5 Useful Call Center Metrics to Look For

Measuring the overall productivity of the call centers is about monitoring various aspects of call center activities on a daily basis. These aspects in the scheme of call centers are known as call center metrics.

The total performance of a call center can be improved by keeping track of these call center metrics. Here, we are taking into consideration five such call center metrics that place themselves high up in the hierarchy.

By reading these metrics, you will have a clear understanding of the aspects that will help you drive your call center towards success.

1. First Call Resolution

Every customer call comes with a query, seeking some assistance or a question, seeking some answer. First call resolution is all about the preparation of the agents to be able to resolve the issue with the best possible solution without any delay. It is a scenario when the issue is resolved in the very first attempt made by the customer.

It is a metric that decides how well-prepared the agents are with the required information and tools to provide immediate solutions to the customers.

An effective first call resolution depends on various factors such as effective routing of customer calls to the right agent, involving expert opinion in the times when the agent is stuck. And also, by updating the agent with every ongoing customer issue.

Different call centers take various measures to ensure a good first call resolution. Because in some specific scenarios, agents may need different tools or information to tackle with the customer queries.

For example, an agent dealing with the customers interested in airlines services needs to have a different piece of information handy than an agent dealing with patients looking for some medical assistance.

Information is the key and using it effectively with the right tool makes the first call resolution highly likely.

2. Average Handling Time

It depicts the average time spent by the agents to resolve an issue. It directly relates to the overall productivity of the call centers, and it also defines the overall utilization of time and agents.

The average handling time can be reduced to an acceptable level by taking some strict measures and by keeping total focus on the customers.

There are various ways of improving average handling time like preparing a ‘quick how to’ guide in advance to help the agents with pre-defined answers. It is better to be an empathetic listener than just a person acting a professional agent.

Another important thing is to make a well -prepared team with flawless internal communication that can cumulatively approach a customer issue by giving it a meaningful response or by improving it with some expert opinion.

3. Conversion Rate

It shows the percentage of calls turning into some meaningful results.  An agent may have to speak multiple times with the business leads to a get a positive outcome from the conversations.

Conversion rate depicts the overall performance and efficiency of the call center. The customer-agent communication has to be refined to get better results in terms of conversion.

If every response of the agents is well thought out and helps the customer one way or another, then the possibility of a better conversion rate gets higher.

Converting a lead into a loyal customer is all about making them aware of the best possible solutions and how it fits their needs perfectly.

4. Abandoned Call Rate

In an inbound call center, abandoned calls are defined as the number of dropped calls when the caller hangs up without even contacting with the agent. Every call center should keep a check on abandoned call rate as high call-abandoned rate signifies a highly inefficient call center.

The biggest reason behind an abandoned call is the long call-waiting time. Most of the customers hang up the call if kept in the waiting queue for a long duration.

Abandoned calls can be reduced with the help of a well-designed IVR. IVRs keep the customers purposefully engaged, and at times they lead the customers to a solution without the need of speaking to an agent.

5. Customer Satisfaction Score

The efficacy of every customer-agent conversation depends on the satisfaction level of the customers. So, it is necessary to monitor how effectively agents are closing the call by delivering a satisfactory response to the customers.

The customer satisfaction level depicts the organization’s performance and profitability. Some companies use CSAT score, customer satisfaction score that defines the satisfaction level of the customers.

Customer satisfaction is an important parameter, and most of the companies try their level best to keep it stable or increase it from time to time by changing their strategies.

Every customer-agent conversation should end with a request from the agent to the customer for feedback or a rating for the response made by the agent. Usually, this rating is made in the scale of 1 to 10.

By analyzing every feedback and implementing the changes accordingly, the satisfaction level of the customers can be improved to a significantly higher level.

All in all, there can be several metrics that affect the overall customer experience and the ways of running a call center. In different call center scenarios, different metrics can play important roles depending on the intended end result.

For example, one type of business may be looking for sales acceleration so they will keep their focus on conversion rate. However, a business looking for customer retention would go for improving first call resolution or average handling time.

Every call center metric has an important role, and they carry the insights for achieving the full potential of a call center.