Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measure of performance of a call center and shows how well a call center works. A call center KPIs depends on business goals of an organization, for sales oriented call center revenue per successful call and conversion rate will be most the important keeping expenses low and sales rate high. For technical support or customer support service call center main focus should be customer satisfaction. KPIs can be very good means for assessment of an organization’s current position and useful in future strategy and planning. KPIs can also be used to measure progress toward meeting financial goals, such as increasing turnover by 25% within six months.

Relevant KPIs for a call center are summarized below give a fairly good idea about center's performance when they are interpreted together:

Abandon Rate

Availability and Agent Utilization

Average Speed of Answer (ASA)

Average handling time

Idle time

One Call Resolution Rate

Time in queue

Wrap-up time

Average handling cost per contact by media

Service Level

Turnover Rate

Contact Volume

Contact forecast precision level

Average number of contacts handled per hour

Quality of services rendered (the only subjective element among indicators)

Schedule adherence and conformity

Time distribution

Customer Satisfaction level

Customer service level

Errors and Rework

Forecast Call-load to Actual

Scheduled Staff to Actual

Advantages of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

KPIs can identify the aspects of functioning where an organization is going wrong, enabling management to make the necessary corrective measures for turning the things around.

KPIs give an organization an edge over its competitors.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) have the biggest impact on call center quality and call center cost, helping to reduce costs without sacrificing quality or affecting the customer satisfactions.

There are few disadvantages too:

KPIs can be expensive to use, or sometimes even impossible when it comes to quantifying staff morale.

KPIs have limitations to the exactness of results, meaning the results are often only rough guide rather than a concrete measurement.

There is lack of flexibility, once designed KPIs can be difficult to change unless you are prepared to disregard carefully built-up comparison parameters, such as year-on-year customer satisfaction levels.

KPIs may be difficult to compare competitions; competitive analysis may be best left to an external specialist.

Many call centers stress numbers of successful contacts and speed of calls and quantitative analysis is often driven with the purpose to reduce costs. Whereas qualitative analysis focuses on customer satisfaction, first call resolution, sales revenue and productivity of agents in their jobs. Quantitative measures help in ensuring maximum performance level of workers while qualitative measures examine the impact on the business.

Calls per hour have been universal measurement of productivity, but now it is increasingly being replaced by qualitative and adherence measurements. Call center workers can concentrate on handling each transaction and also on being available. Qualitative and adherence measurements can result in higher productivity and better quality with betterment in working environment.

Some qualitative measures to consider include:

Call monitoring

Customer call-backs

Customer Satisfaction

Quality monitoring