Nowadays, there exist lots of new approaches to the process of measurement the overall call center performance. All of them are claimed to be highly effective, but that’s not the way it really is. The fact is that one and the same performance evaluation system may not fit all call centers simply because they have diverse goals and, what is more important, diverse problems. As a result, owners of these organizations often puzzle their brains trying to work out the best metrics, which will fit their companies in the best way. Let us look at this process with regard to the forward-thinking perspective.
Popular call center metrics
The detailed analysis of the most popular call center KPIs makes it possible to assume that there is an increased need to focus on efficacy measures today. These involve call duration, level of first-call resolution and conversion rate. Nonetheless, recent studies have shown that a more advanced perspective is emerging these days – the one that is able to balance customer needs, well-being of agents and specific organizational goals. That is why, there is a necessity to point out top call center metrics you just cannot go without when measuring its performance. These indicators can be applied to all the areas we have just mentioned.
Business evaluation
At present, the most significant (if not critical) key performance indicators for the improved agent performance involve quality scores that result from e-mail and call assessment and adherence to schedule, which shows that the planning integrity of the call center and the schedule is properly maintained. Another metrics to be focused on are employee productivity (the amount of calls processed during the time when an agent is available), customer feedback scores (relate to the employee’s performance and general advocacy of a customer) as well as lateness and sickness that are applied to track an unexplained absence of an agent during the working time. These metrics seem to be the most important when it comes to the evaluation of employee performance.
Now we may proceed to defining the most significant KPIs from the point of view of the organizational objectives. Actually, there are five of them, which require precise attention. These are call center churn (a metric, which reveals the organizational culture), forecast accuracy (the approximate percentage deviations between the actually received calls and their forecasted amount), cost per contact, achieved service levels (call answer time, abandon rate, e-mail turnaround time etc.) and failure demand reduction, the basic goal of which is continuous performance enhancement. Now that you are aware of the most effective call center metrics, it is up to you to decide which of them are more critical for your organization at the moment.