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Measuring performance

There’s an old saying that goes, ‘If you don't measure it, you won't achieve it.’ Well, in call centres, measuring is not usually a problem. Almost everything seems to be measured in one way or another.

It is probably fair to say, that few if any industries outside of the call and contact centre arena would have as many critical key performance indicators that are measured so consistently.

Call centres everywhere have numerous easily available indicators where benchmarking is performed on a constant basis. Managers know where they are today and where they want to be in the future.

It is not so much a matter of measuring, as such. The more pressing problem that most managers face sooner or later, relates to what exactly they should be trying to measure. And there is no doubt that there is not just one answer.  The best things to measure will be different in different call centres.

Everyone agrees that they want a complete and updated quality-monitoring scorecard. But, to some extent, at least, what represents quality can be different in different call centres.

The essentials that all managers need to focus on, include:

  • Determining what performance metrics are critical to the success of their centre;
  • Setting goals that maximise efficiency and profitability;
  • Setting individual goals for agents to ensure that overall centre goals are achieved;
  • Gaining buy-in from staff at all levels and especially from call centre representatives and ensuring that they are all motivated to push for their goals.

Time and again, surveys and studies have concluded that the top attributes of great supervisors include being an excellent leader, having exceptional people skills, being a visionary, being knowledgeable, having excellent communication skills and being focused on results.

Equally, the top factors to look for when hiring Customer Service Representatives are usually exceptional communication skills, a professional attitude, good general knowledge and relevant experience.

But none of this helps when it is a matter of deciding what performance measures are the most appropriate for a particular call centre.

There are essentially two major groups of measurements that need to be considered in analysing the relative efficiency and effectiveness of a call centre:

  • Call metrics and call centre productivity measures (discussed here), and
  • Customer satisfaction.

For call metrics, typical measures that a call centre might set as a standard, are things such as:

  • 85 per cent of calls answered within 20 seconds;
  • Average call wait time restricted to 25 seconds or less;
  • Call abandonment rate of less than five per cent;
  • 98 or 99 per cent overall agent availability;
  • 95 per cent first call resolution at first contact.

The actual figures here are examples only. They will vary from site to site depending on agent numbers, the existence of a peak or a trough, and budget constraints.

Sometimes managers want to measure performance indicators against a general industry benchmark. However, it is often most beneficial to measure against one’s own performance. Typically, you measure one time period with another - eg. January to March this year compared with the corresponding period in the previous year.

In terms of productivity measures, the most common elements to measure include:

  • First-call completion rates;
  • Average speed of answer;
  • CSR talk time versus wrap time;
  • Percentage of time agents are on calls, on hold, on idle, and available; and
  • Total number of calls handled per time period.

According to a study by the South African based specialist IT services and solution provider, Dimension Data, the lack of system integration in many contact centres means that agents are now spending longer on wrapping-up calls (an average of six minutes per call) than on talking to customers (an average of four minutes per call).

Dimension Data, with a history going back to 1983, helps clients plan, build and support their IT infrastructures. It says that average calls in 2005 are also taking longer to deal with than they did in 2003. The average length of calls now stands at 240 seconds compared to 222 seconds two years ago.

There could be numerous explanations for the Dimension Data information. But one question managers need to check is: ‘are the right things being measured?’