The Importance of Contact Center KPIs

Transcription

1 The Importance of Contact Center KPIs By Geoff Mina

2 1: For Agents Think about how hard it would be to drive a car without a dashboard in front of you. You wouldn t be able to see how much gas is in your tank, how much ground you have covered or how fast you are going. Just like a driver needs access to a variety of information for optimal operation of a vehicle, your agents need access to contact center KPIs (key performance indicators) to benchmark their progress and stay on task. As outlined in a recent white paper from Connect First, here are some of the most important metrics that your agents should see, broken down into three separate categories: Real-Time: These are arguably the most critical KPIs for agents, as they help agents stick to a set pace (e.g., number of interactions waiting), understand their actual talk time and see the total number of contacts they attempted. Near Real-Time: Near real-time KPI data is typically generated within 15 minutes of the time it takes place. Using this data, agents can see the number of sales closed within a small window of time, average revenue per call, and average work/wrap and handle times. Historical: Agents can use this data at the end of a shift to assess their overall performance for a typical day. Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), offer rates, close rates and total interactions handled are all valuable metrics that agents can view in retrospect to assess their performance and look for ways to improve their delivery of service.

3 2: For Supervisors Life would be pretty difficult for Manager Walt Weiss and the Colorado Rockies if Weiss didn t have access to a variety of data like pitch counts, scouting reports and historical matchups for each batter. Likewise, as the person who oversees daily operations in your contact center, your supervisor must have access to all of the information he or she needs to understand how agents are performing on the job. This information is generated in the form of contact center KPIs. Let s take a deeper dive and look at three metrics that managers can use to benchmark contact center performance: Number of contacts completed: This is one of the best real-time contact center metrics that supervisors can use to see how agents are handling individual calls. Supervisors can use the data to see if agents are overloaded or if they can take on more work without too much effort. Average revenue per rep: Ultimately, an agent is only as valuable to the organization as the amount of revenue he or she is generating. If an agent is costing the department more than he or she is bringing in, this is something a proactive supervisor needs to know. This is a near real-time metric, meaning it can be generated in about 15 minutes or less. Conversion rate per agent: With this metric, supervisors get a view into agents historical data and see exactly how many customers they successfully convert over time. Using this data, the supervisor can identify trends that are working or not working for agents.

4 3: For Managers Are you frustrated with a lack of overall quality reporting in your contact center? If so, you re not alone; as evidenced in a January 2015 survey conducted by DMG Consulting, 36.3 percent of the 311 enterprise executives and managers surveyed identified the need for enhanced reporting in their facilities. Simply put, KPIs are one of the most important tools for understanding feedback about daily operations. As the person in charge of overseeing the entire contact center, the manager must have direct access to the same metrics that all of the other contact center employees see. So what contact center KPIs should a manager be assessing? It s up to the manager to look at historical information like customer abandonment rates, overall customer satisfaction scores (CSATs), quality scores and agent offer rates. Furthermore, information like forecasting accuracy for measuring forecast efficiency against registered sales is very important for measuring daily, monthly or yearly success rates. Aside from historical data, it s also important to look at near real-time information, which is generated in smaller intervals of 15 minutes or less at a time. This data can show managers how individual campaigns are performing, how well the contact center is planning for daily staffing versus what the projected metrics indicated, and average talk and handle times. It s also critical to look into real-time metrics like average wait times for customers, as these types of metrics directly feed larger overarching trends like total customer happiness levels, which are typically measured on a historical basis.

5 The Importance of Contact Center KPIs Final Thoughts Reports are an essential component of any contact center, as they are necessary to determine if the system is working properly and meeting business objectives. Companies need historical, near-real time and real-time reports, dashboards and alerts to give IT and business managers the actionable insights and data they need to identify and address performance issues before they escalate and negatively impact an organization s bottom line and brand. Measure Your KPIs with Connect First Reporting Studio! Connect First Reporting Studio empowers you to make critical contact center operations decisions with speed and accuracy. Customizable tools allow you to measure performance, gain operational insights, and improve your KPIs. Geoff Mina, CEO and Founder of Connect First Geoff Mina leads the company s strategic direction and is also the primary architect of the Connect First platform. He has taken the product through four generations in a desire to develop the most feature rich, highly scalable, fault tolerant, and secure Cloud Based Contact Center Solution on the market. Geoff has over 15 years of experience in the cloud telecommunications space. He is responsible for driving the focus of combining world-class technology with unmatched customer support into every aspect of the organization and is extremely passionate about creating strong and mutually beneficial business relationships. Geoff spends his down time with his wife and two children, cycling in the mountains, skiing, and driving racecars. - info@connectfirst.com - (888)