Outsourcing a company for call center services is not an easy thing to do. You have to look into so many vital factors; customer service is the most important out of all of them. The primary purpose of a call center is customer satisfaction, so when choosing call center outsourcing companies, do consider some call center metrics.

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Customer service managers who run call centers keep a careful eye on various trends and patterns. They have a complete report of the metrics for their call center. You can collect the record and compare different companies. Here is a list of metrics you should not ignore.

Average Time in Queue

Average time in queue is the time it takes for a customer to be connected to the agent. Customers don’t like to wait in queue for a very long time, and they will leave the call after a few minutes. So, a company should reduce the average time in queue. Moreover, the company can entertain the customers by playing music or valuable information through the IVR system while they are waiting. If a company has a large average time in queue, it will lose customers. To avoid this, some companies have the queue call back feature.

First Call Resolution

First call resolution (FCR) means the percentage of cases resolved between the customer and call center during the first call. It is considered one of the most important metric for call centers.

According to the SQM group, “For every 2% increase in FCR, you get a 2% improvement in customer satisfaction.”

This means FCR is a key ingredient for any business. When customer queries are solved or answered in the first call, and they don’t have to contact them again and again, it will surely leave a positive impact, which will increase sales for your business.

When choosing between call center outsourcing companies for your business, check their FCR rating.

Service Level

It is the percentage of calls an agent answeres within a given time. The average service level of call centers is 80/20. This means that your call center answers 80 percent of calls in 20 seconds. The service level shows that the call center has enough resources to satisfy the customer’s requirements. To improve service levels, companies introduce new customer service tools to reduce the duration of answering calls.

Abandon Rate

Abandon Rate is the percentage of calls that the customer terminates. This explains how much customers are satisfied with call center services. If your customers have to wait for a long time, they will get frustrated and terminate the call. There are several reasons that a company can have a high abandonment rate. Poorly written IVR script, long waiting time, lousy hold music, complicated IVR options, or old technology can be one of the reasons.

When outsourcing call center, you should ensure that it has less abandonment rate, which means higher customer satisfaction.

Average Handle Time

The average handle time is the customer’s amount of time on call with call center agents. Low AHT means that the representatives at the company are efficient in their work. Although AHT varies from business to business, call centers work to reduce their AHT.

READ MORE ABOUT AVERAGE  HANDLE TIME

Occupancy Rate

Time an agent spends on his tasks (talk, hold, and wrap-up time) against the total logged-in time is called occupancy rate. An ideal Occupancy rate varies between 75% – 85%  because above this affects the agents’ efficiency as it will increase the burden of calls.

The company should have an efficient agent scheduling system to engage agents and effectively balance their work burden to maintain the right occupancy level. So, when outsourcing a call center company, check their occupancy rate.

Contact Quality

Contact Quality is an important factor in customer satisfaction. It helps measure the efficiency and effectiveness of conversations between customer service representatives and customers. In other words, it measures how well your agents meet your customers’ needs.

You should also look at the contact quality of the contact center before outsourcing it.

Final Thoughts

It would be best to compare these metrics between call center outsourcing companies when deciding on one of them. Achieving an exceptional customer experience requires dedication and never leaving the critical call center metrics out of sight. These metrics are essential for a good call center if you want to satisfy your customers and improve your sales.

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