Workforce Management Featured Article
Are You Measuring the Right Metrics or the Wrong Metrics in the Contact Center?
Every contact center tracks some kind of metric, measuring performance and matching it up against historical norms. Some contact centers track far more metrics than others, but most of them keep an eye on what used to be considered the most important: average handle time, or AHT.
Average handle time, in theory, told companies how hard their agents were working, how productive they were, and how many more calls they could potentially squeeze into the average shift. The problem with average handle time, however, is it’s not a quality measurement. In fact, it’s often counter-productive to quality, according to Impact Learning’s John Castaldi.
“It is important to track how many tickets are handled; how many cases are closed – valid quantitative measures,” wrote Castaldi. “However… revenue growth and customer retention are triggered by customer satisfaction – a quality measure.”
If agents are so pressured to keep call times short, chances are good they are hanging up on customers before they have completely finished servicing that customer. Was the problem resolved to the customer’s satisfaction? Did the customer have any additional questions? Did the customer understand the information the agent provided? If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” chances are good the customer will call back again. Chances are also very good that the customer relationship will be somewhat damaged.
It’s much better, therefore, to use a metric like first-call resolution. When an agent follows the right procedure to make the customer happy, tie up loose ends and ensure the issue is resolved, it might take a little longer. But it will boost quality in a way that nothing else could.
“What gets measured gets done,” wrote Castaldi. “Of course, we're not the first to cite this. What can happen is that we measure OLD behaviors, or worse, the WRONG behaviors. We put posters up about the importance of customer service, we launch internal marketing campaigns, we set “customer service” as a corporate value, and we even have customer satisfaction contests and customer service training. However, all can be a waste of time and effort if we continue to measure and recognize the wrong behavior.”
To avoid falling into “average handle time mania,” ask yourself: does this metric do anything for the customer, or just the contact center? Will it boost customer engagement? Will it make the customer likely to make a future purchase? The answers to these questions are truly the only ones that matter. While no one is suggesting you shouldn’t streamline procedures by integrating databases and consolidating agent desktops for example, cutting down the time of transactions at the expense of customer relationships is most definitely the wrong approach.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi