Comparing how long agents have been on the phone is the oldest metric in the call centre book.
We display it on wallboards for everyone to see.
Julia has answered more calls than Muhammed today. Michael has spent more minutes on the phone this week than the two of them combined.
But what does this really tell you as a business? That specific people are quick at answering the phone and some sit on the phone having a natter.
Of course, there is some business sense to using call time as a metric. Filtering total calls, answered calls, tracking where they came from, and how many were unique helps us learn about our businesses.
The problem with call time contact centre metrics
Time-based metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) encourage agents to focus on quantity over quality.
Max Sanna, Head of User Experience at MediaMarktSaturn, says that, “Focusing only on how fast the resolution was doesn't give you the full picture. Instead, we use direct feedback post ticket resolution and sub-metrics like how many times the ticket was reassigned to different agents. We're big fans of Happy Signals, as it gives us the full picture on how users really feel about their tickets resolution and how much time they wasted waiting for their issue to be resolved'.”
If your gamification and reward efforts are focused on the number of calls taken or talk time, agents will respond accordingly.
To get the monthly bonus, they might start rushing through call scripts to speed up the call so they can answer the next one.
Likewise, it’s not uncommon for agents to put calls on hold to rack up minutes and game the system.
“I had fallen behind with the number of tracked calls and knew this was how management tracked performance. I called my mobile, put the call on hold, and racked up as much call time while I worked through my workstack.”
- Vincent Gilbert, former technical support agent.
If it’s that easy to game the system, there’s a problem with the metric.
Dom Black, Research Director at Cavell, says that, “First contact resolution, call response times, and customer satisfaction are the top three most important contact centre metrics, according to our customer experience report. Average handle time has dropped to the second least important thanks to basic queries being handled by self-service tools. Agents can now focus on quality rather than speed.”
Instead of focusing purely on call time, add these KPIs to your dashboard…
1 - Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
Tracking customer satisfaction (CSAT) requires the conducting of surveys with specific questions about your business’ support.
The higher your CSAT score, the better the customer experience you're delivering.
When creating your survey, use multiple choice scores of:
- Very satisfied
- Satisfied
- Not satisfied
- Very dissatisfied
Or use a sliding scale of 1-5, with 4 and 5 being satisfied and very satisfied.
When you have all responses, reach your CSAT score by dividing the number of satisfied customers by the total number of customers (and multiplying by 100).
Your score will range from 0 to 100.
According to the Klaus Customer Service Quality Benchmark Report, the CSAT benchmark is 85%.
If your score is under this, you know there are issues to be remedied in your business or contact centre.
In your survey, include a section for customers to add freehand comments. Ask for their permission to reach out so you can learn more about their poor experience.
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
- Bill Gates, Microsoft.
When agents know this is one of the measures you’re tracking, they’ll do more to support customers, instead of simply focusing on answering calls.
2 - Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a metric gained by asking your customers one simple question after a specific interaction:
“On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our company to your friends and peers?”
When you receive all scores, you can classify them into the following categories:
- 9-10: Promoters
- 7-8: Passives
- 0-6: Detractors
To calculate your NPS, divide the number of promoters by the total number of customers, and do the same for the number of detractors.
Then minus the detractors figure from the promoters figure. Your score will be out of 100 (and could be a minus figure).
A positive score is deemed as good. This means you have more promoters than detractors.
Bain & Company, the creator of the NPS metric, suggests the following grading:
- Good: 0+
- Favourable: 20+
- Excellent: 50+
- Word class: 80+
Like CSAT, when agents know NPS is one of your KPIs, they’ll be as productive and efficient as possible to satisfy a customer’s query.
3 - First contact resolution (FCR)
The problem with call time is that it doesn't account for how many times a customer calls you to remedy their problem. This leads to agents finishing calls to look productive and get ready to answer the next call.
First contact resolution (sometimes called first call resolution in call centers that don’t offer digital channels for contact) measures how frequently customers' issues get resolved the first time they interact with your business.
This is important as it removes the reliance on number of calls as a positive metric and displays how productive agents are per call.
Calculate your FCR by dividing the number of customer issues resolved first time by your total number of issues (and multiplying by 100).
A “good” FCR rate is above 70%. This signifies that only 30% of your customers have to call back a second time for extra help with their query.
4 - Call abandonment rate
Measuring the number of abandoned calls shows how often agents are tied up with other calls.
This denotes one of three things:
- Agents aren’t as productive as they need to be to deal with demand
- Your call center is understaffed
- You lack self-service options
Find your call abandonment rate by subtracting your number of calls handled from your number of calls received then dividing that by your number of calls received (and multiplying by 100).
2% is considered a “good” call abandonment rate. This shows that 98% of your customers reach an agent when they call you and indicates a productive call center.
Note: The same logic applies to web chats. If a customer is kept waiting too long, they’re likely to abandon the web chat. This delay might even trigger a call.
5 - Agent utilisation rate
Measuring how well you’re using agents is the ultimate productivity metric. It covers both your forecasting accuracy and the use of agents’ time.
It measures the percentage of logged-in time call spend handling customer queries during a given time period. When comparing agents, you can see who spends more time on calls versus other activities.
When you have this figure, you can investigate why some agents have lower utilisation rates.
It may be they spent more time in training one week. They might need help with certain types of queries and sought help after a call instead of becoming immediately available again.
To calculate agent utilisation rate, multiply the average number of calls handed by the average time of handled calls. Then divide this figure by the total number of designated work hours. Multiply this by 100 to get your agent utilisation rate.
Conclusion: call time isn’t the be-all and end-all of contact centre metrics
Vendors, analysts, and customers are coming around to the notion that quality is a superior metric than quantity.
But there will always be the need to measure who turns up to work, how much of their day is spent dealing with customers, and where time is wasted.
For a genuine measure of productivity, however, it takes a combination of quality metrics (CSAT, NPS, etc.) and quantity metrics (call abandonment rate, agent utilisation rate etc.).
The good news is that most contact centre solutions support these metrics as standard. So there’s no need for you to calculate these manually.
When preparing your next contact centre report, make sure you strike a balance between the two. Otherwise, you may find yourself talking about numbers rather than outcomes.