Critical Call Center Metrics and What They Say About Your Business

Information technology is vastly becoming a powerful tool yet a burden on the company as well, and call center reporting requests are no exclusions. As essential as reporting already is, it also proves to be a chief element in tracking the right information. The important call center metrics can differ from company to company, but three essential metrics remains constant for every telephone customer service operation.

First Call resolution

Service Quality Measurement (SQM) is a study group which states that out of all the call center metrics, the strongest relationship with customer service comes from the First Call Resolution (FCR). For instance, in a study by Service Quality Measurement, elaborates that 3% of customers who have their complaints resolved on the first call ended up deserting the competitor, as matched to the 38% of the customers who required two or more calls to reach to a resolution. Increasing First Call resolution lowers the incoming calls volume and operating costs. It also increases employee satisfaction as a customer who is enforced to call back is expected to be aggressive.

Whereas, a low first call resolution, indicates an inconsistent customer service system. Call center agents may not be well trained or have the required authority to resolve the customer complaints.

Forecasting Accuracy

Preferably, call centers are equipped with the human resource to the amount of calls received per day, but realistically, this could be very challenging to achieve. As the call volume fluctuates every day of the month, and every month of the year. When understaffed, the workload increases for the employees and so does the call queue time for the customers. While it increases the operating costs, if the company is over staffed with less calls to deal with.

Keeping the previous call center metrics in mind allows managers to examine the calls volume and employ the staff consequently and cater to the incoming fluctuating amount of calls at all times.

Response Time

If the customer is made to queue for longer amount of time it is very likely that the customer will leave unsatisfied. As long waiting time makes the customer feel less important and increases the probability of switching to the competitor. Long waiting time can also prove to be ruthless for the call center employees as they will have to deal with angry and irrational customers. If a call center metrics is showing increased response time, it could be due to the fact that the company might be understaffed, or the employees are undertrained, or both.

Customer Satisfaction

As important as the first three metrics are the fourth call center metrics is most important of all. Just because the company is doing well in all of the above mentioned metrics, mean the company is doing the right job. Focusing on the number for measuring success is never a wise thing to do. As the focus should always be on the customer satisfaction. If your customer is happy and satisfied it will automatically bring your profit and success graph up.

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