Choose Wisely When Deciding What Call Center KPIs to Measure

If you wanted to make an oak table, would you measure a piece of maple or pine? Of course, you wouldn’t. And you shouldn’t focus your efforts measuring call center metrics that don’t apply to your goals either.

Yet many organizations measure certain call center-related behaviors. Yet, if you ask them why, they aren’t sure why they have chosen those particular metrics on which to focus.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m all for measuring call center behaviors, metrics, and performance. As they say, what gets measured gets done – and can be improved.

But organizations that invest the time and money in measuring things should do so with a firm grasp on why they’re doing so. And, while they shouldn’t jump to conclusions on what they’ll learn, they should measure with some goal or goals in mind. That’s what quality monitoring is all about – measuring and then improving.

As call centers create, or assess and recreate, their call recording and quality monitoring efforts, they should ensure what they’re measuring and analyzing aligns with their business, call center, and customer experience goals.

Recording and monitoring calls can help them do that. These records gives call center managers the tools and understanding of how they can best train and support their agents, and improve processes. But to be effective, call center managers need to know what behaviors and metrics their organizations place the most value on – is it answering calls within a set window of time (and, if so, how much time and when does the clock start ticking), achieving first-call resolution (and, if so, for what percentage of calls), or improving customer experience and loyalty (and, if so, what KPIs map to that and can will you be measuring improvement?).

Edited by Maurice Nagle

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