CONTACT CENTER LEADERSHIP KPIs

Understanding contact center key performance indicators (KPIs) is mandatory to drive the business. Identifying KPIs to measure performance and interpret and act on the data is essential to successfully managing the contact center. Comprehensive reports, including real-time and historical reports, provide the manager with insights into where additional coaching and training may be needed, where the process can potentially improve, and how policies and procedures can be tweaked to operate a well-oiled customer service machine. The successful manager makes real-time business decisions backed by solid data.

Customer Satisfaction and KPI’s

— First–Call Resolution is the percentage of calls the agent resolves without transferring them or having to return or escalate them to a manager. Agents who escalate and/or transfer calls a high percentage of the time indicate their inability to answer and resolve the caller’s issues. These agents need further training and coaching. Drill down to identify what kinds of problems the agent cannot fix.
— Percentage of Calls Blocked – how many callers get a busy signal and can’t get through to an agent. This is usually due to older technology, like PBXs, since they have a certain number of ports, which limits the number of calls that can simultaneously come into the contact center. The busy signal is frustrating to callers and results in lost business.
— Average Time in the Queue is when the caller must wait before an agent picks up. Today, enterprise contact center software has built-in auto-call-back features. Callers can opt for a callback without losing their place in line. If you find average time in the queue increasingly high, consider Auto-Callback. Customers love this feature.
— Service Level – the percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds. This is an interesting conversation because most measure service level from when the call is queued to when an agent picks up. What about the time it takes for the caller to get into the queue? Does your IVR have an irritating forced message on the front-end, slowing the caller’s ability to get into a queue? Do you think they want to hear about your latest commercial? The industry average for contact center service levels is 85/20, 85% of the calls are answered within 20 seconds or 80/30, and 80% are responded to within 30 seconds. What can you do to shorten the front-end time?
— The average Abandonment Rate is the number of callers who disconnect before reaching an agent. Essentially, these callers lose patience while waiting. Implementing the Auto-Call Back feature, increasing the number of agents, or offering a self-service IVR solution can help decrease a center’s abandonment rate.
— Average Speed of Answer – the average amount of time it takes for the call to be answered by an agent or the Automatic Call Distributor (ACD). This relates to the SLA compared to your industry.
— Average Handle Time – the average amount of time the agent spends talking with callers, this includes hold times. Long calls are always a manager’s concern, especially when the agent has many “long” calls. Drilling down more profoundly to discover what the agent is doing and not doing is critical to identifying the real issue. Perhaps have the manager monitor the calls to understand why the agent is talking too long. A long handle time doesn’t necessarily mean the agent is struggling; some are just too chatty.
— Schedule Adherence – this measures the agent’s compliance with the schedule. Are the agents sticking to the assigned schedule? Staffing the contact center is the most significant expense, and every minute counts when meeting service levels. Schedule adherence is critical for ensuring smooth transitions between shifts. Agents don’t understand the big picture, and being late 10 minutes impacts the entire contact center. Take the time to inform and educate agents on the importance of schedule adherence, continue to measure and manage it utilizing a workforce management tool. The more schedules, shifts, and agents, the more complex it becomes. Successful managers reward agents with incentives and tie schedule adherence to bonuses for good scores. Can your agents achieve 95% or better?

An essential step in optimizing your Leadership KPI’s is having the proper “Manager’s Toolbox”. You must include the right tools; managing a contact center is a different set of tools than managing a production line.
Does your contact center software provide the real-time and historical data you need to call the shots intelligently? Too many contact center managers are frustrated with the lack of data due to an old, antiquated phone system, or find the data is limited because the contact center phone system is an office phone system.

Here are some tools you should have in your toolbox:

• Contact Center software with integrated reporting. Every activity in the contact center is documented, stored, and retrievable. Integrated with Workforce Management, payroll applications, and CRMs for comprehensive data mining. This gives managers the data they need when they need it.
• Real-Time Metrics Dashboard for Agents and Supervisors: Agents want to see their performance in real time, just like managers who wish to know the number of callers in the queue, wait times, average abandonments, etc.
• The Manager’s Dashboard should include data that allows them to make split-second decisions that impact the business in real time. These decisions can be company—or industry-specific. Some examples are service levels, the number of calls in the queue for all teams, and the longest wait times.
• A best-in-class contact center platform allows managers to monitor calls, listen to live calls, listen silently, turn the call into a three-way call, or listen and coach the agent through the “CHAT” feature. Managers can also retrieve recorded calls for coaching and training.
• Managers need historical and real-time data. They want to examine the data over time, week over week, month over month, and year over year. Hosted contact center software that tracks every activity can store data and make it easily accessible when managers need it.
• Integrating Workforce Management software gives managers extra data like schedule adherence, absenteeism, and agent attrition.

