As a contact center manager, you can’t just wing it. You have to know which metrics to measure and how to use them. Here are 5 contact center metrics related to agent productivity that may be critical for you to track.
1. Average Call Abandonment Rate. This metric refers to how many calling customers hang up before reaching an agent in order to give the customer a great experience, they need to actually stay on the phone! The issue could be that agents aren’t getting to the call in time or that the IVR has too complex a queue.
2. Average Time in Queue. This metric takes the total time callers are waiting in the queue and divides it by the number of calls that are answered. If customers are waiting for too long, you can find a way to make agents more efficient (like gamification) or consider adding a callback service.
3. Inbound Contacts per Agent. This metric measures the inbound contacts an agent handles, which isn’t limited to calls but also includes chat, email, social media and texts. You’ll be able to see how efficient your agents are and also figure out where they can make improvements. It’s possible they need help handling a certain type of interaction, like live chats, but are adept at all others.
4. Average After-Call Work Time. There’s going to be some amount of after-call work for the agent to perform, but if this is eating up too much time, you need to know about it. Yes, your agents have to do thorough, accurate work, but taking extra time cuts into time they could be spending with another customer. Monitoring this metric could tell you if the paperwork is too complicated, if the agent needs additional training or if there’s a lack of motivation.
5. Occupancy Rate. Occupancy rate gives you a bird’s eye view of an agent’s productivity. It includes all duties related to customer contact, including the contact itself and after-contact work. This metric is pretty straightforward: if the occupancy rate is too low, that means the agent is spending work time doing something non-work related or something for work that doesn’t involve customer contact (like training or another type of duty).
Other important contact center metrics for productivity include average speed of answer, average handle time, first call resolution and service level.
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