Call Center Metrics
Supercharge your call center’s performance by analyzing these crucial metrics
Call Center Metrics
Supercharge your call center’s performance by analyzing these crucial metrics
Call Center Metrics
Supercharge your call center’s performance by analyzing these crucial metrics
Call Center Metrics
Supercharge your call center’s performance by analyzing these crucial metrics
The best way to stay on top of your call center performance is by using call center KPIs to measure and analyze how well your operations are doing.By generating targeted, data-led insights into the inner workings of your call center, you’ll be able to improve service levels and overall employee and customer satisfaction.
So, what exactly are metrics and KPIs, and which ones should we focus on? We’re going to explore that now. Specifically, we’ll look at:
Call center metrics are data primarily used to assess the effectiveness of your customer service teams and improve overall levels of customer satisfaction.
For example, a call center manager might look at call center metrics to measure agent performance, productivity, or the distribution of calls between agents. They’ll be able to make the necessary changes to ensure that operations run as efficiently as possible and that business goals are being met.
These insights drive service level improvements and operational growth in inbound and outbound call centers.
In short, call center metrics can help you identify areas for improvement, measure success, and create quantifiable goals that everyone can strive toward.
We often talk about metrics in line with another term, key performance indicators (KPIs). Often, these terms are used interchangeably, but they aren’t identical. Here’s the distinction:
| Metrics | KPIs |
| Metrics are general measurements. They track and measure standard business processes. They don’t necessarily inform targets. | KPIs are critical measurements. They home in on precise targets and objectives. KPIs are outcome-oriented and target-based. They can be graded against a target value. |
It’s important to mention, though, that KPIs and metrics aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, the best results come when they’re combined.
Metrics in a call center can be divided into three categories. These are:
Though all call centers can benefit from monitoring agent performance, you’ll need to pick your remaining metrics depending on the type of operation you’re running.
Agent performance metrics apply to both inbound and outbound call centers. They measure how your teams are performing. These metrics are great for gauging agent efficiency, customer satisfaction, and service level. Assessing these areas, particularly during peak hours, can help you determine potential issues in your operations.
Agent performance metrics include:
Outbound call center metrics are most relevant to sales teams or those conducting any kind of outbound calling strategy. These metrics assess how well agents can identify, engage, and convert leads into customers.
Outbound call center metrics include:
Inbound call center metrics are some of the most used call center metrics. They measure the level of customer experience regarding key service operations, like wait times and call resolution rates.
Inbound call center metrics include:
Measuring call center metrics manually would be incredibly time-consuming and rife with error. The best way to calculate call center metrics is by using a software tool with an analytics dashboard. This will automate the data collection and analysis process. They can also be used to present the data through simple visual aids like maps and graphs to make them more digestible and easy to understand.
Advanced call center software, like 8x8’s, is fully equipped with automated analytics channels. 8x8 Analytics for Contact Center is specifically designed to empower contact center managers and help improve operations with customizable reporting, easy-to-understand performance metrics, and data-driven insights.
With these insights, you’ll be able to meet customer expectations head-on from your call center. With 8x8, for example, you can define custom metrics that enable you to extract the data you need and act faster when a performance metric is off-target.
There are many benefits associated with mobilizing automated metrics software. By offering a clearer view over the entire customer journey, these tools help contact center managers identify key trends and patterns, focus on key issues, and monitor call center (and individual agent) performance. Overall, that’s a recipe for maximizing customer experience.
Measuring call center metrics and KPIs is a direct reflection of how your employees, customers, and business processes are doing. Basing business decisions on quantifiable data means you can identify areas that need improvement and immediately make the necessary changes. Plus, having targets to work toward is great for team morale and will motivate your customer service personnel to keep striving.
With so many metrics and KPIs to choose from, picking the right ones can be overwhelming. That’s why we’ve devised a breakdown of the 11 most important metrics and KPIs to monitor in your contact center and the industry standard calculations for measuring them. They are:
Let’s explore them further.
In the context of a call center, occupancy is the amount of time an agent spends on call-related activities (such as talk time, hold time, and after-call work) compared to their total logged-in time.
Occupancy rate is a metric that indicates how much time your agents are spending on work that’s directly related to live calls. The ideal occupancy rate in a call center lies between 80% and 85%.
Any lower than 80% could be a sign that your agents aren’t working as efficiently as they could. Likewise, anything higher than 85% is also cause for concern and should be taken as an early warning sign for call center agent burnout.
The standard formula for occupancy rate is:
Total handle time ÷ Total available time for work
First contact (or call) resolution tracks the percentage of customer issues that are addressed by an agent immediately, without the need for transfer, escalation, or a callback.
In short, FCR measures the number of successful call resolutions that occur on the first contact. The higher your FCR rate, the more likely it is that customers are experiencing efficient customer service. It’s about getting it right for the customer the first time around.
This metric is hugely popular in call centers because it provides accurate insight into agent effectiveness and quality assurance. For example, a low first call resolution rate in your call center could signify that some agents need more training or that calls aren’t being directed to the most suitable person the first time around.
The standard formula for first call resolution rate is:
Total number of issues resolved on first call ÷ Total number of first calls
Response time is the average amount of time it takes agents to provide a response to a support ticket. This is one of the simplest and most important metrics as response time is directly linked to service level for customers.
Response time is expressed as a percentage of support tickets responded to within a specific time. The more tickets responded to within that time, the more responsive your call center is to customers.
The call abandonment rate is the percentage of callers who hang up or are disconnected before reaching an agent in your center.
The standard formula for call abandonment is:
(Number of Calls - Number of Handled Calls) ÷ Number of Calls x 100%
Common causes of call abandonment include not reaching an agent fast enough or being constantly rerouted to different departments. Sometimes, calls are automatically disconnected when no agent becomes available to make a call.
