Ways to provide accurate call center statistics in 2018

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How to provide accurate call center statistics
in 2018
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Introduction

• The success of a call center is dependent on a
  very real-world parameter over and above all else
  direct customer satisfaction.
• All other metrics that govern the operations at a
  call center are centered around the
  all-encompassing and all-important idea of
  raising the level of customer satisfaction.
• Whatever call center statistics are maintained,
  the central idea is always based on how to
  improve the quality of service so that customers
  might react more favorably to the companys
  actions.
• A contact center is an interface between a
  company and its customers.
• While it is essential for a company to set up its
  call centers with diligent staff and provide them
  with the tools necessary to start off with
  customer service proceedings, often that is not
  enough in the long run.

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• Call centers can employ various modern call
  center software to help their cause, and train
  their agents to perform to the best of their
  abilities, but to establish itself the company
  needs specific statistics to be evaluated
  regularly, and changes to be brought about based
  on the indications that these numbers provide.
• The keyword for the survival of any industry in
  the modern market is being dynamic.
• If you are unable to read into the data that is
  generated and take decisions based on it and be
  willing to change your model of operations to
  suit the current demands, you are doomed to
  failure.
• That is why it is extremely crucial for
  businesses to do two things right with respect to
  their customer service models first, to
  identify the correct metrics to focus on and
  second, to know the way operations must be
  modified to bring a wayward metric back on track
  as soon as possible.

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• Statistical improvements can have a major bearing
  on ultimate sales figures as well.
• For example, an SQM Group survey back in 2015
  found that for US call centers, a 1 improvement
  on the first call resolution rate meant an
  average annual operational savings of just over a
  quarter of a million dollars.
• Therefore, there is clearly a need to make
  data-driven decisions and implement the strategy
  that allows for these key performance indicators
  to reflect favorable numbers.
• Keeping the importance of these numbers in mind,
  and the sort of impact it has on the end goal of
  the company, here are the statistics that will
  govern the success of call centers in 2018, and
  how best to measure them accurately.

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Cost Statistics

• There are certain costs associated with the day
  to day workings of a call center.
• Cost statistics are those that concern themselves
  with the dry skeleton of finances recorded by the
  call center over a period of time.
• The working operations cost of the call center
  increases and decrease proportionate to elements
  like the volume of inbound calls, the number of
  agents, hours billed and work efficiency in
  general.
• There are industry standards, or benchmarks of
  comparison to determine whether the costs are
  lined up as expected or not.

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Productivity statistics

• Sometimes, a raw indicator like cost is
  insufficient to provide the full picture.
• To understand the nitty-gritty of operations we
  need to look at metrics that are more distributed
  in favor of utilization of resources, or
  dissipation of the costs incurred.
• This is where productivity metrics come into the
  picture. It is an indicator of how the call
  center is using its assets be it the agents
  employed by the company, the call center software
  solutions being deployed or the level of client
  satisfaction being recorded.

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• It tells you how much of the effort being put in
  to fulfill given objectives are actually
  contributing to the cause in a qualitative
  manner.
• Productivity stats falling below par indicate one
  of three things either agents are getting
  sloppy or not finding enough motivation to do
  their job, or that there is a new problem that
  has cropped up and they have been unable to find
  a solution so they are simply running circles
  around it instead, or that the technology that is
  being used is insufficient to bring about the
  results that are expected.

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Quality of service

• These service level statistics provide probably
  the most direct insight into how good or bad a
  job your agents are doing when interacting with
  your customers.
• For example, one of the most common and important
  metrics in this section is the average waiting
  time for each inbound call.
• This signifies the amount of time a customer has
  to wait between dialing in and actually getting
  to interact with a customer service executive.

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• Larger the waiting time, worse is the likely
  satisfaction level of the customer.
• A high waiting time indicates that the call
  center does not have enough personnel to man the
  phones during peak hours, or that agents are
  spending too much time to resolve an issue, such
  that other callers are queuing up frequently.
• Another important metric is forecasting accuracy,
  whereby you predict the peak points in the future
  and then compare your predicted results with the
  actual results to fine tune your analytics
  algorithms.
• There are various other metrics like first call
  resolution rate, turnover ratio, lead generation,
  etc. which are all critical to the performance of
  the call center and by extension, the parent
  company.

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Value addition

• Does your agent genuinely understand the issue
  that the customer is reporting? Is the agent
  aware of the best possible manner to solve that
  particular issue?
• Are the correct steps being employed in the
  procedure of problem solving?
• Is the customer being kept updated regularly
  enough for them to feel reassured about the
  service being meted out?
• All of these questions are answered in numbers
  that reflect the value that the company is adding
  in the customers business or personal life.

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• These metrics indicate how much of an effort is
  being made not just to resolve the problem that
  has been pointed out, but what sort of procedure
  is being followed for the same, and whether the
  clients wishes are being given priority over
  established norms whenever it can be done without
  affecting the performance.
• It also talks about how well agents are
  interacting with the customers, whether they are
  able to leave their customers satisfied with the
  experience and if not, which specific areas do
  they go wrong in and why does the customer feel
  unsatisfied with those procedures.
• It is a comprehensive effort to put into
  comparative numbers exactly how much of a service
  is being provided beyond the necessary minimums.

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Agent performance statistics

• Your employees are the lifeblood of your call
  center.
• Monitoring their performance is crucial because
  it is the single greatest factor that drives all
  aspects of customer satisfaction and eventually,
  sales.
• It is also important to gauge whether your
  employees feel comfortable at the workplace and
  are happy with their work.
• Different measurements like Agent Occupancy Rate,
  Absenteeism Rate, Agent Attrition Rate, Schedule
  Adherence Rate, etc. are viable indicators of the
  commitment and work abilities of different
  agents.
• Call centers should establish a scenario where
  managers and agents can freely talk about the
  performance metrics and make genuine suggestions
  about the areas in which improvements could be
  made, as it serves to the benefit of both the
  employee as well as the manager.

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• Changes in strategy, attitude, work ethic or
  procedures followed, always need to be backed up
  by data, so the agent is very clear about what he
  is expected to change and why, and the manager is
  also clear about how much of that change could
  reasonably be expected within a period of time.
• Thus, we can see how there is a direct
  correlation between the metrics that are
  monitored and the impact they have on driving
  sales and retaining customers.
• Obviously, there are many more streams on which
  the performance of a call center is judged, but
  there are the broad categories stressed upon, and
  have the most palpable impact of the performance
  of the overall functionalities.
• Come 2018, these metrics are going to assume
  paramount importance due to their influence over
  the end result.

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