Analysing a contact centre data is crucial to monitor its performance and highlight areas that need improvement. However, with the amount of collected raw data available, it is easy to lose track of what is really significant. Here are our tips not to lose focus.

1. Inbound abandoned call rates

A higher abandoned call rate isn’t necessarily bad news. There are legitimate reasons why callers may choose to end a call other than having to wait too long to talk to someone. For example, they may have found the answer to their queries in pre-recorded messages or they may have been using self-service options. In those cases, a higher abandon call rate is actually a success.

2. Don’t obsess over Average Handling Time

Average Handling Time (AHT) is a traditional Key Performance Indicator but you shouldn’t make it the engine behind all your strategies. If you put your call agents under pressure to achieve lower times at any cost, they may not give your customers the attention and time they need and, in the long run, you may damage customer satisfaction.

3. Set achievable agent occupancy rates

Of course you want your contact centre to be profitable, but if your agents are always working at a high rate of utilisation, you are likely to see burn-out and high staff attrition rates after a while. Make sure your staff have time to breathe, time for breaks as well as for training. Your advisors will be happier for it and it will benefit your company.

4. Keep it Simple

With so much data to report on and software that can analyse everything and anything, it is soooo tempting to overcomplicate things. However, you have to ask yourself which information is truly meaningful to the staff it is presented to. For example, agents don’t really need to know how many calls there are in the queue. They may feel that the aim of the game is to reduce it rather than to solve customers’ issues.

Also, don’t just look at averages. Sometimes, exceptions provide crucial cues to improving your processes.

5. Don’t forget ‘soft’ indicators

Objective data such as those mentioned above are reassuring to managing teams. However, solutions like speech analytics are increasingly important to get a detailed feature of how well your contact centre caters to your customers so don’t ignore them.

If you are thinking about outsourcing your contact centre but want to keep it in New Zealand, contact us so that we can discuss your requirements.