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Short-Term Versus Long-Term Metrics in the Contact Center

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Short-Term Versus Long-Term Metrics in the Contact Center

July 15, 2016

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By Tracey E. Schelmetic,
TMCnet Contributor
 


Is your contact center successful? It should be an easy question to answer: after all, you probably have a collection of metrics you track. Chances are also good you’re tracking the wrong metrics.

For many companies, the definition of a “successful” contact center is one that keeps costs down and communicates with as many customers a day with the minimum manpower possible. For this reason, average handle time (AHT) is the most tracked metric.


The problem is…you don’t run a contact center for the sake of the company. You run a contact center for the sake of customers, so how, exactly, does short average handle time benefit customers? If they’re being rushed off the phones by agents keen to keep calls short, they’re just going to call back again, or send an email, or post a bad review of your company or share their negative experience on social media. Is that a “good” outcome?

Instead, consider throwing out AHT (or moving it to the bottom of the list), and focus on metrics that reflect the customer experience, such as time in queue (customers hate to wait on hold), abandon rates, or service levels (the percentage of calls answered within a pre-set number of seconds). While of course average handle time can also reflect customer satisfaction in some ways (nobody wants a dithering agent who takes ages to answer a question), it can also mask poor customer service.

According to Tom Martin, CEO of Glance Networks writing for Business2Community, AHT – which is often broken into two parts, average talk time (ATT) and after-call work (ACW) -- puts the company requirement before the customer needs.

“Customers who contact the customer service department don’t care if a call takes five minutes or six. They just want their issues resolved,” he wrote. “It is not uncommon for agents rated on ACW to cut off or transfer customers that might skew their results (for example, people with more complex issues who requires longer conversations). If conversations end without issues being resolved, there are often callbacks from the same customers about the same issues.”

Many companies today have changed their most important metric from average handle time to first-call resolution (FCR), or the percentage of calls that were handled in one contact. This metric gives agents the impetus they need to raise their quality standards and work harder to resolve the customers’ issues. In other words, it makes them “own” the customers’ issues.

“Agents can take the time they need to properly answer customer questions, which increases customer satisfaction,” wrote Martin. “Even better, happy customers are often more open to upsells than those who have to call multiple times with the same question. In addition, resolving issues the first time customers call increases customer loyalty. Why is this important? It’s all about customer retention. The cost of acquiring a new customer is about 10 times the cost of keeping an existing customer.”

The drawback of FCR, however, is that it’s a lot harder to calculate than average handle time. It becomes even more complex if you take into account more contact points than just phone calls, yet if you don’t, your KPI is not entirely accurate, according to Martin. In addition, pursuing FCR will very probably make your average handle time go up, so if anyone in the executive layer is focused AHT as a metric for success, you’ll need to prepare him or her. Emphasize that it means quality is improving, and along with that will come increases in revenue. You may need to make some adjustments in your workforce optimization software.

“AHT can provide short-term savings to an organization,” wrote Martin. “Creating an atmosphere of positive customer experiences, on the other hand, provides long-term gains: happier customers, deeper customer loyalty, positive online reviews, greater opportunities for upsells, and more.”




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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