When partnering with an outsourced call center, there are important call center metrics to keep on your radar. This blog explains the metrics that will help you monitor the overall performance of your call center agents.

Key Points 

• Call center metrics help you gauge the overall effectiveness of your outsourced customer service team.
• There are many types of call center metrics, and the ones worth measuring depend on your business and campaign efforts.
• Each call center has its own way of measuring performance, but four common call center metrics are considered industry standards.
• Some common contact center KPIs to keep on your radar include average call abandonment rate, percentage of calls blocked, the average time in queue, and first call resolutions.

What Are Call Center Metrics?

Call center metrics help you gauge the overall effectiveness of your outsourced customer service team. By keeping track of metrics like agent performance, productivity, and other activities, you can ensure your center operates efficiently, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and revenue for your organization.

How Is Call Center Efficiency Measured?

Outsourced call centers manage a wide range of data from various platforms, focusing on different business processes and using metrics to monitor the data efficiently. There are many types of call center metrics, and the ones worth measuring depend on your business and campaign efforts. For example, a call center specializing in direct response services might measure fundraising and donation metrics.

Call Center Metrics—Industry Standards

Each call center has its own way of measuring performance, but there are four common call center metrics considered industry standards for measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) that reveal customer satisfaction insights:

• Customer experience
• Agent productivity
• Call initiation
• Call center operations

By making sure your outsourced call center measures these four areas, you can rest assured that your agents are maximizing customer satisfaction and maintaining high performance.

Contact Center KPIs To Keep on Your Radar

Below are some common contact center KPIs to keep on your radar:

Average Call Abandonment Rate

The average call abandonment rate is the percentage of callers who hang up before connecting with a call center agent. By tracking the average number of calls abandoned, agents can develop new strategies to connect with callers before they hang up.

Percentage of Calls Blocked

This call center metric calculates the number of inbound callers who receive a busy tone. Calls are typically blocked due to a lack of agent availability. Contact centers use this KPI to ensure staff volumes are high enough to meet the needs of inbound callers.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Score

The CSAT score tells you how satisfied a customer is with your product, service, or the agent they connected with. Typically measured by conducting customer surveys, the CSAT score is a leading KPI of loyalty and long-term revenue for your business. The score is often based on the following customer satisfaction levels:

• Very satisfied
• Satisfied
• Not satisfied
• Very unsatisfied

Average Time in Queue

The average time in queue measures how long inbound callers wait in call queues before being connected to an agent. Contact centers use this number to lower queue waiting times by hiring more agents or developing ways to reduce call lengths on individual calls.

Service Level

The service level call center metric monitors agent productivity in real time based on the percentage of calls answered within a specific number of seconds.

Average Speed of Answer

The average speed of answer call center metric is the average time it takes for agents to answer calls within a specific amount of time. The quicker calls are answered, the better the average speed of answer.

Average Handle Time

This metric tracks the average time it takes for an agent to complete a call, starting from when they pick up the phone to when they disconnect the call.

Average After-Call Work Time

This call center metric measures the average time it takes for agents to complete their work post call. This includes tasks like updating the system, logging the reason for the customer contacting the call center, and scheduling follow-up calls.

First Call Resolutions

First call resolutions track the percentage of calls in which the contact center agent addresses customer issues without transferring, escalating, or returning the call at a later time. If your outsourced call center has a good track record of first call resolutions, it’s a good sign that their agents are skilled at helping customers efficiently the first time they call in.

Occupancy Rates

Occupancy rates measure how much time agents spend on live calls or finishing work related to those calls.

We Help You Track Important Call Center Metrics

Other call centers lack the understanding and awareness to track KPIs with a comprehensive reporting system. As an industry leader in bilingual call center services, ListenTrust’s experienced agents establish common contact center KPIs with you, helping you understand the importance of different performance metrics and how they yield success for your business.

We start by creating an optimized dashboard where you can review your metrics as they improve. Our team knows that every call impacts your metrics—that’s why we use a robust reporting system with high visibility that updates KPIs in real time. Our experienced account executives relay everything you need to know about our performance metrics, from excellent service KPIs to key areas of improvement. Contact us today to learn more about how we help you track important call center metrics to achieve optimum performance.