What Your Call Data Can Tell You

Data scientist is one of the hottest titles right now. U.S. companies will have an estimated 364,000 data science and analyst openings by 2020. Talent with big data, data science, and machine learning skills is reportedly the most challenging and costly for businesses to acquire. However, customer service and sales organizations don’t necessarily need to call on a data scientist to undercover valuable information about their businesses and customers. They can use available analytics platforms, call data, and a dose of business know-how to measure key metrics and spot noteworthy trends.

Looking at call data enables organizations to measure the number of outbound calls its workers are making. They can then better understand how the number of sales calls maps to the number of sales.

Call data can also reveal the number of missed calls to sales staff members. That can inform sales leaders whether they may need to increase staffing levels.

Businesses can also look to call data to understand the duration of calls and their likely outcome. For example, a very short call probably went to voicemail. Learning when voicemail incidents are high can help a business decide when email might be the more effective form of outreach.

Organizations can also pair unique inbound call data with CRM or ticketing system information to better understand the extent to which their workers are resolving support issues in a single call.

Call data also assists business in segmenting call types. That can help them establish and track key performance indicators. Segments might include inbound vs. outbound calls, inbound calls answered vs. missed, missed calls vs. calls answered by voicemail, toll-free numbers vs. international calls, and voicemails received vs. callers who hang up before leaving a message. Running reports also can help businesses spot trends and make performance comparisons between agents, locations, and specific blocks of time.

Edited by Maurice Nagle