What is the Best Way to Analyze Call Center Performance?

Analyzing call center performance is best done through data and analytics. Several visualization techniques can be used to achieve this. By using this type of analysis, call centers can identify trends that point to issues inside their departments with less dependence on intuition or bias.

Another effective way to analyze call center performance is by conducting surveys and interviews. These are helpful ways for a business to gather information about the attitudes, behaviors, and productivity of its employees. The purpose of structured interviews is to ask questions about specific topics such as service demands and the quality of customer service provided by your agents regularly.

The effectiveness of customer service teams can be gauged by call center performance metrics. The primary objective of call center performance analysis is to improve governing, improve customer understanding, and enhance business processes through data-driven problem solving.

What is the best way to measure call center efficiency?

Call center managers closely monitor trends and patterns and search for information that can be used to enhance customer service. Call centers use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure different aspects of their performance.

To build a financial case for excellent customer service, executives need strategic measurements and KPIs to monitor. In order to manage customer service and workforce effectively, management teams need more detailed metrics.

Call center performance metrics include customer satisfaction, handle time, call volume, and costs. By using these metrics to measure performance, the call center staff can maximize their productivity and effectiveness, which ultimately reduces costs. And in order to evaluate agents, several variables, including client satisfaction, attitude, and expertise are considered.

Call Center Metrics

Source: Magellan Solutions

Evaluating performances is inevitable. Analyzing call center data enables the management to monitor employees’ efficiency and improve areas that require attention. There are various factors to consider in analyzing call center performance. We have listed the top call center performance metrics below.

#1) ABANDONMENT RATE

The number of callers that hang up before reaching an agent is referred to as the abandon rate. It’s important to keep in mind that a small portion of callers might dial the incorrect number and hang up as soon as they hear your company name.

There is a possibility that your abandonment rate is high because of some issues affecting your agents. Continuous training and quality monitoring can help prevent problems or issues that might arise.

Improve the tools for evaluating the productivity of your agents and tweak the method you use to manage call center performance.

#2) CUSTOMER CHURN RATE 

The customer churn rate calculates the percentage of customers who have discontinued using your service over a specified time.

#3) OCCUPANCY RATE

Occupancy rate refers to how much time the agents spend on active calls or wrapping up tasks linked to those calls.

Occupancy rate can also be used to gauge burnout. Overwhelmed with calls can result in reduced productivity.

#4) DIAL TRANSFER RATE

Dial transfer rate reveals how often an agent transfers interaction to another agent. Targeting this rate is a bit challenging since many dial transfers are determined by policy and procedures.

#5) AVERAGE HANDLE TIME

Average handle time (or average hold time) measures the average amount of time between when an agent picks up the phone and when the call is disconnected. This can help in reducing call wait times and determine which agents are efficient.

There are chances that agents put callers on hold because of the following:

• They do not know the answer to the queries
• They are not sure on how to respond to issues
• They have to look for the appropriate response to the callers

When the number is alarming or requires attention, you can resolve the issues by modifying processes, integrating training and monitoring, and improved management.

#6) UNAVAILABLE TIME

Call center agents cannot answer incoming calls due to some factors like being on break and attending to other work-related tasks which make them not available. Setting a schedule or time for agents to attend to these factors can be a good thing to do in order to prevent being labeled as inefficient.

#7) QUEUE TIME

Queue time is another call center metric worth noting in analyzing call center performance. This refers to the amount of time callers spend waiting in call queues.

When callers tend to wait longer, you can motivate your team to perform better by asking for feedback that can help them reflect on their challenges.

#8) BLOCKED INTERACTIONS

The blocked interactions metric shows how many contacts were stopped from getting through to any of your agents, thereby reducing the total number of client contacts. When inbound calls are asked to try again later, blocked interactions frequently happen during extremely busy periods.

Your agents are losing opportunities to assist clients if this metric is too high, which will likely cause them to get irritated. To maintain great customer experience, these instances should be avoided.

#9) AVERAGE SPEED OF ANSWER 

This call center performance metric shows the amount of time agents spend to answer a call that has been connected to the call center.

#10) FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION

It monitors the proportion of calls in which the agent successfully resolves the caller’s issues without the need for a transfer, escalation, or callback. Since this metric has to do with customer satisfaction, it is crucial to resolve a problem on the spot.

#11) AFTER-INTERACTION WORK

This call center performance metric estimates the amount of time an agent spends working on tasks related to a client encounter after the call has ended.

#12) CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

The important aspects of customer interactions, such as courtesy, efficiency, and decency, which are under the agent’s control, should be the emphasis of customer satisfaction rankings. Management teams may find possibilities to give additional agent training to address particular call types if they can analyze customer satisfaction levels at a more detailed level.

#13) SERVICE LEVELS

Based on the percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds, this indicator gauges agent productivity in real-time. The quality of your service reveals whether your company has the resources necessary to meet customer demands. This metric shows if clients are connected to agents right away and whether their issues are resolved promptly.

#14) MONITORING & CALL CONTROL

Supervisors or quality assurance teams monitor the agent’s phone conversations and evaluate them based on a variety of criteria, such as critical thinking, policy compliance, and customer interaction. This can identify areas of improvement regarding coaching and further training to become efficient.

#15) COST

You will be able to optimize your call center operations and make it even more profitable if you have a better knowledge of how much your customer support costs compared to your overall income.

It is important to pay close attention to your reports and trends. You will be able to look into the cause and take the necessary steps to fix problems that will arise without spending a lot of time and money.

The Bottom Line is…

One of the best ways to evaluate call center performance is to have a comprehensive list of the qualities of the clients who are the lifeblood of your company. You can discover areas that need development and offer suggestions for how to boost future performance by analyzing this data. In order to effectively assess call center performance, it is crucial to look at both short- and long-term measures.

Another part to analyze in call center performance is by looking at the metrics to determine what factors can be improved. Good customer service is one of the many elements that contribute to a company’s success. Setting and maintaining reasonable goals can help your employees understand what to expect from one another, which will help your clients.

If you want high quality services then we need to keep track of what the employees are doing and evaluate their performances regularly. A company should understand its strengths and weaknesses before trying new ideas because if these fail you may face financial repercussions if they do not take off.

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Our outsourcing experts are committed to providing you quality and reliable services for your business objectives. Magellan Solutions can help you achieve optimum results in a cost effective way.

As a leading provider of call center services for over a decade, we pride ourselves on offering only the highest quality outsourcing services. On top of that, we are an ISO-certified and HIPAA-compliant outsourcing company. We provide a great variety of quality outsourced business solutions.

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