Contact Center Best Practices: What are your 3 tips for determining contact center KPIs?

There are so many KPI's available for measurement; some of which aren't as important as others.

Start at the end and ask yourself what it is you want to know, then measure that.

Be consistent in your measuring.

What gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed gets better.

I like to see First Call Resolution, Turnover, Adherence to Schedule, Availability, measured but more importantly use that information to put in corrections, identify gaps and make a difference.

The “Most Important” Call Center Metrics for you will depend on the primary focus of your specific Contact Center.

If your primary focus is on Cost Containment – and if you operate your Call Center as a “Cost Center” - then Average Speed of Answer (ASA), Average Handle Time (AHT), and Maximizing Calls per Agent per Hour are typically emphasized as your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). In order to maximize ASA and minimize AHT, Agents are usually required to rigorously follow a script. A tightly-scripted Call Center environment is also sometimes determined by an Industry Sector: such as Financial Services/Insurance/Healthcare - or by a Client’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) for an Outsourcer.

An unscripted Call Center environment is typically found - and should be encouraged - when you operate your Call Center as a “Profit Center” - where the key KPIs are usually Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and First Call Resolution (FCR). That’s not to say that an unscripted Call Center environment shouldn’t employ training aids/general ideas/key phrases. Ideally these should form a framework of points upon which an Agent drapes their own personality and phraseology.
It’s all about the quality of the ‘Humanware’ you deploy in your Contact Center to begin with.

Scripted and unscripted call handling are discrete and different pursuits - requiring separate Personality/Job-Fit/Temperament Factors. Someone with the Intellect & ‘Verbal Artistry’ to serve a caller in an unscripted fashion is rarely a good fit for a tightly-scripted Call Center environment. Equally – it is rare for someone who performs well in a tightly-scripted Call Center to successfully make the transition to unscripted caller interactions. Few people possess the ability to work successfully long-term in both a scripted and unscripted Call Center.

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In a former life, I was a collections supervisor. We used KPI's to measure performance as do most call centers. The 3 most valuable drivers were number of contacts per hour, contact % and promise %. Since most contact centers are not collection driven, I have replaced this KPI with offers made or offer %.

Number of contacts lets a supervisor know exactly how many calls an agent is making and how many times the agent is reaching a customer or authorized third party. If the agent is not making enough attempts, then this can be addressed through a discussion on effective time management.

Contact % is derived from how many calls an agent makes in comparison to how many customers he or she reaches. If this percentage is low, this could be an area for a coaching opportunity.

Offers made or offer percentage, is used in a sales driven environment. If the contacts are there, and the % is high, then the offer percentage should be commensurate. However, if the contacts are plentiful, the contact % is high but no offers are made, then an agent might need to have a session on how to negotiate with a customer or even a sales refresher course.

Michael, I'll offer the following three tips:

1. Align the KPI's with desired business results.
In other words, measure what you're ultimately trying to get done. If an agent is primarily responsible for resolving customer technical support issues, don't measure "Average Handle Time." Instead, measure "number of closed cases" for quantity, and "Customer Satisfaction Scores" for quality.

2. Make the metrics actionable.
In other words, create metrics that will give you direction, and insight into steps that you can take to impact the end results that you're after.

3. Help the call center agents understand exactly why you measure what you measure, and how that impacts the overall success of the business. Once any employee has a clear line of vision from what they do, to the ultimate business objective, they'll not only produce more, but they'll probably do it for a longer period of time, thus addressing another big problem in contact centers: employee turnover.

The simplest answer is what is most important to you and your customer?

Average handle time is often an irrelevance, so is average wait time, and so is the number of times someone calls you.

The most important things to consider are;

1. First Call Resolution
2. Allowing customers to contact you when they want and how they want. I don't mean setting up a 24x7 operation, but allow people to call you, email you, webchat with you, ask you to call them back etc.
3. Metrics are irrelevant unless they help you to make money, save money or improve customer service. They are also irrelevant if they are not monitored for their effect. So many times I see metrics adhered to blindly and reports being ignored by the people who apparently need and want to see them.

In short, the most effective key performance indicators are unique to you and your customers!