12 Tips to Improve your Contact Centre Metrics

We asked our readers for tips to improve contact centre metrics.

1.    Ask a better question for Customer Effort

One way to measure customer effort is to ask “Did you get more out of your call with us today than you expected? 1 = Yes, 2 = No” on a post-call survey.

A quick and simple way to capture feedback.

With thanks to Alex

2.    Simplicity is best: use just two measurements

Simplicity is best, as everyone understands what is going on.

How about we start from the basics? A KPI for happy customers and a KPI for happy employees!

With thanks to Dougie

3.    Don’t just keep churning statistics

Don’t just keep churning statistics otherwise you’ll end up with “paralysis of analysis” – engage everyone and “live” the action plans.

With thanks to Scott

4.    Avoid micro-managing operational metrics

An engaged employee will have a better chance of satisfying a customer.

Micro-managing operational metrics disempowers and disengages your front-line employees and makes them less likely to care.

With thanks to Dougie

5.    Use the agent’s own voice on the post-call survey

If the agent’s own voice is used on the post-call survey, it personalises the experience.

Any negative feedback can then be addressed by the agent.

With thanks to Lesley

6.    Make sure you can use the data effectively

Don’t underestimate the amount of data you will be able to obtain.

Make sure you have the capability to do something effective with it.

With thanks to Phil

7.    Get everyone involved in customer improvement meetings

Have quarterly customer improvements meetings with all areas of the business involved (i.e. representatives from finance, HR and operational staff) to drive out new ideas to present to the customer.

With thanks to Danny

8.    Use the Gallup 12 questions to measure employee engagement

Researchers have found that there are 12 key expectations, that when satisfied, form the foundation of strong feelings of engagement.

The Gallup 12 questions is a brilliant way to see how you compare not just to the rest of the business but the rest of the industry.

With thanks to Phil

9.     Make sure that objectives are relevant to customers

So many companies still think inside-out.

We need to think outside-in and make sure that objectives are relevant to customers.

This is exactly why the KPI pyramid works.

With thanks to Dougie and Phil

10.     There’s nothing more powerful than getting real-time feedback

There’s nothing more powerful than getting real-time feedback and hearing how you impacted the customer’s experience.

I’ve managed a department where the advisors received the customer survey feedback in real time – they could hear the customer’s comments left on the auto survey system.

We delivered this at the same time as stripping out all standard KPIs (meaning that C-Sat was their only remaining measure of success) and noticed a massive positive impact.

With thanks to Lesley

11.     Hold sessions with your team about making improvements

I used to hold quarterly sessions with my team to ask what we could do to improve and what they would put on each question.

We then made the team responsible for making the changes that we could do, as it shows that we do listen, but that people also need to take responsibility.

With thanks to Phil

12.     Everyone should communicate the same metric definition

Everyone should communicate the same metric definition and goal, from boardroom executives to front-liners.

This is to ensure that the whole team is consistent in their understanding of their goals and what they need to improve.

With thanks to Leslie

Want to find out more? Watch a free replay of our The best metrics for your contact centre webinar.

Do you have any suggestions on how to improve metrics in the contact centre?