Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial in shaping the success of any contact center. By understanding their importance and creating effective ways to optimize them, you can take your contact center’s performance to new heights.

In this blog post, we will explore what contact center KPIs are, why they’re important, the top four KPIs to focus on, how to set targets, and the best practices for KPI monitoring and optimization.

What are contact center KPIs and why are they important?

KPIs are the metrics that organizations use to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of everything they’re doing. When used correctly, they can provide valuable insight into performance, enabling businesses to identify areas for improvement and monitor progress toward broader business goals. 

KPIs are essential for optimizing contact center performance because they’re environments with a lot of moving parts that rely on both people and technology. Those organizations that understand and implement KPIs are able to allocate resources more effectively, streamline their operations, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Top 4 KPIs in contact centers

There’s a huge variety in the KPIs you can choose to apply in your contact center, and what you choose will be based on your overall business goals, as well as how your contact center is organized. Here are our top 4 KPIs for use in contact centers.

1. Reducing customer effort: To improve the customer experience, contact centers should focus on reducing friction points and making interactions as smooth as possible. This involves identifying and eliminating obstacles in the customer journey, from navigating IVR menus, to accessing self-service options. For example, you could measure how long it takes for a customer to find a resolution with your web chatbot.

    

2. Reducing call volume: Using predictive analytics can help contact centers anticipate customer needs and proactively address them – reducing the overall call volume. This frees up agents to handle more complex issues that require a human touch, while also giving customers quicker resolutions via FAQs or chatbots. Measuring the number of calls you receive is a very basic metric, but a very important one, as it has a direct impact on the human resources you need.

    

3. Optimizing call-handling time: The goal is to strike the right balance between efficiency and customer satisfaction. Spending too little time on a call may leave the customer feeling rushed, while spending too much time can mean your operators aren’t working efficiently enough. The perfect call-handling time ensures that agents are providing thorough, efficient assistance that meets customer expectations. But that isn’t a totally qualitative metric. In fact, you can benchmark your staff when you set up the KPI and then track Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) alongside it: to see if improvements in time positively or negatively impact it.
   
   
4. Improved service quality: Several key metrics that reflect the overall quality of contact center performance include After Call Work (ACW), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Agent Satisfaction (ASAT), and First Call/Contact Resolution (FCR). By focusing on metrics like these, contact centers can enhance both agent performance and customer satisfaction – both of which contribute to wider goals like business growth. After all, happy staff do better work and happy customers spend more money – generally at least.

How to set KPIs

When setting KPIs, it’s important to establish realistic and achievable targets that align with the organization’s broader objectives – just like with any goal. This involves understanding the current performance levels and determining what improvements are attainable within a given timeframe. 

Involving employees in the target-setting process can also go a long way in creating a sense of ownership and commitment within your organization, as they can contribute their insights and expertise and are given targets they actually believe in rather than something ‘invented’ by their managers.

Best practices for KPI monitoring and optimization

While KPIs are going to be reasonably unique between different contact centers – best practice covers them all. There are key principles you should follow if you want your KPIs to really deliver.

• Regularly monitor and report: To effectively manage KPIs, contact centers should establish regular monitoring and reporting processes. This ensures that everyone involved stays up-to-date about performance trends, can identify issues early on, and can make data-driven decisions to address challenges.

• Continuously review and refine: As business priorities and customer needs evolve, it’s essential to review and adjust KPIs accordingly. This involves analyzing performance data to identify new trends, reevaluating the relevance of existing KPIs, and establishing new ones to meet changing goals.

   

• Celebrate successes and address failures: Recognizing and celebrating achievements can help to motivate employees and reinforce the importance of KPIs. Similarly, addressing areas where performance falls short enables organizations to learn from mistakes and make necessary improvements.

Putting it all together

Optimizing contact center performance hinges on understanding and leveraging KPIs effectively. By focusing on key metrics such as reducing customer effort, call volume, call-handling time, and service quality, organizations can drive growth and improve customer satisfaction. 

 Whether it’s customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, or top line growth, achieving well-mapped KPIs can go a long way in achieving wider business goals, providing you set realistic targets, involve employees, and monitor and review performance regularly. 

Do you want to improve your contact center performance? Automation is perfectly placed to help and PAteam are the experts, so get in contact with us today.