Contact Centre's typically focus on transactional metrics that measure cost and efficiency, such as average call handling time and serice level response time. While there is value in knowing these metrics, the way that Contact Centres are evolving calls for a fresh approach to measurement.
The increasingly complex nature of customer enquiries (coupled with growing customer expectations), means that understanding the type of customer calls, first call resolution and insights from free-flow verbatim feedback are becoming more important.
Here are four Contact Centre metrics to consider when looking to understand what’s really going on and get further insight into what’s really happening with your customers
#1 Types of calls - understanding the nature of customer enquiries
Knowing the reasons why customers call will help you to understand whether the Contact Centre is the best place for these enquiries to be handled. For example, are customers calling because they couldn’t find the answer on your website? Or are they calling because they’re not sure what time the engineer is due to come round? For these types of transactional calls, the information could be handled more efficiently on FAQs or through proactive comms solutions.
#2 Staff attrition - what can be done to improve employee engagement
High staff attrition can be a real problem in Contact Centre environments. The related complications from this lead to high recruitment costs and poorer overall performance.
While it’s natural that people will move on to other jobs, knowing why they left can help you to spot trends. For example, if low job satisfaction is a recurring problem, then working to solve this could help to decrease staff attrition. This will then have the knock-on effect of reducing recruitment and training costs, while also improving the overall experience levels in the team.
#3 First call resolution - getting to the right answer first time
When customers call with an enquiry, they’ll want it sorted as soon as possible. Having a high first call resolution rate can look really good, as it means you’re solving for the customers at the first touchpoint.
Sometimes, however, it can be indicative of inbound calls that should be handled more effectively through other channels. Connecting this metric point with the type of call data will help uncover whether or not this is the case.
#4 Customer churn - what are the reasons behind why your customers leave
Like staff attrition, customer churn can be an expensive problem for a business. But, just having the churn rate isn’t enough, as it doesn’t explain why customers are leaving. To add value to this metric, it’s vital to understand what motivated a customer to leave.
Though, strictly speaking, not a pure Contact Centre metric, understanding the reasons behind customer churn and analysing these in the Contact Centre environment can help you to uncover problems that are costing you customers.
If you're ready for fresh approach to measuring Customer Experience, download our guide to Measuring Customer Experience will give you the inside scoop:
