Call center metrics and KPIs to improve agent productivity and enhance overall efficiency:
- First contact resolution
- Â Customer Satisfaction
- Service Level
- Â Contact Quality
- Average handle time
- Â Occupancy rate
- Average speed of answer
- Net promoter score
- Call transfer rate
- Percentage of calls blocked
- Average time in the queue
- Average call duration
- Abandonment call rate
- Customer churn rate
- Cost per call
- Agent attrition rate
- . Average after-call work time
- Â Customer retention rate
Call centers are an integral part of many companies around the globe.
These call centers are responsible for customer service daily. If these centers do not work efficiently, it affects the buying decisions of customers that ultimately impact the company’s revenue.
To make sure that these call centers deliver high-quality services consistently, call center managers need to measure or track call center metrics or key performance indicators(KPIs).
These call center metrics tell how efficiently the call center is working and which areas that need the attention of the call center managers.
Here is the list of the call center metrics that need to be measured if you want to improve agent productivity and provide the best customer service.
In this guide, you’ll find:
- Â Meaning of Call center Metrics
- Â 18 essential call center metrics and KPIs
- Â Call center metrics best practices
Table of Contents
A. What are call center metrics?
Call center metrics/ key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantitative measurements used to track and evaluate the performance of a call center or customer support.
These metrics help to assess various aspects of call center operations, such as agent productivity, customer satisfaction, call volume, and call quality.Â
By analysing call center metrics, managers can identify areas for improvement, set goals, monitor progress, and make data-driven decisions.Â
By the way, Enthu.AI is a speech analytics tool that provides insights into the performance of individual agents by analysing conversations between call center agents and customers.
See Enthu.AI in action
B. 18 essential call center metrics
1. First contact resolution
First contact resolution (FCR) is an essential part of customer relationships with any company.
This metric is all about how well an agent can solve problems and answer questions of the prospect/clients in the first call itself.
It means fulfilling all your customer needs at the first call with the agent itself.
The metric is directly related to customer loyalty and call center profitability.
How to calculate FCR?
2. Customer Satisfaction
Measuring customer satisfaction is a great way to identify your call center agent effectiveness.
This metric tells you how customers feel about your company, i.e., whether the customers are happy or not with the service of the company.
Customer satisfaction score is the most direct measure to tell if your call center is providing the service that your customers expect.
As a result, improving customer satisfaction score should be on high priority for your call center.
You can measure this score by using surveys in which you directly ask customers how much they are satisfied with the agents’ answers to their problems, how was their overall experience, etc.Â
Some of the surveys used industry wide are Net Promoter Score (NPS), CSAT, and CES.
3. Service Level
Service level is a call center metric to measure agent productivity in real time as agents take calls.
This metric shows whether you have enough resources to meet customer needs.
Also, it tells how accessible the center is to customers and how quickly the call center can solve customer issues.
It is a percentage of calls that landed vs. answered within a specific period.
4. Contact Quality
Contact quality is an essential customer-centric performance metric across every contact center.
Contact quality metric means measuring the quality of the interaction between the customers and the agents.
Tracking this metric can help you understand customer needs and also individual agent performance.
You need to have a defined call quality monitoring software to analyse and evaluate agent calls. As part of the process, you need to design a call quality evaluation form to measure contact quality.
A quality control specialist listens to a conversation and then rates the call across multiple checkpoints that are part of the evaluation form.
Quality scores are then generated for each agent which are then used to understand the contact quality.
Pro Tip
To overcome this, you can use conversation intelligence software like Enthu that analyses every call(not random calls) and gives you business insights. You can analyze the performance of each agent.
5. Average handle time
Average handle time describes the average time spent by the agents in handling customer issues.
The metric also includes the time for which the customers are on hold and after-call work time, i.e., the time spent doing back-office tasks.
It is an important metric that measures call center agent productivity.
When the average handle time is too short, it means that the agent is not offering any real assistance. And when the average handle time is too long, it means that agents are unable to assist customers with their problems.
How to measure Average Handle Time (AHT)?
6. Occupancy rate
The occupancy rate measures the time spent by agents in handling live calls and handling the admin tasks related to those calls.
This metric is a great way to measure call center agent productivity across all their call-related duties, not just the calls.
7. Average speed of answer
The average speed of answer is the average time it takes to answer a call in a call center within a specified time frame.
If this metric is too high, then it means that either the agent is occupied with an existing customer or she is taking too much time to pick up new calls (which shows inefficiency on the part of agents).
To improve this metric, you should provide coaching to agents or enable them with better work tools.Â
How to measure Average speed of answer?
8. Net promoter score
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric that measures the likelihood of customers to recommend a company’s product or service to others.
It is based on a simple question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?”
Respondents rate their likelihood on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being “not at all likely” and 10 being “extremely likely.”
Based on their responses, customers are grouped into three categories: Promoters (score 9-10), Passives (score 7-8), and Detractors (score 0-6).
The NPS is then calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.
The resulting score can range from -100 (if all respondents are Detractors) to +100 (if all respondents are Promoters).
How to measure Net Promoter Score?
9. Call transfer rate
A call transfer rate measures the number of calls that transfer to another supervisor or department.
Customers do not appreciate if their calls are transferred to someone else because it becomes frustrating to tell the problem again and again to different people.
Call centers should keep this rate at a minimum.
You can calculate this metric by dividing the total number of calls transferred by the total number of calls handled.
10. Percentage of calls blocked
Percentage of Call Blocked (PCB) is a call centre metric that measures the percentage of inbound calls that are blocked or not connected to an available agent.
