Call center efficiency

What is call center efficiency?

Call center efficiency is the technical implementation of the annual targets set by contact centers to support customers. Eliminating inefficiencies and improving overall performance are the ultimate objectives for any contact center and proper steps can be taken to reach it.

How to improve efficiency of a call center?

1. Optimize agent performance: Using various call center efficiency metrics, an organization can quantify and optimize agent performance easily. When every individual agent starts performing to the best of their abilities, a contact center’s efficiency can easily surpass its targets.
    
2. Omnichannel support: Offering customer service through different channels like email, chat, and more, reduces inbound call volume. This reduced workload automatically improves efficiency by filtering the most aggrieved customers with high priority queries more agent face time and attention.
   
   
3. Call routing: A call routing system can greatly improve call center efficiency and productivity as routing calls to agents assigned to resolve specific queries is fast and efficient.
    
4. Eliminating costs: Proper evaluation of a contact center’s operations allows the organization to identify and eliminate processes that aren’t serving their assigned purposes, thus saving valuable dollars.

What are the important call center efficiency metrics?

1. First call resolution (FCR): FCR tracks whether agents are able to resolve customer queries on the first call or whether follow-up is necessary.
   
   
2. Abandonment rate: It is the percentage of callers that hang up before connecting to an agent.
   
   
3. Response time: It is the average amount of time an agent takes to respond to a customer’s call. It is often inversely related to the abandonment rate.
   
   
4. Service level: This metric measures the percentage of calls answered within stipulated periods of time.
   
   
5. Average handle time (AHT): Average handle time tracks the average lengths of calls in a contact center. The lower this value, the better.
   
   
6. Customer satisfaction (CSAT): Customer happiness is the ultimate goal of a contact center and it’s hence a crucial metric to track.

Regular tracking of these metrics gives an organization enough idea on increasing their efficiency. Since most of these can be accessed through specially designed softwares, their job becomes easier.