Contact Center Metrics That Matter
Contact center key performance indicators (KPI) show customer service managers what good looks like. But not all measures are equal and while many are easy to create they can be distractions that cloud what's most important. It's a good idea to collect metrics, of course, but are you collecting the right ones? And what are you doing with them once you have the data?
Most contact center managers focus on KPIs that measure efficiency—metrics like average call handling times, average wrap-up time and call script adherence. Those are fine, and they can help improve contact or call center performance, but some would argue that they are not the metrics that make the biggest difference to the customer service mission.
Instead of using performance metrics that measure from the inside looking out, try turning it on its head, and focus on the effectiveness of the contact center as measured by the customer, not the company itself.
If you do that, you’ll surface the most influential KPI to impact customer satisfaction: First Contact Resolution. FCR gets a lot of press these days—and for good reason. It's one of the few performance metrics that serves more than one purpose. First, if you improve your first call resolution rate, your customers will be happier with your company. This improvement will be reflected in customer feedback, your CSAT or NPS scores, and later in your customer lifetime value and retention measures. Secondly, if you can handle a customer's request or concern in one contact (phone, email, instant message, whatever) instead of two or three, it creates significant customer and call center benefits while at the same time cutting your cost by half or two-thirds.

"Customers want to be connected quickly to an agent who is able to resolve their query right away," said Oke Eleazu, managing director of think outside in and vice-president of the Institute of Customer Service. "Measuring customer satisfaction is great, but many traditional measures are nebulous and imprecise and can make it difficult to know what to focus improvement initiatives on," he said. "With FCR, you have an actionable measure - you can work on people, process and technology to improve the customer experience. You can very quickly and accurately observe and report on the effectiveness of those actions."
"Companies that want their contact centers to deliver a good customer experience, must measure FCR rates. Those companies that do not will lose touch with customer perceptions, damaging their brand."
— Oke Eleazu, VP of the Institute of Customer Service