Newsletters

Customer Support:   (972) 395-3225

Home

Articles, News, Announcements - click Main News Page
Previous Story       Next Story
    
Forget Me, Forget Me Not: Understanding the Metrics of Successful Contact Centers

by Matt Lautz, President, CorvisaCloud - December 31, 2014

Forget Me, Forget Me Not: Understanding the Metrics of Successful Contact Centers

By Matt Lautz, President of CorvisaCloud

When you have a negative customer service experience, who do you blame? We nearly always blame the customer service rep or call center agent, yet our frustrations are rarely their fault. While the inbound contact center agent is the first point of contact for customers, it is up to the organization they represent to place them in a position to succeed - which also drives the success of the overall business.

Understanding the impact customer service has on a business’s bottom line is half the battle in establishing an exceptional customer service department. The other half is to set the stage for successful agent training and positive customer interactions. To begin, each company needs to define customer success in the context of their business goals such as increasing sales, winning repeat business, or reducing service claims. Once the customer success objectives are established, organizations need to look at their contact center metrics and activities with new eyes and consider them in light of how those measurements help them achieve their goals.

Ever-changing worldwide events such as polar vortexes and sophisticated hacking have global companies scrambling to meet new challenges, deliver on increased customer expectations and prepare their contact centers for any potential disaster, which means traditional contact center metrics are changing as well. Looking specifically at an inbound service center, here are some “old school” metrics you may not need to dwell on anymore and some others to embrace that will help you to provide optimal service in any circumstance.

Forget Me:

1. Average talk time: You will find this metric in most customer service contact center plans as it is a fast and easy means of measuring efficiency for an agent taking inbound service calls (for example: the quicker the first call wraps up, the sooner the agent can take another call). However, looking at speed alone is outdated since the length of the call doesn’t tell you anything about the quality or outcome of the call. A short call can sometimes be a short-term success; however long-term success is often achieved when an agent takes time to explain a situation thoroughly to a customer or really address their concerns with care, which leads to a better customer experience with fewer call-backs and potentially more rave reviews.

2. Abandon rate: Looked at on its own, abandon rate simply doesn’t always tell the whole picture. In order to accurately gauge the performance of a customer service agent many external factors that can affect the abandon rate numbers need to be considered as well (for example: how long customers wait; the information they’ve received in prior calls; time of day; etc.) Efficient software can paint a more holistic picture of how these pieces fit together and give management the ability to analyze call patterns or drill into individual calls. The results yield invaluable insight that management can pass along to agents in order to assure such high quality calls that people won’t mind waiting a bit.

Forget Me Not:

1. Average hold time: As mentioned previously, in today’s customer service center it is more important to focus on the quality of the call rather than average talk time, but no matter what, inbound contact centers always want to limit hold time. According to a study by Zogby Analytics, 31 percent of consumers will only wait on hold for five minutes before hanging up, meaning five minutes can make or break a relationship with your customer. But once again, the measurement needs to go beyond simple quantifiable data. Don’t simply ask, “What is our average hold time?” but rather “How do our hold times impact our business?” and “What does that mean in terms of revenue losses, customer retention, market perception or other goals?” Consider Target’s recent breach of 110 million customers’ sensitive information: StellaService found wait times skyrocketed to 20 minutes and in several instances customers were disconnected from the line mid-call. As a result, Target’s brand has taken punch after punch, and the contact center situation is only making those hits harder. Mitigating frustrations when large call volume hits might be as simple as changing call flows or giving callers the option to get a callback but understanding the impact to your business will help guide the path to the best solution.

2. Transfer rate: From the same Zogby Analytics study, 14 percent of customers are most aggravated by being transferred to multiple agents during one call. While it can be hard to avoid transferring calls, try to keep the number of transfers to one – or better yet, train your agents to take ownership of the call and get the information from another party directly on behalf of the customer. Start by tapping into your software and call dispositions to dissect what is causing calls to be redirected. Then, use the combined information to make improvements whether that means adjusting your IVR queues to route calls in ways that correctly address your customers’ most common questions the first time, or educating your agents so they develop the skills needed to answer tough questions.

3. Employee satisfaction scores: It is painfully obvious to customers if your employees are unhappy. As such, your employees’ satisfaction is one of the most important criteria in evaluating the overall success of your contact center. Happy employees will spread the love, while the reverse can be true for unhappy employees. Make sure you have the pulse of your workforce’s satisfaction by soliciting and analyzing employee feedback via surveys (specific to your department) and management check-ins. Solutions to boost employee morale might be as simple as flexible scheduling, better tools or more frequent training.

4. First call resolution: Always, always take the time to resolve a customer issue the first time— no matter how long it takes. Often angry customers will call back and if they’re spending time to re-describe the same issue, they’re probably tacking on additional time to vent their frustrations. To ensure first-call customer satisfaction, arm your customer service agents with the knowledge, technology and tools they need to succeed.

New challenges are arising within today’s business environment on a near weekly basis, so optimal performance in your customer service contact center is more important than ever before. Success for your contact center, as well as your overall business, begins with a comprehensive review of your current data, understanding how it support sand impacts your business’s broader goals, and putting the people and tools in place to analyze data in ways that will help you ensure the positive outcomes needed to meet your objectives.

To learn how to incorporate other key metrics, visit our blog.



Matt Lautz is the president of cloud-based contact center company CorvisaCloud, headquartered in Milwaukee, WI with offices in Chicago, IL.

With a ten year career in building and managing software companies, Matt started his first software development company at the age of 16 which grew into a software development and VoIP company where he served as CEO for over eight years. During his time as CEO, Matt led a team that managed customers in over 15 countries and processed over four million VoIP transactions per day. He also successfully led investment capital raises for more than 4.5 million dollars and orchestrated the acquisitions of two product lines.

Matt has been featured as an emerging business leader by BusinessWeek, Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal, along with multiple popular technology blogs.

 
Return to main news page