Virtual Call Center

Good stuff from the Contactual (News - Alert) blog , offering five customer satisfaction benchmarks.

As well as a word of friendly advice: “Before determining the most important metrics for your callcenter, ask yourself a few questions. Who are the metrics for? What do you value the most in an organization?”

Their point is that if your organization doesn’t define what your foundation metrics are, then you don’t really know the core principles of your call center. These five aren’t offered in a cookbook approach, max out on these and you’re golden, but as five metrics you need to place in your own prioritization, with clear ties to your goals.

Average Handling Time. An integrated, on-demand CRM can have a dramatic effect on your AHT. For example, screen pop functionality helps call center agents improve productivity and reduce AHT while increasing satisfaction.

Average Speed of Answer. No one likes being on hold -- you know you don’t, nobody else does either. The faster customers’ calls are answered, the happier they are. Improve ASA with better queue management and simplifying your IVR.

Abandonment Rate. Customers abandoning calls to you because they’re waiting too long one day are customers abandoning you the next. Abandonment rate is a function of a variety of factors including customers’ tolerance levels, level of competition, and human behavior.

IVR Completion Rate. “f you think your customers don’t like being on hold, ask them how they feel about being made to navigate a complex maze of IVR -- then duck). Simplifying your IVR structure not only increases customer satisfaction, it simplifies IVR management itself.”

First Call Resolution. Okay, this one applies pretty much across the board: “Nail this metric and you can’t help but drive the cost-per-incident down. The beauty of FCR is that you reduce the cost per incident by at least 50 percent every time you manage to implement it successfully.”