Top 10 Call Center Metrics For Your Contact Center

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It becomes increasingly difficult to track and manage something for improvement, if you cannot measure it. This is especially true and prominent in case of contact centers; without call center metrics there would be no way to keep record of productivity, overall work improvement and if other KPI’s are met or not.

Effective performance measurement is not just a necessity, but imperative for full-proof-decision making. Despite these known facts and statistics, it has been often observed that not many call centers are using call center metrics up to its full potential. There can be many more ways and scenarios, where this can help us in unlocking enhanced and improved employee potential. The actual results can be fairly evaluated if call center metrics are not only used to measure performance, but also – to keep a track of performance, average employee’s productivity, identifying strengths and weakness, actions to improve performance, goal establishment for both individuals and the organisation.

So, if you are aspiring to deliver high-class customer service, here’s a list of some of the ‘must know about call center metrics’.

1. Cost per inbound contact

This is perhaps the most important one. This tells you how your inbound call center is actually operating. A higher cost per inbound contact is great, if accompanied by higher than average quality levels. It is strongly in tune with all your key metrics like – agent utilization, first call resolution, IVR completion rate, inbound contact handle time and average speed of answer. All contact centers should monitor this metric on a monthly basis to get better performance engagement.

2. Agent utilization

If you consider the mathematical definition of this metric, it can be defined as the average number of hours an agent spends handling inbound or outbound calls, divided by the number of hours spent in office. It is the single most parameter to define and understand your agent productivity.

3. First call resolution

First call resolution is the metric which relates to ‘happy customers’. If you can handle their questions and queries in first attempt and you are successful in providing them resolutions in one go, your FCR would be high. The higher the value of FCR, more efficient your reps are in handling calls and contributing to your customer base.

4. Average speed of answer

Average speed of answer is the total time during which your customers are in queue, divided by the number of calls handled. This metric includes both calls handled by live agents and the once solely addressed by IVR, as a self-help option.

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5. Call abandonment rate

This is the percentage of calls that were connected to the ACD, but the caller disconnected before reaching a live agent or before completing the intended process with an IVR. This indicates that the caller has either given up for some reason or has lost interest (which can be due to long wait time or poor quality of service), any which ways this metric needs to be as low as possible, to engage more customers and have a recurring base.

6. Customer satisfaction

This is perhaps the most cliché metric, which always makes to all the lists – centered towards service industry. This can be defined as a parameter to know whether the customer was satisfied or very satisfied after availing a specific service from your contact center. This can be gathered in a number of ways, including after call surveys, follow-up calls, feedback surveys etc. Some contact centers use IVR tools as well to gauge satisfaction.

7. Call quality analysis

There is no strict methodology in the call center industry to determine exactly this metric. Mostly, all centers have established their own call quality assurance – grading and feedback systems. Usually measured on a scale of 1 – 10 and closely related to customer satisfaction, this parameter improves your overall work efficacy.

8. Annual agent turnover

This is the exact percentage of agents who leave your contact center annually. This parameter also needs to be kept under rigid scrutiny, as the time and monetary investments associated in training an agent can be really taxing for your organisations. Keeping policies flexible, yet highly effective can be one way of minimizing loss or retaining talent.

9. Agent occupancy

It is again a direct teller of agent productivity, and how efficient he is at work. It is the percentage of time an agent is on his seat, answering calls, divided by the total number of hours at work. High occupancy rates can lower average holding times and time spent in queue by the customer, to boost your overall productivity.

10. Agent job satisfaction

If your agents aren’t satisfied with their jobs, there is a huge chance that it would sincerely reflect in their work ethics. Just like you measure customer satisfaction, agent job satisfaction also needs to be regularly monitored and kept under check. To put in plain words, if you make your employees happy, they give you happy customers!

We hope this was helpful. If you have more points to add, let us know in the comments section.

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