The June 2013 issue of Contact Center Pipeline included “Underutilized Metrics,” an article written by Jay Minnucci. Minnucci highlights three metrics that could be used with more frequency and effectiveness to provide a more comprehensive understanding of contact center performance:

• Contacts per customer – While the expectations for this metric will vary across industry, understanding the contacts per customer within your center and industry can help you answer questions about your customer base. Do you have customers who contact you multiple times per year? Minnucci gives the magic number of four contacts; these are the dedicated customers whose familiarity indicates that they may be devoted to your brand. This metric can also help you pinpoint areas to target for improvement, as in the example the author sites: if a significant majority of your customers only contact you once a year, they will not be willing to invest their time in learning an IVR system.

• Cost per second of AHT – This is my favorite underutilized metric that Minnucci covers, since it provides you with a concrete number to consider when considering the expectations placed on agents. Minnucci cites the 5-20 seconds spent recording a customer’s email address, but also consider the time (and cost) devoted to multiple verification layers and other elements that add precious seconds to calls.

• Percentage of calls held – Taking a closer look at the percentage of your calls that are put on hold can provide you with insight about the information that your agents have at their fingertips or stored in memory. A high percentage of calls on hold could indicate a need to investigate training or job aids to determine if those solutions could help agents avoid hold time. At an agent level, this percentage could highlight your high performers, allowing you to identify best practices and areas for potential improvement across the center.

As Jay points out, the best KPIs are those that are actionable, and many of these are not the most obvious or easiest to obtain. Inova Solutions can work with you determine the best metrics for your environment and calculate them accordingly. Certainly these three metrics are a great start at obtaining useful and actionable insight about your contact center.

Thanks to Inova Solutions for the article.