This is not so. However, when properly used, Balanced Scorecard can optimize performance of a business unit or entire company.