For each business function, the indicator is like a compass in the desert.
It shows whether the company is working in the right direction, whether it is achieving results and what changes need to be made to reach the desired goal.
Call centers need to handle a large number of calls every day, so metrics are needed to show them how well the agents are doing.
These metrics can help call center managers or customer support managers assess the effectiveness of agents and take corrective actions.
Before that, let us compare the first call center with the call center in the early 2000s, and then compare it with the present in 2020.
61% of consumers said that they have stopped dealing with the company after getting a bad service experience.
Each customer support agent must assume the responsibility of the leading customer support team and system, and minimize and avoid friction or problems within the team.
We talked with customer support agent managers around the world. Every customer support manager worthy of their support will track KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to keep a close eye on the development of their customer support efficiency. The KPI system enables you to track call center agents.
Work efficiency and compare between agents when they are divided into different groups.
But what are these indicators, and how can these indicators be attributed to the efficiency and productivity of the call center?
In addition, how to calculate the agent productivity of the call center?
There are several types of metrics that can help measure the productivity of call center agents.
And you may already know that the productivity of the agent is directly related to the efficiency and productivity of the call center.
Types of call center agent productivity indicators
Traditionally, like all activities, the efficiency and productivity of call centers can even be measured by grouping indicators based on the following three parameters:
Quantity
quality
speed
When one indicator is more important than others, the following method shows that each quantity, quality and speed will be affected.
When it is also maintained, the quality must be hit, at least for minor defects in the armor.
Similarly, when there is pace and quality degradation, it is difficult to resolve a large number of customer queries.
These metrics are transparent because you can measure well-known real-world attributes related to clear operations and results.
And can be extended to any department/group level details because they are not too specific at the same time.
How to measure the productivity of call center agents
A) Quantity index
Solved satisfaction survey or public response This is a direct method for agents to calculate satisfaction.
Satisfaction survey data can be distributed through various channels, such as calls, chats, social media messages, etc.
Directly quantifiable actions across various channels are divided into satisfaction survey assistance and direct satisfaction survey.
- Occupancy rate
Occupancy rate is a way to understand the productivity of all call-related responsibilities of call center agents.
It is a measure of the time taken by your business agents to make real-time calls and/or complete work related to these calls.
If your seat occupancy rate is too low, it means that they are not doing work-related things.
You can use this call center indicator to determine responsibilities, events, and address situations outside of work related to calls.
- KB link rate
You may find less complicated tickets and basic repetitive queries, such as “how to change password”, “how to update billing information”, etc.
In this case, linking to a knowledge base article will help save seat time and energy, which can be used for more demanding tickets.
This directly reflects that your agents use internal knowledge, but it is found that the broker with the best number is actively following this principle!
B) Speed indicators
Service level
Service level is one of the call center indicators, which can measure the work efficiency of the agent in real time when the agent answers the call.
It is the percentage of calls answered within a certain period of time (in seconds).
Use this metric to determine whether the agent is moving from one call to another quickly enough.
Encourage your agents to keep this KPI within your expected range.
- Average processing time
One of the most important methods to measure the productivity of call center agents is through AHT indicators.
This is the average time from when business agents pick up the phone until they disconnect the call.
Average processing time is a tricky metric because it must be exactly within the range you set.
If your agent processing time is too long, it may mean that the customer’s problem is too difficult for them.
However, if the average processing time for agents is too short, they may not provide effective assistance.
Use quality assurance software to monitor call quality and ensure that all bases are covered.
- First call resolution
Ideally, every customer support manager wants to resolve the incoming issue for the first time, rather than having the customer call back multiple times, transfer the call, or hand it over to the supervisor to resolve their issue.
To see an increase in the first call resolution rate, pay more attention to agent training and make sure that none of the other indicators you monitor cause obstacles.
- Average time waiting in the queue
You can calculate the average waiting time in the queue by dividing the total time the caller waited in the queue by the total number of calls answered.
Measure the average time in the queue to improve the customer experience.
If you find that customers are waiting in line longer than usual, you can challenge your team to handle calls more effectively to reduce KPI scores, or simply provide customers with the option of receiving callbacks.
C) Quality index
CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score)
CSAT is very suitable for call centers. This is entirely due to the frequency and flexibility of interactions around questions and scoring criteria (or lack of criteria).
Features like IVR CSAT can help companies that are trying to increase the response rate to these surveys to make the experience smooth and unimpeded!
The general rule of thumb is to try to make your percentage of satisfied customers as close to 100% as possible.
Since “quality of support” is a KPI collected in various markets, it may also be useful to benchmark against other companies in your industry.
Attract new customers correctly.
Otherwise, you will be working hard to deal with customer loss!
- NPS (Net Promoter Score® or NPS®)
The calculation of NPS is based on two issues:
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?
why?
Respondents answered the first question with numbers ranging from zero to ten. The probability of zero is extremely small and the probability of ten is extremely high.
Then divide the score into three parts −
0 to 6 are considered negative users: customers who are not satisfied and may harm the brand.
7-8 are passive users: satisfied but enthusiastic customers.
9-10 are active users: loyal fans who will promote growth.
The net promoter score is calculated by subtracting the percentage difference between the promoter and the critic.
The company’s score is between -100 and 100.
The score changes depending on many factors, including the company’s industry and the company’s age-the company tracks progress by measuring its current NPS score and its past scores to track progress.
In short, using the indicators listed above to calculate the efficiency and productivity of team members will help customer support managers because these indicators can also help them manage their workforce in an orderly and structured way.
However, once you have many seats and multiple teams, you may need to understand the performance of each agent.
It can be achieved through the following three steps: calculate the personal score based on the average of the group, assign some standard “points” according to it, and add them to some weights to get the global KPI score.