This is due to high volume of calls, insufficient staffing, or technical issues with the call center infrastructure.
PCB is an important metric for call centres because it can directly impact customer satisfaction and business outcomes.
When customers are unable to reach an agent, they may become frustrated and decide to take their business elsewhere, leading to lost revenue and damage to the company’s reputation.
To calculate PCB, the number of blocked calls is divided by the total number of inbound calls and then multiplied by 100.
A low PCB indicates that the call center is effectively managing call volume and ensuring that customers are able to connect with agents in a timely manner.
How to measure Percentage of Calls Blocked?
11. Average time in the queue
Also referred to as the average wait time, this metric can impact the customer satisfaction score.
Customers do not like it when they have to wait in call queues for a longer time.
One of the ways to keep this metric in check is to provide customers with a call back so that they don’t have to wait.
To calculate, you can divide the total time callers wait in the queue by the total number of calls answered. Average Call Duration (ACD) measures the average length of time agents spend on a call with a customer. It is calculated by dividing the total talk time by the number of calls handled and is used to evaluate agent performance, customer satisfaction, and operational efficiency in call centres. A high ACD may indicate that agents are spending too much time on each call, which can lead to longer wait times for other customers and decreased agent productivity. On the other hand, a low ACD may indicate that agents are rushing through calls and not providing adequate customer service. How to measure Average Call Duration? The abandonment call rate is the percentage of calls in which customers hang up the phone before they reach an agent. This metric is a direct measure of the missed opportunities by your agents. Customers abandon calls due to unnecessary hold times and long wait times. If the rate of abandoned calls is high, you need to take drastic measures to ensure customers can connect to an agent. For that, you need to identify the issues that are causing the high number of abandoned calls. It can be seasonality resulting in high number of calls, or can be agents with poor attitude who don’t pick up the phone on time, or something else. Identify the percentage of calls that ring but couldn’t be answered. Most of the VoIP platforms Enthu.AI integrates with provide this metric out of the box Customer churn is the percentage of customers that has stopped using the company’s product or service during a certain time frame.  It is usually expressed as a percentage of the total number of customers at the beginning of that period. To calculate churn rate, you need to divide the number of customers you lost during that time period by the number of customers you had at the beginning of that time period. How to measure Customer Churn Rate? Cost per call means the expenses related to running a call center. This metric gives you insights on whether a call center is operating efficiently or not. Based on this metric, you can allocate resources in the best possible way. Commonly, companies set an ideal CPC and work to achieve and maintain this threshold. To calculate the average cost per call, you need to divide the total cost associated with operating the business by the total number of calls handled.12. Average call duration
13. Abandonment call rate
14. Customer churn rate
15. Cost per call
16. Agent attrition rate
Call centre attrition is defined as the number of employees leaving the firm over a given period of time.
To calculate employee attrition, you need to divide the number of employees leaving the firm divided by the average number of employees.
It is important for the company to look out for employee attrition because high attrition rate leads to high costs, decrease productivity and discomfort among other employees.
How to measure Agent Attrition Rate?
17. Average after-call work time
Average after-call work time measures how much time has been spent by the agent to do the post-call work.
If agents are taking too much time to handle post-call work, then it is a signal that the agent is not doing the job efficiently.
You can remove unnecessary steps or create templates for routine actions that could help agents to be efficient.
To track this metric, you need to identify the point when the customer conversation ends.
From that point onwards, you need to measure the time that the agent takes to mark the call as closed. This time is what is the average after call work time.
Most of the VoIP platforms Enthu.AI integrates with provide this metric out of the box
18. Customer retention rate
Customer Retention Rate (CRR) is a key performance indicator that measures the percentage of customers who continue to do business with a company over a certain period of time.Â
It is an essential metric for businesses as it indicates customer loyalty and satisfaction.Â
A high CRR implies that a company has successfully met or exceeded the expectations of its customers, resulting in repeat business and increased revenue.Â
Companies can use CRR to evaluate the effectiveness of their customer retention strategies and make data-driven decisions to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
How to Measure Customer Retention Rate ?
C. Call center metrics and KPIs best practices
Here are some best practices for call center metrics:
1. Define clear goals and objectivesÂ
Before selecting call center metrics, it’s important to define clear goals and objectives for your call center. Determine what you want to achieve, what success looks like, and how you’ll measure it.
2. Use a balanced scorecard approach
Don’t focus solely on one metric or area of the call center. Instead, use a balanced scorecard approach that includes metrics for customer satisfaction, agent performance, operational efficiency, and financial performance.
3. Track metrics consistently
Consistency is key when it comes to tracking KPIs. Use standardized definitions and formulas, and ensure that data is collected and tracked consistently over time.
4. Analyse and act on data
Collecting data is only the first step. To truly improve call center performance, you need to analyse the data, identify trends and patterns, and take action to address any issues.
5. Involve stakeholders
Involve all relevant stakeholders in the metrics selection and analysis process. This includes agents, managers, and other departments within the organization.
6. Focus on Improvement
Call center metrics and KPIs are not static. As your call center evolves and changes, so too should your metrics. Continuously review and refine your metrics to ensure they remain relevant and aligned with your goals and objectives.
By following these best practices, call centers can effectively measure performance, drive improvement, and ultimately provide a better customer experience.
Conclusion
It’s always a best practice to measure important call center metrics.
Ultimately, what gets measured gets improved.
Tightly monitoring the key metrics not just ensure higher customer satisfaction but also help you retain customers and prevent churn.
Tushar Jain is the CEO and Founder of Enthu.ai. In his free time he loves to read and write about new duo of artificial intelligence and customer experience.
