In an information-rich world where there is data overflow, call centers can no longer tie themselves up to, “measure everything that moves,” attitude. They need to ditch this delirious mentality and adopt a more fruitful mindset of, “Measuring what matters the most.” In other words, call center businesses must give up the traditional norm of tracking every single call center metrics, most of which are fruitless, and go for a few selected metrics which can have a definitive impact on customer experience.
Let’s take a look at some of the most important call center matrices that you need to keep a tab in current times in detail-
1. First Call Resolution
No other single metrics has a bigger impact on how customers perceive your business than first call resolution. In fact as per a recent survey, a 1% improvement in first call resolution will translate into equal percentage rise in customer satisfaction. What’s more higher first call resolution will also translate into higher employee satisfaction, lower operating costs and reduced risk with regards to revenues. Hence make sure that you track this critical KPI and take steps to keep it hovering around 80%, which is regarded as “world class.”
2. Service Level and Response Time
Service level and response time are the two most fundamental KPIs that you need to track for effective management of your contact center as well as keep your business on the right side of customer experience. When you keep an eye on these two metrics, you can get a sense of how accessible you are to the customers. You can also get a rough idea of the number of agents required for smooth operations of your business and how you stack up against your competitors in your industry.
3. Adherence to Schedule
The easiest way to get a clear picture of where your agents are and what they were doing is by keeping a track of this critical metrics. This way you can effortlessly assess time that the agents actually spend logged into their stations, handling customer contacts, or being available to answer customer contacts.
Make sure that you set an adherence to schedule numbers between 85% and 90%. A strong emphasis on this will decrease average handle time and calls per hour will see a rapid rise.
4. Forecasting Accuracy
Forecasting accuracy is the percentage deviation between the projected sum of inbound customer contacts during an aforementioned time interval and the actual number of contacts that happened during the same period. And it is crucial for the call centers to keep this variance to the minimum. This is because underestimating this metrics will lead to understaffing. This, in turn, leads to long waiting periods, which can frustrate customers. What’s more, it can also increase operating costs and burn-out resources, which is not good for your business in the long run. On the other hand, overestimating this critical metrics will result in overstaffing and increased idle time, which will have a negative impact on the bottom-line.
5. Self-service Accessibility
In the age of automation, most call centers are busy luring customers off from the phone to self-service systems. But they are not giving enough importance to assessing how well these automated systems are treating customers. As a result of this, the flaws in their automated systems are negating the time and effort these businesses have invested in popularizing self-service option.
Don’t make this mistake. Be proactive and keep an eye on the number of customers who opted for self-service option via IVR and the web, along with the number of people who completed these transactions without any assistance. Also invest in tools that will help you record these interactions and pinpoint major glitches that are hindering customer experience.
6. Customer Satisfaction
Every contact center understands the importance of meeting customer satisfaction. But not many go about measuring customer satisfaction in a precise and consistent manner, or create an effective process to analyze and act on the findings. As a result, they fall way behind in the customer satisfaction index.
Don’t be one amongst them. Make sure you have in place an effective method to assess customer satisfaction levels and make key improvements before customers dissatisfaction sets in.