How to Measure & Improve Contact Center Productivity

An estimated $41 billion is lost by U.S. companies alone each year due to poor customer service. A source from SocialMediaToday.Customers are at the heart of any business and customer happiness and satisfaction are directly proportional to the productivity of the contact center. Data is essential for running a successful inbound call center. With so many calls handled every day, it’s difficult to determine what’s going on without relevant analytics.Selection of proper metrics is critical because focusing on a call center key performance indicator (KPI) effectively says that this statistic reflects an important facet of your organization.Businesses should keep track of their call center performance to evaluate and improve pain points that are leading to poor customer service.Here is a list of ways by which you can measure the productivity of your contact center.

Ways to measure contact center productivity

What is that one thing which differentiates your business from the competition? CUSTOMER SERVICE.It is absolutely essential to monitor the productivity of your call center with the help of the right metrics. These metrics can be used to improve the productivity and efficiency of the customer support department.Measuring the productivity will also give you the following benefits-

• Managing the workforce effectively.
• Reduce the cost.
• Enhanced customer satisfaction

Let us discuss the Key Performance Indicators(KPIs) of the contact center

1. First Call Resolution (FCR)

First call resolution is a key performance indicator (KPI) that is strongly tied to customer happiness, and it is easy to understand why. It measures the percentage of calls where the agent thoroughly answers the caller’s needs without the need for a transfer, escalation, or return call.Tips to improve FCRIf your first call resolution rate is high, your agents are being productive and assisting customers in resolving their issues without the need for numerous encounters.However, if a consumer needs to call your call center many times to fix an issue, your staff aren’t doing their utmost to help your customers the first time they contact your call center.The formula to measure FCR is-First Call Resolution Rate = (Number of Resolved Calls on First Contact / Total Number of Calls) * 100Kapture’s One Suite automatically calculates the First Call Resolution rate and generates analyzed graphs and reports in 1000+ different formats. It helps in determining the agent’s productivity and ways in which it can be improved.A survey showing how FCR is measured in a call center

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2. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) indicates a customer’s level of satisfaction with your products, services, or even customer support. CSAT scores are typically based on satisfaction level and are obtained through a customer survey. It is a leading indicator of client loyalty and long-term income.Customers are asked to score their level of satisfaction with their contact center representative on a scale of 1 to 5.A high level of satisfaction indicates that your personnel are productive and working hard to satisfy customers.Formula to measure the CSAT score.Satisfaction Rate = (Number of Satisfied Customers / Number of Customers Who Rated) * 100Kapture’s One suite lets you keep a feedback form after completion of a conversation with the customer and automatically calculates the CSAT score.3. Abandonment rateWhen clients are unable to reach you, it not only results in customer discontent but also represents a wasted opportunity to sell. Your abandonment rate might assist you to figure out why your consumers leave while they wait.One of the reasons for the abandonment rate may be that your customers are trying to connect with your contact centers during odd hours and you don’t have 24/7 support.A low abandonment rate indicates that your agents are productive in handling a high volume of incoming or inbound calls.If your customer call abandonment rate is high, try giving appropriate training to improve agent efficiency or expanding your contact center support team by recruiting additional personnel.Formula to calculate the abandonment rate-Abandonment Rate = (Number of Abandoned Calls / Total Number of Incoming Calls) * 100The self-serve feature which comes with Kapture’s One Suite can help in decreasing the abandonment rate. It allows you to eliminate repetitive queries by providing an FAQs section, an AI-powered chatbot that uses algorithms and data to solve petty queries of the agent, and it also gives the power to track and modify the order details.4. Average Speed of AnswerWhen it comes to measuring agent productivity, one of the finest call center metrics to use to evaluate your team of agents is the average speed of response. This call center measure computes the average time it takes to answer calls within a certain time range.If you want to maximize customer happiness, you must lower your ASA and identify ways to improve individual agent productivity. However, keep in mind that the majority of your team members may be taking calls at a respectable pace while one or two agents take their time.The formula to calculate the Average Speed of Answer is-Average Speed of Answer = Total Wait Time / Total Number of CallsKapture’s new UI interface allows your agents to handle multiple queries coming from different channels at the same time without leaving the dashboard.This can help in reducing the average speed of answers for your agents and keep your agents happy and satisfied.78% of consumers have bailed on a transaction or not made an intended purchase because of a poor service experience.5. Average Time in QueueThe average length of time in queue is the entire amount of time a client must wait to speak with one of your customer service representatives. This measure is calculated by dividing the overall amount of time callers wait in the line by the total number of calls answered. To enhance your customers’ experience, track their average time waiting.If you see that customers are waiting in line for longer than normal, challenge your staff to reduce this KPI score by being more efficient in answering calls.Another alternative is to provide a call-back service to customers so they do not have to wait in a queue.The formula to calculate the Average Time in Queue is-Average Time In Queue = Total Wait Time / Total Number of Calls6. Service LevelOne of the call center metrics that measure agent productivity in real-time while agents answer calls is service level. It is a proportion of calls answered in a given amount of time (in seconds).Most call centers, for example, aspire for an 80/20 service level, which indicates that the call or contact center expects to answer 80 percent of calls within 20 seconds.Using the following formula, you can calculate the proportion of calls answered within a certain time frame:Service Level = (Total Calls Answered Within Threshold / Total Calls) * 1007. Occupancy rateThe call center occupancy rate is a method of measuring agent productivity across all call-related tasks. It is the amount of time your agents spend on live calls and/or doing tasks linked to those calls.If your occupancy rate is low, it means that your agents are not working the majority of the time.While this might be due to inefficiency, it could also occur if your contact center:

• Is overcrowded.
• There is a low call volume.
• It has a subpar call handling system.
• Deals with a lot of after-hours work.

