Inbound call management: 10 KPIs to monitor

Customer service quality is crucial for call centres, especially those handling inbound calls. Indeed, customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as a company’s reputation and growth, depend on good inbound call management.

To determine where you stand with regard to your objectives, consider keeping track of the effectiveness of the strategy you’ve implemented. This involves monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs), powerful tools that enable you to determine what’s working well and what needs to be improved in your inbound call handling. In this article, discover 10 KPIs for good inbound call management that your call centre absolutely must monitor.

What are KPIs and how do they help?

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are a set of quantifiable measurements that assess the overall efficiency of your customer relationship management agents. These tools enable you, the decision-maker, to monitor your team’s productivity and evaluate the effectiveness of your call centre in achieving your objectives.

KPIs are one of the crucial elements of dashboards.They can be used at different levels of the company and enable to:

• Analyse the current situation
• Evaluate team performance
• Identify areas for improvement
• Assessment of objectives achieved
• Management of corrective action plans
• Make more informed decisions on the right strategy to adopt.

10 key performance indicators to monitor for effective inbound call management

There are many types of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be rigorously monitored in call centres.

1. Service Level

This metric corresponds to the number of incoming calls answered within a time limit expressed in seconds. The service level is obtained by dividing the number of calls handled by the number of calls received over a given period, then multiplying the result by 100.

For example, if 80 of your 95 incoming calls were answered within 15 seconds, you’d have a service level of 80/95 x 100, or 84%. A high percentage means that your agents are efficient and that your customer service is performing well.

2. Average call duration

Average call duration indicates the average talk time between caller and agent. This metric enables you to determine the productivity of your team. A high call duration means that your agent is taking a long time to process an interaction, and that the time devoted to other callers is reduced. To lower this rate, train your staff and equip them with the right technology.

3. Average Handling Time (AHT)

Average handling time, or AHT, is a way of calculating the amount of time your team needs to handle incoming call volumes. This metric encompasses not only average talk time, but also the time spent finalising the transaction after the call. Even if the call is hung up, the agent may still have to enter certain data into the database until the corresponding customer file is closed.

Like the average call duration, an excessively high AHT is not a good sign, since it means that the agent is taking longer to deal with one and the same customer, which means that the volume of incoming calls cannot be managed on time.

4. First Call Resolution (FCR)

This is a key performance indicator that corresponds to the number of calls where the caller’s question or problem is resolved on first contact, without the need to call the company again. It is one of the key metrics for measuring call centre service quality. The higher the first-call resolution rate, the more efficient your agents are, since they are able to provide relevant answers to customers’ requests for assistance.

5. Average abandonment rate

The abandonment rate measures the percentage of incoming calls that are abandoned by callers before being answered by an agent. A high abandonment rate, often due to excessively long waiting times, should alert managers. In the majority of cases, call abandonment is due to customer frustration at waiting too long. The consequences can be disastrous, particularly in terms of customer loyalty: customers may not want to contact the company again.

6. Overflow call handling rate

A high overflow rate means that your call centre is receiving a high volume of incoming calls that it can no longer handle, and is forced to put customers on hold. With this KPI, you can determine the efficiency of your agents. It also tells you whether your agents are understaffed.

To reduce the overflow rate, there are a number of solutions available, such as offering your customers the option of being called back at a time that suits them. If call peaks are chronic or persistent, it would be wiser to outsource all or part of your inbound call management to a qualified external service provider, such as ProContact.

7. Average time in queue

Average time in queue represents the average length of time callers are asked to wait during a conversation with an agent. During this waiting time, the advisor may, for example, need to ask a colleague for help or seek specific information.

A high hold rate means that your employees don’t have enough information available immediately. To reduce this KPI, you need to streamline your work processes and/or introduce more effective tools. These solutions can speed up the processing of support requests.

8. Occupancy rate

Agent occupancy rate measures the time during which agents are actively engaged in call-related operations. Many factors are taken into account in this KPI, such as conversation time, hold time and closing time.

This indicator helps determine whether agents are being over- or under-booked. A low occupancy rate means they’re idle, while a high rate means they’re working just-in-time. This KPI is obtained by dividing the total productive hours of all agents by the hours worked. Multiply the result by 100.

9. Average after-call work time (AWT)

This KPI measures the time an agent spends finalising a call after hanging up. Indeed, after a call, the agent may have to perform certain actions, such as updating the customer profile, recording the reason for the call or sending a message to a colleague. In call centres, After-call work time (AWT) should be kept as short as possible, as it reduces the availability of agents to handle incoming calls from other customers.

10. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score

As its name suggests, this KPI measures customer satisfaction. Call centres can use it to measure the quality of their services, identify customer expectations, steer any corrective actions and build customer loyalty.

The customer satisfaction rate can be obtained in a variety of ways, for example by carrying out a customer survey.

Contact ProContact for professional inbound call management

Boost your company’s growth by opting for ProContact’s inbound call management service. Our qualified, trained and hand-picked agents, combined with our commitment to continuous improvement, enable us to guarantee a tailored telephone answering service that’s always available and attentive to your customers’ needs.

ProContact is more than just a contact centre. Partner with us and treat yourself to a premium customer service that makes it easy for you to build customer loyalty. In addition to our outsourced telephone answering service, we also offer other services, such as secretarial outsourcing and HR outsourcing.

For a quality collaboration, contact us via our contact form or call us on (+33) 1 84 76 24 03.