Call centers serve as the front line of most businesses. For this reason, call centers are required to be closely monitored to determine their efficiency in providing service and support to customers. Outsourced call center utilizes information systems that help in monitoring the performance of the customer support contact center and their agents in real time. Call center metrics, as well as key performance indicators, are carefully monitored to evaluate the efficiency of service delivery.
Since call centers are the most common services being outsourced nowadays, it is important to evaluate their performance for a company to learn if they are investing in the right customer support contact center. Call centers are connected to almost every department of a company since they serve as a key customer touch point. What happens in the call center has an impact on a company's brand so it pays to get a closer look at your company's inbound contact center performance.
Call center managers have the ability to monitor a call center when it comes to its performance, set key performance indicators or KPI metrics, and quality. Performance issues which are metrics that involve how quickly a caller can reach a call center and how fast they can reach an agent, the speed of the call resolution and the average time a caller has to wait when put on hold during a call are measured by an Automatic Call Distributor. Quality issues which involve set KPI metrics that assess the agent's courtesy and ability to follow procedures, on the other hand, are measured by call center quality monitoring programs which usually involves monitoring by people rather than a software.
To give you an overview of the things that are included in the performance reports of an inbound contact center, here are the most common metrics for inbound customer service performance which are centered on the quality of customer experience.
Service Level
Service level is the percentage of calls received by the center which is answered by an agent within a certain time frame. This measures your organization's accessibility to your customers. The global metric for service level is 80% of calls answered in 20 seconds. Service level is the most common benchmark for measuring the level of service that a call center provides its customers.
Average Speed to Answer
This benchmark measures the average number of calls including those that are not answered within 20 seconds. The global metric for this is 28 seconds. It is advisable to employ additional staff if this metric is high to maintain customer satisfaction.
Abandon Rate
Abandon rate measures the number of calls that are abandoned while the customer is waiting for an agent.
Aside from the average wait time in queue, there are other factors that cannot be controlled by the call center that affects this number, such as time of day, individual caller tolerance, availability of service alternatives, and many others.
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance monitors the overall caller experience and the way the agent handled the inbound customer service calls. Quality scores are typically measured over between 5 and 10 calls per agent per month and assess agents’ communication skills, etiquette, and adherence to procedures like workflow processes or call scripts.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is a significant benchmark. It measures the average of callers that are satisfied with your inbound customer service experience. Customer satisfaction is monitored through several methods but the most common ones are post-call surveys and follow-up emails.
You shouldn't be afraid of leveraging customer service outsourcing in your business since there are ways for you to monitor the efficiency of services rendered to your customers. The key to a successful outsourced call center is closely monitoring their performance so you can get the most out of the service you are paying for.
