Call Center KPI

I have been talking with several of my customers in the retail sector. The main issue dominating their activities is customer retention. Everybody knows that it is more difficult to snatch a customer from the competition than to retain a good customer. This is even more critical under challenging economic times. Thus, effective inventory optimization, turning the Call Center into a revenue center to address customer needs and/or increasing the quality of customer service at the Call Center play a role in effective customer retention.

Today’s Call Centers have some of the world’s leading technologies at their fingertips. Such technologies provide Call Centers with the tools necessary to store valuable information regarding both, their clients and centers alike. Despite all the data that Call Center managers have at their fingertips, most cannot answer a very basic question: How is my Call Center performing today? Perhaps worse, many Call Center managers are unaware of the critical role that Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can and should play in the Call Center. This includes the ability to track and trend performance, identify, diagnose, and correct performance problems, and to establish performance goals and assign accountability for achieving the goals. Luckily, most of the KPIs have simple ways of being tracked such as: Amount of customers calling in, Amount of calls on hold for less than 20 seconds, etc. However, there are some KPIs that there are currently no known ways of measuring with the data that Call Centers have.
One such KPI is the First Call Resolution (FCR). FCR is the term used to describe a call (either a phone call or store visit) which has been successfully resolved the first time around. This is arguably one of the most important KPIs because it allows managers to see how effective their Call Center is working by showing how well individual agents are performing and what issues are the most difficult to solve. This means that if the customer calls back to inquire about the same issue, that previous call was not a FCR. Since this is such an important term of measurement then one may ask, “Why hasn’t this KPI been focused on more by today’s leading technologies?” The short answer is because it is very difficult to determine what defines a resolved call as a FCR and even more difficult to determine the window for a customer to have to call back in order to revert a previously considered resolved call. This window, of course, is a subjective number based on what specific Call Centers believe a reasonable amount of time for a customer to call back is. This monitoring increases the quality of the service and consequently customer retention.
While having access to all of this information is great for the company, being able to quickly glance at the information and know how you’re performing is even more important. To improve the use of our FCR solution, a visual Dashboard which allows the management of the Call Centers to monitor how efficient they are running. One quick glance at this Dashboard informs management:

· How well different regions are performing
· Who are the agents that are resolving the least amount of calls
· What are the top reasons which show the most non-FCRs
· Which clients have been affected by non FCRs the most
· Along with detailed information about the clients and
· The agents that they worked with.

A good Dashboard uses a web-based infrastructure which easily allows clients to remotely connect to a web page and view how well they are performing! All the clients have to do is open a web browser and input the web address for their company’s Dashboard and they will have all the information that they need to make quick and easy observations to assess how efficient their call center is functioning and take appropriate action.

Another activity -- to manage their businesses in these tough environments, online retailers have to cut back on their inventories. Retailers will reduce planned inventory purchases in 2008, and, those who have them, close stores, – Optimizing inventories will be a key to work with diminishing numbers of customers..

The other angle of this crisis is to increase revenue.. One way is to use call centers in a more effective way. Management has figured out that every time a call center rep interacts with the customer is an opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell products to their customer. Is it worth asking a couple of non-intrusive questions to your customer and generate additional sales?

In summary -- recessions eliminate weaker players. whoever has strong analytical engines to provide accurate information will have a strategic advantages over those shooting from the hip. the difference is survival.

Next -- How to turn your call center from a cost center into a profit center...