Simply put, if your agents’ occupancy rates are too low, they aren’t doing anything connected to their jobs. Use this call center indicator to identify responsibilities, events, and situations that are not linked to call-related activity.

6 ways to enhance your agent’s productivity and enhance call center productivity

Agents are the most important part of the call center and keeping them happy and motivated will ultimately lead to improvement in the productivity of the call center.When you connect with a call center and an agent is unable to solve your query!What will be the first thing which comes to your mind?That the whole customer support department of the company is unproductive and useless.You want to create a magical customer experience and not something like this, don’t you?Organizations must improve call center performance management. It assists them in aligning their agents, resources, and systems to fulfill their strategic goals via the use of both formal and informal methods.Company executives place a high value on providing services in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible, while also requiring that the customer experience be constantly improved. Optimizing and enhancing call center performance is the key to success.Here is a list of ways by which you can improve the productivity of your call center.1. Make training fun through gamificationTraining is unappealing to the majority of employees. They are easily bored by the topic, which is a significant obstacle to learning. Instead, you should create training programs that are both interesting and informative, and here is where gamification can assist.While games may appear insignificant, they are an excellent method to promote collaboration, enhance engagement, increase energy levels, and encourage skill retention throughout training. The goal is to reward agents with badges, performance incentives, and other advantages as they advance through the training stages.With Kapture’s Learning Management System feature, create and equip them with customized training programs to ensure they have access to all of the materials they require. Organized database, better data analytics, and custom assessments to improve the productivity of your employees.2. Fill the knowledge gaps When the customer service agent is himself unaware that the product is unable to provide the information the customer is looking for, your business will run the risk of losing a valued customer.Agents must have complete knowledge and understanding about the product or service so that they are able to give a fast resolution to the customers.70% of agents are not master in what they are doing- Gartner.comThis shows that every agent needs upskilling and should have a proper knowledge base in order to solve the queries and complaints of the customers quickly and efficiently.Kapture’s Knowledge Management System Creates a centralized knowledge base for your whole staff. Provides your staff with easy access to work-related content and information. It also allows your service agents to address complicated inquiries with ease by equipping them with the knowledge needed to provide timely resolutions for every circumstance.The new AI-powered bot assistant for agents clears their doubts and helps them solve the queries in a faster and better way.3. Empower your agents with the help of reports and analyticsWhen agents are made aware of their mistakes and are told to rectify them, this can help in boosting their productivity. Therefore, a weekly report showing the performance of the agents and pointing out their strengths and weaknesses can be helpful to improve their performance.Your agents should have access to performance data so that they can do an evaluation of their own abilities and determine where and how they may grow. This includes giving your agents access to performance reports, agenda creation, goal setting, and other tools.Kapture’s reporting and analytic tools analyze and generate reports of the agents in more than 1000+ formats and show the KPI and skills they need to work on.4. Use metrics to motivate and reward agentsCustomer support agents play an important role in keeping your customers happy and satisfied and so it is your responsibility to keep them motivated. The metrics which are used to measure the performance of the agents should be used to keep them motivated and happy.When your call center agents perform well, make a remark, praise them, or better yet, formally acknowledge them. When visible to other employees, recognition is a contact center training best practice that will improve your agents’ performance. It is also likely to inspire all of your employees to emulate the actions of their acclaimed colleagues.Kapture’s reporting and analytics feature can help you determine the performance of the employees and lets you reward them according to their performance. It also helps in identifying the mistakes and areas for improvement.5. Soft Skills and emotional intelligence trainingSoftskill is an essential skill for any representative working in a contact center. The agent should have the ability to communicate and understand the problem and know how to solve it in the most appropriate and polite way possible.Emotional intelligence plays an important role in situations where the customer has lost something valuable because of your company’s fault. An agent needs to understand the emotions of the customers and act accordingly and also provide the best possible solution.To achieve the best results, combine engaging soft skills training content with advanced technology and a strategic alliance between your management team and representatives.6. Use the right toolEmpower your employees with the right tools in order to improve the productivity of the call center. Your employees may be working hard and giving their very best but are unable to give you the desired results because of the lack of tools.Managing diverse complaints coming from different channels can be challenging for the employees. The agents may not have proper knowledge base tools to help them with the queries and questions they may have while resolving the issue of a customer. When your customer service representatives are trained, knowledgeable and skilled to handle the queries of the customer, they are resolved in a quicker and efficient way. This ultimately enhances the overall productivity of a call center.CRM software like Kapture’s is an all-in-one software that comes with features like omnichannel support, Knowledge  Management systems, Learning Management systems, self-serve, AI-powered bots, and a lot more to enhance the productivity of your call center.

How can Kapture help?

Your agents are working hard and they deserve software that understands and makes their work easier for them. Kapture’s One Suite is a complete customer service automation solution for your contact center that comes with exciting features to ease the lives of your agents.It gives your agents the ability to handle several tickets quickly without leaving the dashboard, a true omnichannel experience. The AI-powered bot assistant is built for your agents to solve their queries, KMS and LMS make learning and knowledge management fun for your employees. It is an all-in-one package to enhance the productivity of your agents.Try a demo now!

About the Author
	Ankit Kochar
	Ankit Kochar is a content writer at Kapture CRM who loves to write creative as well as informative content. He has worked as a creative and academic content writer in the past and has a keen knowledge of writing reports, essays and dissertations.His current field is helping him research and hone his SaaS knowledge.
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