Which Contact Center Metrics Should You Track?

If you understand the importance of the customer experience, you know that contact centers play a vital role in a company’s success. Conversations with agents are often the first contact a customer has with a company; therefore, agent interactions play a huge role in customer satisfaction. So how do contact centers ensure that they are providing the best experience possible? By tracking important contact center metrics.

Contact center metrics are used to determine whether a business is reaching its KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and where adjustments are needed. As contact centers grow, so do the number of metrics, and trying to track all of them can be overwhelming. So which ones should be tracked? Here are the contact center metrics that are most beneficial to track for your contact center and your company.

Average Response Time refers to how quickly a call is answered by a contact center agent. Customers don’t want to be on hold for extended periods of time (or at all), so it’s important to be sure agents are answering calls and helping customers as quickly as possible. Abandon rates (how often customers hang up due to being on hold for too long) are a related metric that you should track. Guess what those customers do after hanging up? Nine times out of ten, they call another company.

Another valuable metric is Average Handle Time, or how long agents tend to spend on each call. AHT can have an impact on ART, so the lower the handle time, the better. However, the quality of service should not be sacrificed either. Contact centers need to train agents to efficiently and effectively assist customers. Otherwise, even the lowest AHT will be meaningless.

Customers rely on contact centers to successfully resolve their problems as quickly as possible. This metric is known as First Call Resolution. The goal is to handle the issue the first time a customer calls, without transferring the call or requiring the customer to call back. FCR plays a large role in the customer experience, so contact centers should know the best ways to handle common questions and concerns. Yes, all companies want customers to return, but not because of an unresolved issue.

Agent churn is a huge problem for contact centers. Hiring and training can be a time consuming and costly process. Therefore, agent satisfaction is an important metric to track. Studies show that making sure agents are engaged and happy in their jobs goes a long way in reducing attrition rates. It also helps agents improve performance and offer a better customer experience. Agents are the lifeblood of contact centers; it’s imperative that companies recognize their value.

While other call center metrics are important, the most important metric to track is the customer satisfaction (CSAT) score. If the customer isn’t happy with the service they receive from the contact center, then everything else is pretty much futile. CSAT scores determine whether a customer will stay with a company or will take their business elsewhere. Therefore, the higher those scores are, the better.

There are many tools contact centers can use to track these metrics. Surveys at the end of calls can measure CSAT scores, automated call monitoring scorecards and call transcriptions can assess call quality (agent language, professionalism, courtesy, etc.) to help improve FCR and AHT rates, and finally, sentiment analysis can improve customer satisfaction to help assess KPIs and achieve peak contact center performance.