Series: Contact center planning
Plan metrics, measurement, and reporting
Most contact centers use performance metrics to measure success in hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual time frames. It is essential to implement the right objective and subjective performance metrics to determine what you do right and where you go wrong.
It is a challenge for every contact center leader to find the right mix of objective and subjective metrics that:
- Support the organization’s mission and strategy,
- Accurately reflect the customer experience you want,
- Reflect how efficiently you are running your business.
The best time to revisit contact center metrics and measurements is during new contact center technology implementation. Keep in mind that calculations used to measure metrics, especially your new technology, may use different terms, calculations, and report layouts. You may have access to new performance statistics and have to figure out if they are relevant in your environment.
Selecting a limited number of key performance objectives is part of a comprehensive measurement strategy. If users must pay attention to every available statistic, they will not see the connection between contact center metrics and daily activities — or know where to focus their efforts. That’s why it is vital that the leadership team:
- Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) most important to the contact center,
- Communicate them across all levels of the contact center,
- Describe how to measure them and the actions that impact them.
Refer to the standard contact center metrics below for examples of commonly used KPIs.
Questions
Discuss the following questions with your team:
- Do contact center metrics align with the organization’s mission and strategy and your Customer Experience Strategy? If the CES describes the desired customer experience, then key contact center metrics should reflect whether the contact center carries out the strategy. If not, point the way toward prime areas of improvement.
- Do KPIs and supporting metrics cascade throughout the contact center into team and individual performance metrics?
- Do you consider how metrics drive employee behaviors? For example, rigid individual handle-time metrics can make agents rush–an unintended consequence. Conflicting or misaligned metrics may drive behaviors that are at odds with your mission and objectives.
- Are all individual metrics within the individual or team’s ability to control? For example, agents don’t control how many calls they receive during their shift.
- Are contact center objectives clearly defined, measurable, actionable, and attainable?
- Do reporting stakeholders clearly understand where each metric is derived along with the metrics and calculations used for each? Can report stakeholders explain each metric and explain why it is important, how it fits into the overall strategy, and how they and other employees impact it?
- Have you matched report stakeholders with the reports and statistics they need? Be aware that senior leadership does not need as much detail that supervisors require. Do not bog leaders down with extraneous information.
- Is data organized and presented in a way that is easy to understand on reports and dashboards? When statistic layouts are confusing or unclear, it is unlikely stakeholders will use the data for its intended purpose.
Actions
Take the following actions before moving forward in the planning phase:
| Preparation | Assigned to | Complete date |
|---|---|---|
| Gather current reports and determine if they are still relevant, valid, and useful. Document required metrics/measurements/statistics with their current definitions, calculations, and targets. | ||
| Identify potential gaps in current and future reporting and define future needs and requirements. Determine if there are elements of the current reporting environment to replicate in the new system. Determine if there are requirements that weren’t possible to meet in the past that is possible with the new system. | ||
| Identify current sources of reporting metrics, and review level of effort in creating and delivering reports. Focus on opportunities to automate. | ||
| Consider cross-functional reporting requirements for departments outside the contact center. For example, the marketing team may value a report that shows call volume by marketing source. Or the product management team may find meaning in the contact center’s product complaints by customer, product, and complaint type. | ||
| Ensure that all employees fully understand how the organization manages performance and how they and managers access performance metrics. Verify the accuracy of calculations and data sources before you hold employees accountable for performance objectives. |
Standard contact center metrics
| Metric | Definition |
|---|---|
| Metric | Definition |
| Abandon | The number of times an end user abandoned an interaction in a queue. For example, the customer hangs up before an agent answers, or the system disconnects the interaction. |
| Abandon % | The percentage of offered interactions in which the customer disconnected before connecting with an agent. The abandon rate can identify queues that require extra staff to handle interactions in a timely manner. Calculated by: (Abandoned Count / Offered Count) * 100 |
| ACD Exit | The number of times an entry exited a flow to an ACD queue. Includes the percentage of ACD exits compared with the total number of exits. |
| ACD Voicemail Exit | The number of times an entry exited a flow to an ACD voicemail. Includes the percentage of ACD voicemail exits compared with the total number of exits. |
| Active agents | The number of active agents. In some views, this number is shown next to the total number of queue members. |
| Active Total Callback | Active total callback duration is the sum of all calling activity for the call portions of the callback. For example, the active total callback duration could include all durations from the call portion of a callback: tContacting --> tDialing --> tTalk --> tHeld --> tTalk --> tAcw. |
| Adherence Duration | The amount of time represented in days, hours, minutes, and seconds, of the adherence exception. |
| Adherence Status | The current adherence status of the user, including In Adherence, Out of Adherence, Unscheduled, Ignored, or Unknown. |
| After-call work (ACW) | The number of times after-call work (ACW) was completed. After-call work is the work that an agent performs immediately following an interaction. Work may involve keying activity codes, updating customer databases, filling out forms, or initiating outbound contact. As a metric, it indicates the total time an agent takes to finish working on a call. If an agent must complete work before the agent can handle the next contact, then ACW is factored into the average handle time. |
| Alert | The number of times agents receive an alert for interactions. |
