Call center metrics gauge the overall performance, productivity and overall effectiveness of customer support teams. Managers can use these indicators to track how effectively a contact center can help businesses achieve their goals.

Determining the right call center metrics and KPI for measuring performance can be quite challenging for managers and supervisors. On top of that, many operational senior leaders today still struggle with demonstrating the effectiveness of a call center to C-level executives. As of today, many C-level executives view the call center as a cost rather than a tool for profit. 

In this article, we’ll go through 8 essential call center metrics to get you started. Remember, not all of these metrics mentioned in this article will contribute to the performance of your call center, but rather an initial list to help you get it up and running. 

List of call center metrics for customer experience: 

  • First Call Resolution 
  • Net Promoter Score 
  • Customer Satisfaction 
  • Service Level 
  • Great Service 

List of call center metrics for Agent productivity: 

  • Agent Utilization Rate 
  • Average Handle Time 
  • Average Speed of Answer 

#1 First Call Resolution (FCR)

First Call Resolution (FCR) is a metric that measures a call center’s ability to resolve customer issues on the first call without a need for follow-up contact. This term can be called One-call Resolution as another variation.

For example, if the FCR rate of your contact center is 70%, it means that 70% of your customers can resolve their issues on the first call while the other 30% had to make a follow-up call. Typically, the standard for a good FCR rate falls around 70%-79%. Some of the World-class FCR rates even go up to 80% or higher. However, a call center with a rate that falls below 70% requires major improvements. 

This metric shares the same acronym as First Contact Resolution, but they have different implications. First Call Resolution measures things relating to voice channel only, while First Contact Resolution collects data across channels from live chat, SMS, email, social media channels, etc.

#2 Net Promoter Score (NPS)

A Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of customer loyalty, satisfaction, and enthusiasm towards a company. The result can be gathered by simply asking “from a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you going to recommend this product/service/company to your friends and family. This metric can help businesses improve upon service, customer support, delivery and increase customer loyalty. 

The scale for NPS ranges from 0-10. Customers who are in the range of 0-6 are not likely to recommend the product (detractors) while those between 7-8 are considered as passive customers. Customers who rate anything higher than 8 are promoters and they’ll be likely to be your brand ambassadors. 

To calculate the score, subtract the percentage of customers who answer the NPS question with a 6 or lower from the percentage of customers who answer with a 9 or 10. For an NPS to be good, it only has to surpass 0, as it indicates that a business has more promoters than detractors. Typically, Top-notch companies generally have an NPS of 70, such as Netflix, PayPal, Amazon, Google, and Apple. While any score above 0 can be considered “good”, a negative score means that the company needs some serious improvements. 

#3 Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

Customer Satisfaction, or CSAT, measures how satisfied a customer is with a specific product, transaction, or interaction with a company. CSAT is usually used in the context of “CSAT score” which is a numerical measure of customer satisfaction. 

To measure CSAT, Businesses can ask the customer base to rate their satisfaction with either an event, product, service, or interaction. This process can be carried out by a variety of methods, such as mails, emails, or even phone surveys. For questions that are qualitative, it is up to the business to determine which answers are considered “satisfied” and which ones aren’t. 

The scale for CSAT ranges from 0 to 100 and to calculate where 0 would be unsatisfied while 100 is very satisfied. To calculate the score, you take the total number of positive responses and divide it by the total number of responses times 100. As an example, if you have a total of 25 responses and out of those 15 responses were positive, your score would be 60% (15/25=0.6*100=60%). Try to aim for a score that is closer to 100%.

#4 Service Level

Service Level are different metrics that measure the number of calls answered and the performance of a service provider to furnish a customer within a preferred amount of time. Some examples of Service Level include: percentage of calls answered, percentage of customers waiting less than a given time, percentage of all queries being fulfilled completely. 

A Service Level Agreement (or SLA for short), is the set of standards that management uses to guide decisions. Assessing SLA can help businesses make plans to improve efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, save costs, and more. SLA can be determined internally within the business. However, businesses must make their own determinations on what their SLAs are, and how to achieve them. 

Determining the metrics can be quite tricky and requires a lot of analysis. Luckily, call center softwares nowadays are usually equipped with analytic and report features, which sums up all of the SLA and presents it in either graph or numerical data for managers to easily monitor.  

#5 Great Service

Great Service measures a customer’s call experience and how they rate their overall service. This data is typically gathered through surveys where customers would rank the service from bad to great and Great Service can be achieved if the customer rated their overall experience as “great”. The benchmark average for Great Service is 53% while world-class Great Service can rank up to 65%. 

Great Service score can be calculated by taking the total number of customers who rate their CX as great and divide it by the total number of customers surveyed. 

The Great Service metric can sometimes be considered as one of the most crucial metrics for businesses, as it helps businesses determine whether if they are providing great service.

#6 Agent Utilization Rate (AUR)

Agent Utilization is the ratio of work produced divided by work capacity. For example, if an gent is on customer calls for five hours a day out of an eight-hour work shift, the utilization for that agent would be 5/8=0.625*100=62.5%. 

The formula for determining agent utilization is somewhat complicated when taking breaks, vacation, sick days, and training time into consideration. However, most call center solutions today can automatically calculate these metrics for managers to monitor. 

When utilization is low, the cost per agent will be higher, indicating that the call center is overstaffed or schedule adherence is low. Conversely, when agent utilization is high, it indicates that agents are effectively working according to the schedule, resulting in a lower cost per agent. 

#7 Average Handle Time (AHT)

In a call center, the Average Handling Time (AHT) measures how long it takes to assist a consumer. AHT begins when a client calls and ends when the agent hangs up the phone. 

Businesses should monitor the AHT metric at the agent level and use it for customer experience instruction and improvement. To assess performance and spot areas for improvement, AHT should also be tracked by call kinds, lines of business, teams, and call centers.

This metric is crucial for call center success because shorter calls often have greater CSAT and lower costs. However, shorter AHT isn't always a sign of success as pushing agents to finish conversations quickly may result in lower FCR and CSAT and higher costs.

#8 Average Speed of Answer (ASA)

Average speed of answer (ASA) measures the time it takes for calls to be answered from the instant a customer is placed in a queue to the moment an agent answers the call, including the time spent while the phone is ringing for agents. This doesn’t include the time spent routing a customer to the appropriate queue, or time spent interacting with an interactive voice response system. ASA can be calculated automatically via the call center analytics and report features. 

Typically, this metric measures both a team’s overall performance and accessibility for customers. Faster ASA is likely a sign of better performance while slower ASA would indicate poor performance. ASA is closely related to many metrics that help determine satisfaction level of customers and agent’s efficiency. 

The standard for ASA among businesses across all industries is generally 28 seconds. Any ASA that is longer than this time can translate to worse customer satisfaction and increased agent burnout.

Measure Call Center Metrics for Your Business!

The amount of call center metrics can be considered a plethora. Though, we’ve summed up all of the essential metrics to use for managing a call center neatly for you. Understanding these KPIs and determining the right ones can help your business grow by tenfold.

You can check out other resources on call centers here. Try StringeeX call center and leverage the analytics & reports feature to better manage your business performance. Contact us for more information!