When it comes to efficiently operating a call center, knowing your KPIs is mission critical. They show where you’ve been, where you’re going, and areas that you need to improve.
So, I did the work and picked the top four metrics that you absolutely need to focus on if you wanna make real change in your contact center. And in this episode, we’re gonna learn why these four are critical to success, how to measure them, and — the most important part — what you can do to improve them.
Let’s hit it.

Intro

Welcome to Snackable CX, where we break down our best resources in bite-sized guidance on how to stand out and be known for your customer experience. I’m Sam Salerno, here from Mindful, the best in class, total-experience solution that aims to add kindness to your tech stack.
Let’s get a big picture overview before jumping into specifics.
Today we’re looking at First Contact Resolution, Average Handle Time, Abandon Rate, and Customer Satisfaction. Why these four? Because, while there are tons of very important contact center metrics you could be keeping an eye on, these four metrics shift the focus from measuring operational efficiency to creating better customer experiences.
Don’t get me wrong, those aren’t mutually exclusive. But in a crowded, hyper competitive market — one where 88% of consumers say their experience with a brand is just as important as the product or service they buy — a customer’s experience with a contact center can literally spell the difference between business success and business failure.
Quick note: If you need help calculating any of these metrics, check out the show notes and head to the linked article, we’ve got all the formulas there.

Let’s kick off with First Contact Resolution, or FCR.

FCR measures how often your customers have their questions or issues resolved in a single interaction with your business — whether through email, chatbot, text message, or phone call.
And I put this one at the top of the list because the data shows that FCR is a key driver of customer satisfaction AND significantly impacts other areas of a business.
A study by SQM found that a 1% improvement in FCR leads to a 1% reduction in operating costs, a 1% improvement in customer satisfaction, a 1-5% increase in employee satisfaction, and a one and a half point increase in Net Promoter Score. And if that isn’t worthy enough, resolving a customer’s issue on the first contact increases cross-selling acceptance rates by 20%.
The numbers have crowned First Contact Resolution as king.
Now, the first step to improving is making sure you’re tallying the right numbers. ‘Cause you’re probably thinking, “How do I know if the issue was resolved on first contact?” This is where a voice of customer and post-call survey tool comes in. Make sure you ask every caller the question, “Was this the first time you contact us about this issue?” And map that into your CRM or case management solution to make sure you’re accurately tracking FCR success.
Speaking of success, here are a few other ways to hit the FCR bullseye.
First, deploy a virtual queue. Hold times drastically increase customer frustration and reduce FCR. An intelligent callback solution lets customers come to the call less frustrated and easier to troubleshoot with.
Second, remove agent roadblocks. If your contact center is wrestling with multiple transfers and call escalations, it might mean you haven’t really empowered your agents. Give your agents the tools, training, and processes they need to manage more on their own.
And third, beef up your internal knowledge database and agent training programs. Work with your contact center managers to incorporate regular training and mentorship into agent workflows to give them more empathy and understanding.

Next up, we’ve got Average Handle Time, or AHT.

Average handle time tells a contact center how much time an agent spends on an entire interaction with a customer — from greeting the caller to taking notes and inputting CRM data post-call.
Lower handle time means your agents handle more calls in a specific time period…which, for the efficiency-oriented contact center manager, sounds like a dream. But if your agents are racing through calls to lower handle time, they risk not providing high quality resolutions — which ultimately translates into frustrated customers and repeat callers.
When handle time is seen as both a customer satisfaction and efficiency metric, it takes on some pretty cool superpowers. You might notice that lengthy calls center around a specific group of customer needs and questions — giving you insight into how to improve self-service channels or product messaging. Or you might discover you need to tighten up or eliminate certain agent processes that prevent them from getting to the phone quicker.
There are a lot of ways you can improve handle time, and I’m sure you’re trying them now. But the real secret is implementing omnichannel tech that can carry customer data and context between communication channels.
So say a customer uses a chatbot to get information on their account, but hits a digital dead end. Instead of having to begrudgingly pick up the phone and start the entire journey over in the voice channel, an omnichannel approach could look like the chatbot automatically offering the customer a call from the next available agent, then transferring their interaction data to the agent before the call connects. Now, the customer gets to skip the IVR and hold time, and the agent goes into the call knowing exactly who the caller is and what they need help with — ultimately leading to faster, friendlier calls and drastically reduced handle times.
If that sounds too good to be true, trust us, it’s not. We see our own enterprise clients shave off roughly two minutes of handle time with these kinds of omnichannel solutions, so we know it works. If you want to learn more about what omnichannel could look like in your own contact center, definitely head to our website to check out our Essential Guide to the Omnichannel Contact Center.

