Don't Let KPIs Be the Death of Your Call Center

There are few business units that enjoy the robust reporting tools that call centers possess. Where else in the company can you get a true real time view of the overall performance of a department, team, or representative? Call center technology providers have done an excellent job developing tools to increase transparency into the performance of call centers. Unfortunately many call centers have failed to leverage this transparency into their processes.

Most call center directors believe they have a strong grasp on their center’s performance. Do you think you do? Take a look at the following list of common metrics used to manage call centers and take a mental note of which serve as KPIs for your call center.

Common Call Center Metrics

1. Average Seconds to Answer
2. Average Handle Time
3. Average Work Time
4. Average Talk Time
5. Call Quality Scoring Average
6. Work Quality Scoring Average
7. Service Level Average
8. Daily Average Call Abandonment
9. First Call Resolution Rate
10. Average Customer Satisfaction Rate

These 10 call center metrics are very common KPIs for call centers. Every week thousands of call center professionals pull together reports displaying their call center department’s overall performance in relation to these call center metrics. Unfortunately none of the preceding call center metrics are real Key Performance Indicators. Sure they give an idea of performance, but none of them are truly representative metrics.

As an example, lets take a look at average seconds to answer (ASA). Let us assume your company wants to provide an excellent pre-call experience to your customer base and has decided that the customer should be helped within 30 seconds of hitting your call tree’s queue. In many call centers an ASA of 30 seconds would be an indication of success.

I have talked with dozens of senior level call center executives who touted their ASA results and quoted them as an indication of the superior service provided by their department. Personally I would suggest an ASA of 30 seconds is a decent preliminary indicator of success but I need to withhold my actual appraisal until I receive more information. Here’s why:

Lets say this company has a 14 second ASA and handles 10,000 calls per month. After taking a closer look at the numbers behind the ASA, which of the following companies is truly providing superior service?

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• Company A: ASA of 24.75 seconds, with total call volume of 10,000 calls per month.
• Company B: ASA of 30 seconds with total call volume of 10,000 calls per month.

• Company A: ASA of 25 seconds, with total call volume of 10,000 calls per month. Of the 10,000 calls, 7500 calls were handled in 1 second, 500 in 60 seconds, 1,000 in 90 seconds, and 1,000 in 120 seconds.
• Company B: ASA of 30 seconds, with total call volume of 10,000 calls per month. Of the 10,000 calls 1000 were handled in 15 seconds, 8,500 in 30 seconds, and 500 in 60 seconds.