Putting the “Key” Back in KPI

Scott Budding at Calabrio explores how contact centres can cut through KPI overload to identify the metrics that truly matter.

All contact centres, like every other business, track key performance indicators (KPIs). They are essential for measuring the performance and health of an organisation and tracking its progress towards strategic goals.

Many KPIs also help monitor customer satisfaction and the success of new technology, enabling weak points to be identified and issues to be resolved efficiently.

The metrics that each contact centre measure differs between every organisation, but research suggests that the same mistakes are being made across the board.

Calabrio’s recent State of the Contact Centre report revealed that contact centres globally are failing to prioritise their most important KPIs.

In fact, it found that when contact centre leaders were asked about their KPIs, 16 were ranked remarkably similar in priority, with only a 5% difference separating the top and lowest rated.

An insight into contact centre KPIs

The research shows that there are numerous pillars of success for contact centres, ranging from customer and agent experience to operational productivity and return on investment for new technology.

Yet, by choosing to measure everything, contact centres are failing to focus on their top priorities, which can complicate decision-making and hinder progress towards strategic goals.

Upon closer examination of the results, the top-rated KPIs were Quality Management Score and Loyalty/Churn Propensity (86%), closely followed by Customer Effort Score (85%).

This suggests that customer experience remains a top priority. That’s perhaps not surprising as the essence of the contact centre is to support customers, resolve their problems and answer their questions.

Measuring KPIs to ensure that customers are satisfied and receiving excellent service is, therefore, crucial for all contact centres.

Yet, to provide great customer service, agent experience is also essential. Happy, motivated, and engaged agents are brand ambassadors who work hard to resolve customer issues efficiently and deliver the best possible experience.

As such, KPIs measuring agent experience and performance are ranked highly by contact centre managers. These include Engagement and Wellbeing Scores (82%) and Schedule Adherence (81%).

Traditional operational KPIs also provide insight into both customer and agent experience. Such metrics, including Average Handle Time (84%) and First Contact Resolution (83%), continue to rank highly.

These reveal when customer issues take too long or require multiple interactions to resolve, giving insight into agent abilities and showing how likely customers are to feel frustrated with the service.

By monitoring these KPIs, contact centre leaders can identify areas for improvement among agents and schedule training or coaching sessions to enhance the service provided.

However, the research also found that the most common contact centre success metrics are evolving beyond traditional efficiency KPIs.

We are starting to see AI-focused metrics emerge – the leading ones being BOT experience score (82%), BOT automation score, and BOT containment rate (81%).

This highlights a positive trend that contact centres are not simply implementing AI and assuming it is working, as many businesses initially did. Today’s contact centre leaders recognise the importance of monitoring and managing their AI.

This ensures that it is performing as intended, helping customers effectively, and not escalating unnecessary interactions to human agents, providing a good customer experience.

Seeing The Forest For The Trees

This mix of highly rated KPIs emphasises the complexity of contact centre operations. The constant juggling of different areas makes it challenging to identify a select few priority KPIs. But over measuring and monitoring makes it difficult to see the forest for the trees.

Whilst each organisation is different and there is no one-size-fits-all approach, the top priority must align with what is important for that specific contact centre and the areas that fundamentally help the organisation achieve their strategic goals.

This is not to say that contact centres should abandon the other areas but differentiating between performance indicators (PIs) and KPIs is important to maintain focus and identify true priorities.

This can be achieved by determining those that support the organisation’s core goals and are reported to the board.

PIs can continue to be monitored, but this differentiation prevents managers from being overwhelmed with too many metrics to report and be measured on.

However, these don’t have to be static and should be regularly reviewed to ensure they are truly the key metrics that drive your desired business outcomes.

Ultimately, by prioritising a handful of the most important KPIs, contact centres can be confident that they are effectively driving performance, customer loyalty, and agent engagement to meet their strategic goals and maintain a happy customer base.

For more information about Calabrio - visit the Calabrio Website

Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.

Author: Calabrio
Reviewed by: Rachael Trickey