Let’s run through eight key metrics that every business should be using to measure the effectiveness of their contact centres.
In this post I run through eight key metrics that every business should be using to measure the effectiveness of their contact centers.
- Abandon Rate (AR) – Essentially looks at the number of callers who got fed up of waiting on hold and ultimately hang up. A high AR rate needs to be addressed quickly as your business could be leaking revenue through lost opportunities.
- Average Hold time – As you can imagine, a long hold time increases the AR. The reasons for long hold times can be due to lack of resources, training and top level operational decisions.
- Average handling time (AHT) – This metric takes a look at the total time a customer service rep spends on a call with a customer. It usually includes Hold time + Talk time + wrapping up (i.e. note taking and any follow up tasks).
- Average talk time (ATT) – A high ATT may indicate an overly chatty customer service rep, however, on the flip side, it can also indicate a rep that stays with the customer until a resolution to their issue is found. In this case, ATT needs some context to make it a useful and actionable metric.
- Calls per hour (CPH) – Basically, what it says on the tin.
- First call resolution (FCR) – How many calls are resolved in the first call with no need for a call back? Some would argue this is one of the main metrics most contact centers use to measure efficiency. 70 to 75% seems to be the industry average.
- Idle time – Essentially this measures the time a service rep has no calls at all. Many organisations implement workforce management systems (WMS) to ensure that no one agent is underutilized or, perhaps in some cases, over worked.
- Service Level – It’s not unusual for a contact centre to have a service level goal. These goals may be contractually implemented into a more formal service level agreement (SLA) – (i.e. Your contact centre may have to answer 95% of calls within 2 minutes)
Where to start with measurement in Salesforce?
It’s all well and good knowing about these metrics, but, how does an organization actually go about putting them into action within Salesforce?
Well, the good news is that there are several applications to get you on your way. Simply jump into the app exchange https://appexchange.salesforce.com and search for CTI systems (Computer Telephony Integration).