Call Centre Metrics

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Call Centre Metrics and What They Mean to You

The largest cost in a contact centre is human resources; it is critical that the contact centre be managed effectively and seen as a strategic part of the business. What follows are the top ten contact centre metrics that will allow you to:
 
    * Manage your workforce
    * Control costs effectively
    * Continuously enhance the client experience
    * Ensure the contact centre is a contributor the overall profitability of an organization
 
1. Abandon Rate
 
Abandon rate is the number of calls that hang-up before connecting to an agent. This number does not include those calls that receive a busy signal.
 
Calculation: Abandoned Calls / Total Incoming calls
 
When analyzing your abandon rate, be aware that there are a small percentage of people who call the wrong number and hang-up once they hear your company name on the automated message (i.e.: "Thank you for calling premiercallcentre"). Typically these false abandon rates are calculated within the first 10 seconds and in most centres this can be between 1-2% of all total calls. This number may increase if a toll-free number is similar to another that receives high call volume.
 
Typically, abandon rates are linked to how fast call centre agents answer calls. The faster a call is answered, the lower the abandon rate. High abandon rates can result in lost sales opportunities and poor customer service. High abandon rates have the potential to artificially inflate future call volume as the initial customers who could not get through on the first call continue to call back until they reach an agent.
 
2. Average Talk Time (ATT) & After Call Work (ACW) & Average Handle Time(AHT)
 
Average-Talk-Time (ATT) is the average amount of time agents talk to customers. After-Call-Work (ACW) is the average amount of time an agent takes to wrap-up a call. Average Handle Time is the combination of both ATT and ACW.
 
Calculation: Average-Talk-Time + After-Call-Work
 
3. Adherence & Shrinkage
 
Adherence is defined as how closely an agent adheres to their schedule. Specifically how much time an agent is "working" compared to their paid time. This is a metric used to analyze individual staff performance.
 
Calculation: (AHT + Available Time*) / (Paid Hours – Paid Lunch)
* Available time is defined as the amount of time an agent is ready to take a call.
 
In this calculation, unpaid breaks are calculated into adherence which is why, unless an agent works through his/her breaks, it is impossible to achieve 100% adherence. The higher an agent’s adherence rate is the more productive they are being.
 
When analyzing an individual adherence rate, you must also consider how effective an agent is within a call itself. It is important to monitor the effectiveness of the agent within a call by looking at other metrics such as Call Quality / First Call Resolution and AHT.
 
Shrinkage is commonly referred to as off-line activities that contribute to additional time off the phones. It is critical to understand the shrinkage factor as it allows the Contact Centre to predict the base level of staff required to meet service levels. Understanding the base level of staff is also referred to as Rostered Staff Factor (RSF). Are shrinkage and RSF the same? No, not entirely. Shrinkage refers to how much loss there is between scheduled staff and base staff; RSF looks at how many staff need to be added to base staff. Below are activities that are considered in a Shrinkage factor.
 
    * Training
    * Coaching
    * Team meetings
    * Vacations
    * Unplanned absences (sick days)
 
4. Attendance & Punctuality
 
Attendance is defined as an agent showing up for work on their scheduled day. Punctuality is defined as an agent showing up on time for their shift as well as being on time after breaks and lunch.
 
5. Service Level & Average Speed of Answer (ASA)
 
Service level is usually defined as the percentage of calls answered within a predetermined number of seconds. If your service level target is 80/20, then you are striving to answer 80% of all calls within 20 seconds (or about 5-6 "rings"). The faster an agent answers a customer call, the higher service levels tend to be. Once your "seconds" target is established, you can report your service level as a percentage. There is no defined standard but many contact centres strive for 80/20 or 80/30 as their standard for tracking this metric. Answering calls too quickly can result in significant additional costs to the business (because of the significant labor costs required to meet very high service levels). Some centres are able to operate at 70/40 based on business needs and client expectations. It is important that this metric remain fluid, based on customer type, call type, campaign, and competitive landscape.
 
6. First Call Resolution
 
First Call Resolution (FCR) is a relatively new metric to the contact centre industry. FCR measures the percentage of customer issued calls that are resolved the first time.
 
Calculation: Number of FCR calls / Total Number of Calls
 
The difficulty is defining what a successful FCR is when millions of calls are arriving in your contact centre. It is a challenge to effectively track whether a customer has received a resolution they are satisfied with.
 
 7. Occupancy
 
Occupancy defines how well staff is scheduled for the call volumes coming into your contact centre. An individual’s occupancy rate can also be determined by using the same formula.
 
Calculation: Total Call Time / (Total Call Time + Available Time)
 
There is no call centre standard for occupancy but if you have low occupancy (i.e. <70%) you risk boredom by your agents. If you have consistently high occupancy (i.e. >85%) you risk over-extending your agents which can lead to higher and faster turnover. Many contact centres try to keep their occupancy metric between 70% and 80% to maintain a healthy balance.
 
8. Cost per Call (Contact)
 
Cost per call is calculated as the cost of a call arriving and being answered at your contact centre. There are many ways to calculate this, and here we will focus on the basic cost per call and the fully loaded cost per call.
 
Basic Cost per Call:
 
Calculation: Calls per Hour / Agent’s Hourly Wage
 
Basic cost per call is useful when determining the extra cost associated with handling a nominal number of additional calls. Once you reach a certain level of increased calls you may need to add additional agents, supervisors and stations.
 
9. Turnover (Attrition)
 
Turnover (also known as attrition) is a commonly tracked metric in the contact centre industry. There are two types turnover: Voluntary - Staff choosing to leave and Involuntary - Staff being asked to leave. Turnover measures the number of people who leave your contact centre (as a percentage).
 
Calculation: Number of People to Leave / Number of Positions
 
10. Call Quality
 
Call Quality is a standard scoring/rating system that contact centres use to determine how well an agent deals with the customers. There are no industry standards for monitoring quality, but there will usually be a list of criteria that an agent must cover during a call. This includes, but is not limited to, how the agent answers the call, how they navigate the caller to a resolution, and how they end the call.
 
Calculation: Number of Criteria Met / Number of Total Criteria
 
Management can have ten or more criteria for what they consider to be a good call. Some of the criteria are weighted based on importance (eg, effectively probing to understand client’s needs). Usually the criteria are added up to an ultimate quality score that is displayed as a percentage. The benefit to breaking down the call into individual criteria is to have specific areas of development to coach agents and improve call quality.