We translated an article by NICE’s David Geffen, who shared six metrics that will help you better evaluate the performance of call center managers.
How to make sure that the call center provides quality services?
It’s nice to think that agents are at peak performance and each one is customer-focused and competent, but is there a way to measure this? And even better: to prove the level of quality of the work of operators? Consider where the information for statistics comes from. Statistical data is critical to the productivity of an incoming call center. Such a department processes thousands of requests every day, so it is important to highlight the main indicators that will help evaluate the effectiveness of its work. This article will help you narrow down the list of metrics and focus on the metrics that, with constant monitoring and improvement, will really help your call center grow. Below is a list of the most important call center metrics to track.
1. Customer Satisfaction
Satisfaction measures how your agents deal with customer issues. This KPI can be obtained from various sources. Typically, call centers obtain information about customer satisfaction by conducting customer satisfaction surveys. Regardless of the methods used to obtain this KPI, this metric should always be considered when analyzing contact center performance.
2. Solving the issue of the subscriber from the first contact
Solving a customer’s issue from the first contact is a KPI that is directly related to customer satisfaction, and it’s clear why. It shows the percentage of calls in which the agent completely resolved the subscriber’s problem without the need to redirect, escalate, or call back to resolve the issue. Solving the problem during the first contact is so important that many consider it the most informative KPI. Therefore, this metric should be at the top of any list of call center agent performance metrics.
3. Level of service in CC
Service Level is the percentage of calls that were answered by agents during a given period of time. For example, customer service managers often say they want to answer 80% of calls within 20 seconds. So they determine the level of service of the call center. The service level indicates whether your business has enough resources to meet customer expectations. The metric allows you to find out if customers quickly connect to team members and solve their problems in a timely manner. If your level of service isn’t good enough, it might be time to start using new customer service tools like a voice robot or expand your staff.
4. Average call handling time
Average call processing time shows how long it takes an agent to service one client. Agents are often evaluated based on how quickly they end a conversation and move on to the next call. This is because: A) it is important for the contact center to reduce call waiting time; B) high speed of call processing indicates the efficiency of the operator. But if you evaluate this metric separately from others, you may miss an important problem. Does the quality of the work of agents suffer, who are pushed to process calls faster? Most customers don’t want to spend 45 minutes talking to an operator to solve a problem or make a purchase, but they also don’t want to call back two or three times to get full support or advice. Therefore, as a general rule, the goal should not be to reduce call time. However, if you see an increase in call processing time, this may indicate a gap in the service process that needs to be addressed.
5. Percentage of lost hits
Lost calls is the number of calls that are terminated before connecting to an operator. When analyzing your lost call rate, keep in mind that there is a small percentage of people who call the wrong number and hang up when they hear your company name in an automated message (for example, “Thank you for calling ABC”). Usually, these calls are completed within the first 10 seconds, and in most call centers they make up 1 to 2% of the total number of calls. This number may increase if your number is similar to another call center that receives a high volume of calls. As a rule, the proportion of lost calls with the response speed of call center operators. The faster the call is answered by the customer, the lower the bounce rate will be. High bounce rates can lead to lower sales and dissatisfied customers. They can also artificially inflate future call volumes as customers who fail to get through the first time keep calling back until they get an answer.
6. Cost
This metric will help you understand how your customer support costs (as a percentage) compare to your total revenue. This will make it possible to optimize the work of your call center and make it more economical. The overall goal of the business is to realize high standards of customer service at minimal cost. Based on this, you need to choose the KPI of the contact center and consider them the only criterion for the effectiveness of the work of operators. It is best to measure the above call center metrics over time and keep an eye on trends. If any metric reaches an unusually high value, you will be able to find the cause and take the necessary measures to solve the problem without wasting a lot of time and money.