It’s very important to monitor your call abandonment rate. When the number of abandoned calls starts to increase, it’s a sign that your customers are frustrated, which could lead to losing them to competitors.
Luckily, there are many things you can do to reduce call abandonment rates in your call center. For example, you could offer your callers estimated wait times, virtual queuing, or offer alternative self-service options to answer FAQs.
Implementing a robust call routing strategy will help stave off call abandonment. 8x8’s contact center solution helps teams connect faster and answer customers better with automated omnichannel routing, including voice and digital channel support, intelligent routing, and proactive self-service options.
A net promoter score (NPS) generates a measure of customer loyalty. Net promoter scores are quantified by asking customers how likely they are to recommend a company on a scale of zero to ten.
After these results have been collected from a sample of customers, the following formula is used to calculate NPS:
(Number of promoters ÷ Total number of customers in the sample) - (Number of detractors ÷ Total number of customers in the sample)
The main benefit of this metric is that it provides direct insight into how satisfied your customers are with the service you currently provide.
At the end of the day, that’s a great basis on which to evaluate, grow, and continue to increase customer loyalty and brand advocacy amongst your target audience.
Placing customers on hold is unavoidable sometimes. But excessively long hold times are always cause for concern. If you notice your average hold times increasing, that should ring alarm bells. This will start to irk your callers and could lead to an increased call abandonment or customer churn rate.
The solution is to regularly monitor your average hold time. This metric measures the average length of time that your agents put callers on hold.
It’s calculated by adding up all inbound customer call hold times and dividing that value by the total number of customer calls answered in your call center.
This metric relates to instances where agents need to place customer interactions on hold. While there are legitimate reasons for holding phone calls, contact centers should always minimize the average waiting time.
The standard formula for call abandonment is:
Total number of seconds customers spend waiting ÷ Total number of calls
Average speed of answer is a metric that measures the average time it takes contact center agents to answer an incoming call.
Specifically, it’s the time it takes for calls to be answered from the moment a customer is placed in a call queue to the instant an agent answers that call.
The standard formula for average speed of answer (ASA) is:
Total wait time for calls answered ÷ Total number of calls answered
This is a great metric to measure in tandem with your first-time response score, as both of these metrics reflect the speed and effectiveness of agent responses.
Average handle time (AHT) tracks the average time agents spend on the phone with a customer.
More specifically, AHT is an expression of the average time taken from the moment an agent picks up the phone until the call is disconnected.
In other words, it’s the length of an average call from start to finish (including hold times, follow-up, and after-call tasks).
The standard formula for average handle time (AHT) is:
(Total talk time + Total hold time + Total after-call work time) ÷ Total number of calls)
AHT is an important metric because it reflects operational efficiency and agent effectiveness. Having this metric in numbers will help you set agent benchmarks. Plus, if you start to notice that your average handle time is increasing, it might mean that some of your agents would benefit from extra training.
Call transfer rate is a metric that measures the number of times answered calls are transferred from one agent to another. This is expressed as a percentage of the total call volume in a set time frame.
Essentially, the transfer rate reflects all those times that agents pass a customer on to a different agent or department. Calls are sometimes transferred because the caller requests it, but more often than not, agents initiate the transfer because they don’t feel they have the right skills or expertise to resolve the customer’s issue.
A high transfer rate, therefore, suggests that calls aren’t necessarily being routed to the right person the first time around. In order to maintain high levels of customer experience, it’s important that we keep our transfer rate as low as possible.
The standard formula for transfer rate is:
(Number of transferred calls ÷ Total number of calls) x 100%
A customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is a numerical indicator of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction scores are generated through customer feedback using scoring systems.
Typically, customers will be asked to rate the quality of their experiences after a call. For example, they might be asked to pick from a list of options like the one below:
How happy are you with the service you received today?
The resulting average CSAT score is expressed as a ratio of “very happy” and “happy” responses in relation to the total number of survey respondents overall.
Alternatively, customers might be asked to rate their satisfaction on a scale of one to five. For example:
On a scale of one to five, how happy are you with the service you received today (one being not happy at all and five being very happy)?
In this case, a CSAT scorer will calculate the percentage of customers who responded with a four or five. The higher the percentage, the better your CSAT score.
CSAT is an important metric to measure because it measures the broader customer experience and acts as a direct reflection of other call center metrics, like wait times, first call resolutions, and call routing effectiveness. When these things are going well, your CSAT scores will improve.
The final metric we’re going to discuss is after-call work time. This metric measures the time it takes for agents to finish all supplementary tasks related to their handled calls. This metric is super important for workforce management because it helps call center managers gauge how much time should be allotted to these tasks.
This metric also reflects the efficiency of your employees. If after-call work time starts to increase beyond reasonable expectations, this is likely due to workplace inefficiencies. Perhaps your agents need more training or better workplace tools to streamline daily workflows and reduce repetitive tasks.
The standard formula for after-call work time is:
(Total time to finish all post-call tasks) ÷ (Total number of calls)
Contact center software, like 8x8’s, helps teams reduce workflow inefficiencies and after-call work time with automated tools and services. For example, with 8x8’s adaptive analytics, you’ll be able to activate the full potential of your agents with timely feedback, intelligent coaching, and collaboration tools.
Monitoring your call center metrics and KPIs is the best way to stay on target and optimize the running of your call center. There are so many metrics out there, but there’s no need to become overwhelmed. These 11 metrics will help you stay on top of your call center and ensure that both agent and customer experiences remain high.
8x8’s contact center solution provides agents and call center managers with the tools to connect faster and answer calls better with advanced features, like omnichannel routing, engagement management, and contact center analytics so you can track and improve your contact center metrics in real-time.