There are numerous ways to determine how well the agents in your inbound call center are performing. Depending on the nature of your business, you may be able to measure how they are doing simply by looking at sales numbers. But if not, there are other metrics to consider that will illustrate whether or not you are meeting the needs of your customers. Here are three and what they can tell you about the performance of your call center.

First Call Resolution

 

First Call Resolution essentially means whether or not a caller is able to resolve their issue within the first call they make to the call center. This is the hope of virtually every caller to an inbound call center: they want to hang up the phone having received an acceptable solution to their problem. Not only is this the optimal situation for the caller, but it is also the ideal situation for your company from a business standpoint. First Call Resolution will show how efficiently your call center is operating both personnel-wise (whether you have the correct number of agents working at any given time) and performance-wise (whether all of your agents are performing at the expected levels).

How can you measure First Call Resolution? You can easily have agents report whether or not an issue was resolved at the end of a call before they move on to the next one. You can also listen to call recordings when completing QA reports to see how calls end, plus how agents handle issues that they are unable to resolve over the course of a call.

Mid-Call Pauses

 

Breaks during a call can be incredibly frustrating for callers. Especially if they’ve already needed to wait on hold before reaching an agent, being put back on hold mid-call—whether that’s so the agent can transfer them to a supervisor or another department, look up more information about their inquiry or figure out how to proceed with an angry or stubborn customer—immediately lowers customer satisfaction. In many cases, these mid-call pauses also result in lower First Call Resolution and therefore lower success metrics for your call center.

While some mid-call pauses can’t be avoided, utilizing call recordings and reporting tools to determine when and why they are happening most frequently may reveal ways to limit them, such as arming your agents with the skills to handle more types of inquiries or using tools in the dialer that allow them to communicate with supervisors while still on with the customer, potentially avoiding a transfer.

Speed of Answer

 

The only thing more frustrating for callers than holds and pauses in the middle of a call may be waiting on hold for an extended period to reach an agent in the first place. Add in circumstances where the estimated hold time isn’t given or the IVR is difficult to navigate and agents are significantly behind the eight ball before they even get on the line with a customer, drastically reducing their chances of having a productive and successful interaction. Simply put, the faster calls are answered (and the smoother the process for the caller of reaching an agent), the more successful your call center is going to be.

Speed of answer is a very simple metric to measure and can be tracked live during calls and on reports. Indeed, having easy-to-use and detailing reporting mechanisms built into your call center software, like those available with CallShaper, is essential to the success of your call center. To learn more about them, contact us today.