As a contact center, numbers are everything. Numbers are what you base your performance on, and is a perfect gauge to determine the future of your business. People with extensive managerial experiences know that having the right numbers on hand at all times is vital to their success.

Most organizations that end up failing face the same major obstacle: they focus on the wrong metrics and therefore are unaware of the numbers that do matter. Knowing these metrics can help you form a clearer picture for you, your customers, and everyone else involved in the business.

So what are the metrics you should be concerned about?

According to this report from Forbes, the following elements are essential to assessing the performance of your contact center. These Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are designed to simplify huge data into easily-identifiable and understandable chunks, and are easily accessible with Nautilus’ Contact Center Reporting Portal.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

This KPI is a set percentage that gauges the quality of service that you promised to deliver to your client. In a contact center perspective, this refers to the number of calls that you agreed to answer at any given time. For example, you could have an SLA to answer 75% of calls in less than 30 seconds after it comes in.

Keeping track of your SLA at all time is very important as it paints you a picture of how efficient your team is at their job. When your team is not hitting the SLA, it might be time to revisit their training and your staffing needs. You might not have enough agents on the phones to answer calls. The implications of the SLA are numerous and very important.

Answer Rate

This metric refers to the total number of calls answered against the total number of calls received. The importance of this measure cannot be understated as it is the one measure that really points out the efficiency of your contact center.

If your team is not answering enough calls, customers are likely to abandon the call only to call back at a later time. This wastes their time and causes them to be irate. Irate calls tend to be longer, and could possibly require assistance from a supervisor.

Abandoned Rate

This refers to calls that were abandoned before they were attended to. Hubspot reports that about 90% of customers think that immediate responses are very important to them. So when an initial attempt at getting resolution ends with them abandoning the call, this directly affects their customer satisfaction rating.

The abandon rate is something that you will be wise to keep low. It is basically a measure of how your business is not hitting its goals. And while it is impossible to completely eradicate abandoned calls, keeping it within close proximity of an acceptable threshold is key.

Average Talk Time

This measure is the total average length of each phone call answered by your team members. In other words, this is the amount of time your agents spend on each call. Ideally, this number should be kept low.

A low average talk time paints a picture of efficiency. When your agents are efficient at their jobs, they are offering quicker call resolutions and freeing themselves up to help more customers.

After Call Work (ACW)

In an ideal world, your agents immediately become available to help customers after every call. But this isn’t always the case, as there are some tasks that have to be handled in relation to previous interactions.

ACW refers to the amount of time that your agents spend off the phone after a call. During this period, they are likely to be leaving notes and other administrative tasks in relation to a customer’s inquiry. Keeping an eye on this metric is vital to knowing your agents’ efficiencies, and where you can possibly offer assistance.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

Most contact centers employ some solution that allows them to send surveys to customers they have assisted. Their response to the questions involved in those surveys gauge their overall customer service satisfaction, and therefore directly reflects the performance of the agent who handled their inquiry.

This method is a fantastic way to keep track of how well your agents are at their jobs as customer service representatives. If they show low CSAT scores it might be indicative of some lack in their training, some personal crisis, or low morale. These can be addressed in coaching sessions.

First Call Resolution

This is the ideal situation for any call/contact center. This is when a customer’s inquiry is resolved upon initial contact. This might be a little difficult to achieve when you don’t have the necessary tools and information needed.

Nautilus Reporting Portal

At Nautilus, we sell more than just a telephony software. We’re selling a customer journey that’s clear, detailed, and easy to understand. We know that the real challenge for any contact center business is seeing how their performance is doing, what they can coach their agents on, and how to improve their overall call distribution.

Whether you’re a new contact center or someone just new to cloud solutions, everything you need is right here. Our software is designed with all the tools and reports you need to manage, maximize, and elevate your business.

Conclusion

Running a contact center is not an easy job. There are customers to keep help, employees to keep happy, and numbers to keep track of. The interesting thing though is that all three things, when managed well, complement each other. The question is, where to begin?

With numbers. Numbers paint a picture, and they outline everything from the beginning of a customer interaction to how it ends. And in this age of focusing on customer success, knowing the complete picture is everything.

With Nautilus, you have the tools you need at the tip of your fingers. It’s only a matter of knowing what they are, where they are, and when you’ll need them.