We’re flying through these KPIs! Number 3 is Abandon Rate.

I feel like I should do one of those dramatic bom bom bommmms whenever we talk about abandon rates.
Yeah, like that.
This metric is just bad news all around, and it’s as simple as it sounds. Your abandon rate (or abandonment rate, however you want to call it) shows how often customers hang up the phone while waiting for help. This can cause chaos for your call center. It messes with hold queues and wait times, but even worse, it’s usually an indicator of repeat callers, who, are now distorting your call volume AND taking up handle time with frustrated venting.
I wish there was a way to completely eliminate abandons. But to truly fix abandon rates in your own contact center, you gotta address the issue that lead to a customer hanging up in the first place.
First, tidy up your IVR. A study by Vonage found that 51% of customers have abandoned a business because of IVRs. 63% said that their biggest frustration was irrelevant menu options, followed by 46% saying IVR menus are too long. If your IVR menu is bloated with a billion options and feels like a Rubic’s cube, you need to fix it. Look at your data, find the most frequently used menu options, and move them to the front of the pack. Even better, consider how you might relieve pressure on your IVR by creating self-service options for those specific menu items. Then, make sure all the variables of your IVR are consistent through the entire experience — the same voice, same volume, same cadence. Remember: the purpose of an IVR is to help customers either get answers or quickly connect them with someone who can help. Don’t turn your IVR into a telephonic fortress.
Second — and I sound like a broken record — use a virtual queue and callback tool to cut down on frustrating hold times. Sixty percent of callers will hang up after waiting on hold for more than five minutes. We always tell our clients to offer a callback option right up front, but especially when the hold times are longer than two minutes. This gets callers out of your hold queues, and removes their chance of abandoning. Plus, if your callback tool has a doublecheck feature, repeat callers get prevented from double booking a callback. So your picture of queues and volume will be crystal clear.

KPI #4, Customer Satisfaction, or CSAT.

I saved this one for last because, really, if all your other metrics are looking pretty, chances are your CSAT will look good, too.
But I gotta say — if your business isn’t regularly collecting CSAT data, you’ll never actually know the effectiveness of your contact center.
A study by Qualtrics found that bad customer experiences can put 9.5% of your revenue at risk — all because customers are quicker than ever to take their business elsewhere if they think a company doesn’t actually care about them. Besides trying to prevent bad experiences from happening in the first place, the only way you can truly know customer sentiment — and take steps to improve it — is if you hear from customers directly and take action to improve their experience.
This makes CSAT surveys and responses the springboard for business improvement, and your overall CSAT score an indicator for how aligned your business is with your customers’ needs.
If that indicator has a poor outlook, I’ve got a few ideas for ya.
Your omnichannel approach needs to let customers be known across channels. You have to use a solution to hand off context from one place to the other, or your customer will be doomed to start off that interaction on the wrong foot.
Yep, it’s pretty bad.
Next, you KNOW that customers hate waiting on hold. So let them skip it by using a virtual queue.
Customers also want quick, accurate resolutions to their questions or issues without having to call back a second time, so focus on improving your FCR rate.
Lastly, something we haven’t touched on. Customers want to feel valued, so show them you care by following up on their feedback after they complete a CSAT survey. You might find out more, you might win a new promoter, and you might even uncover new areas to improve your contact center. But you’ll never know unless you ask.

Last bite

While I’d argue that the four metrics we just went over are the ones you should have at the top of your dashboard, things like Employee Experience, Average Speed of Answer, or Average Response Time are also critical to measure and evaluate on a regular basis.
But I’d say, no matter the metric, the most important thing to take with you is action. You have to actually act on these metrics if you want to improve. That means shaking things up. Trying something risky. Championing a process even if your boss doesn’t believe in it. Brands we’ve worked with that make the most change try to do so with small, impactful projects that they can launch quickly. And if you need help knowing where to start, Mindful is always here for ya.

Nutritional Facts

This episode has been adapted from the article, “How to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Your Call Center and Improve Performance,” which you can find in the Mindful CX library at getmindful.com.
We publish new Snackable CX episodes every week, so be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. See ya’ next time.

Written and hosted by Sam Salerno.

Produced and engineered by Jared Evers.

Edited, mixed, and mastered by Adam Griffith.

Artwork designed by Rob Beckham.