What are “key performance indicators,” and what role do they play in your organization?
As a Customer Service executive, you’re responsible for creating an exceptional experience for your customers. But how can you tell if you’re meeting or even exceeding expectations? KPIs can play a key role.
What are KPIs?
KPI stands for “Key Performance Indicators” and are measurements of progress toward specific goals. KPIs can be used to evaluate achievement of anything from enterprise-wide strategic goals to department-level operational tasks.
In order for KPIs to be useful, they must be specific and measurable. Organizations must also do their parts to enable easy access to this information so progress can be routinely measured and reported. Finally, organizations may choose to tie performance evaluations and/or bonuses to an employee’s ability to achieve relevant KPIs.
Example KPIs
Here’s a list of common KPIs used in call center or customer service environments:
- Abandoned Call Rate: The percentage of calls abandoned while waiting in the queue
- Average Calls/Service Requests per Agent: How many calls / emails each agent is able to handle per day
- Agent Days Worked: The number of days an agent works per month
- Average Handle Time: Average amount of time on each call, including related admin duties
- Average Wait Time: The average amount of time a customer waits to speak to an agent
- Call Center Expenses: Total cost (equipment, personnel, etc.) incurred by your call center
- Call Conversions: The number of calls converted into an appointment, sale, or some other pre-determined goal (can be tracked as total number or percentage of overall calls)
- Cost per Call: The average cost of each call received by the call center
- Customer Retention: Percentage of customers who remain with the company over a certain time period
- Customer Satisfaction: An assessment of your call center from the customer’s perspective. Can use different measurement methodologies such as NPS, etc.
- Email backlog: Number of incoming emails that have not been answered
- First Contact Resolution: Percentage of calls that can be resolved within the first contact
- Hitrate: Products sold compared to total received service calls or emails
- Inbound Calls: Total number of incoming calls (both answered and unanswered)
- Service Grade Calls: The number of inbound calls answered within a certain time frame (should refer back to your SLA or service level agreement)
Which customer service KPIs does your organization use? How frequently do you measure and/or report on the data? Are your employee performance reviews and bonuses tied to the achievement of KPIs? We’d love to hear from you!