Having the tools to capture and display the data in real-time and historical reports gives you, the manager, the intelligence you need to make intelligent decisions. You don’t have to fly by the seat of your pants anymore!

— First Call Resolution – the percentage of calls the agent resolves without transferring the call, or having to return or escalate the call to a manager. Agents who escalate and/or transfer calls a high percentage of the time indicate their inability to answer and resolve the caller’s issues. These agents need further training and coaching. Drill down to identify what kinds of problems the agent cannot fix.
— Percentage of Calls Blocked – how many callers get a busy signal and can’t get through to an agent. This is usually due to older technology, like PBXs, since they have a certain number of ports, which limits the number of calls that can simultaneously come into the contact center. The busy signal is frustrating to callers and results in lost business.
The Average Time in the Queue is when the caller must wait before an agent picks up. Today, enterprise contact center software has built-in auto-call-back features. Callers can opt for a callback without losing their place in line. If you find the average time in the queue increasingly high, consider Auto-Callback. Customers love this feature.
— Service Level – the percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds. This is an interesting conversation because most measure service level from when the call is queued to when an agent picks up. What about the time it takes for the caller to get into the queue? Does your IVR have an irritating forced message on the front-end, slowing the caller’s ability to get into a queue? Do you think they want to hear about your latest commercial? The industry average for contact center service levels is 85/20, 85% of the calls are answered within 20 seconds or 80/30, and 80% are responded to within 30 seconds. What can you do to shorten the front-end time?
— Average Abandonment Rate: the number of callers hanging up before reaching an agent. These callers are tired of waiting. The Auto-Call Back feature is one solution. Adding more agents or a self-service IVR solution will reduce a center’s abandonment rate.
— Average Speed of Answer – the average amount of time it takes for the call to be answered by an agent or the Automatic Call Distributor (ACD). This relates to the SLA compared to your industry.
— Average Handle Time – the average amount of time the agent spends talking with callers, this includes hold times. Long calls are always a manager’s concern, especially when the agent has many “long” calls. Drilling down more profoundly to discover what the agent is doing and not doing is critical to identifying the real issue. Perhaps have the manager monitor the calls to understand why the agent is talking too long. A long handle time doesn’t necessarily mean the agent is struggling; some are too chatty.
— Schedule Adherence – this measures the agent’s compliance with the schedule. Are the agents sticking to the assigned schedule? Staffing the contact center is the most considerable expense, and every minute counts when meeting service levels. Schedule adherence is critical for ensuring smooth transitions between shifts. Agents don’t understand the big picture, and being late 10 minutes impacts the entire contact center. Take the time to inform and educate agents on the importance of schedule adherence, continue to measure and manage it utilizing a workforce management tool. The more schedules, shifts, and agents, the more complex it becomes. Successful managers reward agents with incentives and tie schedule adherence to bonuses for good scores. Can your agents achieve 95% or better? 

Coaching for performance is the opportunity to help agents fine-tune their performance.

This is when managers objectively assess elements of a customer contact and calibrate for consistency. Calibrate is the key word; customers want consistency when they call, and calibration is about getting agents on the same message, process, and attitude.

Coaching conversations with agents are typically confidential and usually scheduled weekly or monthly. Coaching conversations can also be spontaneous when an occurrence needs to be addressed immediately, and you may not want to wait until a planned coaching meeting. In this meeting, you want to provide the data for the basis of your coaching, so it doesn’t become a “you don’t like me” conversation, but a “here is your data and here is the data of your peers, this is what we expect” conversation. Then you can discuss “how we can get you up to the company expectation.” Listen to the agent’s calls and your top performing agents as examples of what you expect.

When agents have access in real-time to their metrics, they usually know where they have fallen short. They are driven to achieve, and they can use the data to adjust their performance when they see the numbers that don’t lie. It is also robust to give access to recorded calls, as agents often know they messed up but want to go back and hear the call for themselves for future improvement. Agents are frequently harder on themselves, which saves the manager from having to assess and correct.

Using the data to coach for performance makes the coaching meeting more productive and objective. The feedback is based on data; when you share the data with agents, they become metric-focused.

Not all contact centers use the same KPI’s; it depends on what drives your business.

An online shoe retailer values making the emotional connection with the customer, and to make that happen, it means talking to customers. Not just taking their shoe order, they mean talk. While they track average call times per agent, the goal isn’t to reduce this average. This retailer looks at the percentage of time an agent spends on the phone. They re-labeled this metric to “personal service level”. The agent is expected to spend 80% of their time in customer-facing interactions. This 80% can be one call or many. So what is driving your business?