Call Center KPIs: Definitions and Best Practices

Customer Experience Call Center KPIs and Metrics

Call Center KPIs are essential for any business, they are real indicators of how the business is going so they can evaluate the overall performance of the call center.

Category	KPI	Description	Industry Standard	Formula	How to ensure KPI is met
Customer Experience	Service Level (SL)	SL is defined by how many calls are being answered within a set time usually called SL Threshold time	80% of calls answered within 20 secs (Some call centers aim for 90% within 15 secs)	SL % = (Total no of answered calls within the SL threshold time)/ (Total no of received calls) X 100%	Proper long-term staffing plan taking into consideration on/off peak times.

Service Levels Across Channels

Channels	Industry Standard	Comments
Email	95% of emails answered within four hours	Better call centers are aiming to respond to 80% of emails within 15 minutes
Live Chat	80% of chats answered within 40 seconds
Social Media	80% of contacts answered within 20 minutes
SMS/Messaging Apps	80% of messages responded to within 40 seconds

CASE STUDY

How to increase customer satisfaction by enhancing the SL?

The Company	Xpress Telecommunication
Challenges	First Walkie Talkie (Push to Talk) service operator in the Middle east. The new service requires using only Motorola iDEN phones which were imported from the US. Huge number of inbound calls to the call center. High number of Abandoned calls. Many unsatisfied customers.
Solution	Implementing an IVR to cover all services and lower calls forwarded to agents. Implementing smart ACD techniques (Queues) based on agents’ skills and languages. Implementing 2 new customer support channels: Emails and Live chat. Extensive soft skills and product knowledge training. Distributing call center agents among different queues based on their skills and languages.
Results	Achieving successfully a SL of 80/20. Reducing waiting times by customers and directing their calls to different queues thus serving them faster. Increasing customer satisfaction by having more communication channels (calls, emails and live chat).

Category	KPI	Description	Industry Standard	Formula	How to ensure KPI is met
Customer Experience	Quality Assurance (QA)	Testing the functionalities of the tool and use cases on a random weekly or monthly sample that covers different shifts, queues and agent skills.	Quality score should fall between 75 and 90%		Right quality assurance tool in addition to having a dedicated QA team (Luckily with ZIWO, we have this tool ready for you)
Customer Experience	First Contact Resolution (FCR)	A contact center’s ability to resolve customer problems, questions or needs the first time they call, with no follow-up required.	70–75%	FCR % = (Total number of incidents resolved on first contact)/ (Total number of received incidents) X 100% (Incidents can be calls, emails, chats, messages, etc.)	Effective and smart ACD plans where calls are routed to the correct queues and agents are assigned as per their correct skillsets. Continuous training for your agents. For Omnichannel contact centers better to measure it per channel
Customer Experience	Net Promoter Score (NPS)	This metric is simple but very powerful tool to measure your customers’ satisfaction and their loyalty by asking one ultimate question	We are all hoping to exceed 10!	1-Promoters = respondents giving a 9 or 10 score 2-Passives = respondents giving a 7 or 8 score 3-Detractors = respondents giving a 0 to 6 score	-Focus on knowing your Detractors, this is where our pain points are laying. -Make sure you are having a seamless customer journey map. -Loyalty programs. -Appreciate your promoters and tailor special discounts/ gifts/ offers for them.

NPS Example:

“How likely are you to recommend company/brand/product X to a friend/colleague/relative?”

This can be answered on an 11-point rating scale, ranging from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely).

Call Initiation Metrics and KPIs

Category	KPI	Description	Industry Standard	Formula	How to ensure KPI is met
Call Initiation	Blocking Rate	Percentage of Call Blocked	It should be kept as low as possible (below 1%)	SL % = (Total no of answered calls within the SL threshold time)/ (Total no of received calls) X 100%	Proper long-term staffing plan taking into consideration on/off peak times.
Call Initiation	Abandoned Rate	This Call Call Center KPI is a measure for calls that were abandoned in the IVR + queue	Acceptable rate falls between 2%- 5%. Above 5% is considered problematic.	((No of Calls Offered- No of Calls Handled)/(No of Calls Offered )) x 100	-Proper workforce planning (roaster) (have enough agents covering peak hours). -Better forecasting and scheduling for call peaks. -Using call back technology. -Improving In-Queue messages and avoid long IVR options (Trees).

Percentage of Call Blocked (Blocking Rate)

This Call Center KPI has a large impact on customer satisfaction. It is defined as the percentage of inbound callers that received the busy tone when they call and is often caused by one of the following

Agent Productivity Call Center KPIs & Metrics

Category	KPI	Description	Industry Standard	Formula	How to ensure KPI is met
Agent Productivity	Average Handling Time (AHT)	This KPI is a key measure as it tells you how long a new call takes to be handled and not just the talk time.	This will vary greatly depending on the industry and the scale of business.	= Total Talk Time+Total HoldTime + TotalWrap Time	-Creating call center scripts and canned responses for FAQs -Unifying all tools used by the agent into 1 screen -Recording all calls for agent’s training session (Hint: Always look for very short and very long call durations). Root Cause ANalysis for repeated/high on hold calls
	Wrap Up Time or After Call Work (ACW)	Wrap time is also known After call work (ACW) & measures the average time it takes agents to do the work associated with a call after it’s finished.	It is recommended to be between 10 and 15 seconds.	Average ACW = Time to complete ACW for all call / Total number of answered calls	You need your agents to spend enough time to do this work accurately. However, if ACW time is too high, there may be something else going on. The value of wrap up time can be entered in your call center platform based on your historical calculation of the average ACW and its impact on SL.
	Average Speed of Answer (ASA)	With this critical metric, call centers can assess how long it takes for agents to answer a waiting call. When this metric is too high, it can mean that agents are taking too long on calls or taking too much time to pick up new calls.	The faster an agent can answer the call the better. Recommended ASA is 3 to 4 rings.	(Total waiting time for answered calls / Total number of answered calls)/- No of calls handled
	Occupancy	Occupancy is calculated as a percentage and represents the amount of time that advisors spend on call-related activity while they are logged in and expected to be taking calls. Call-related activity includes talk time, hold time and wrap up time. It is often referred to as “productive time”.		(Total Contact Handling Time/ Total Logged Time) x 100
	Utilization	utilization represents the amount of time that advisors spend logged-in, handling and expecting contacts, while being present in the call center.		(Total Logged in Time/Total Shift Time) x100

1. Average Handling Time (AHT)

The goal of many call centers is to reduce AHT, to maximize efficiency and to increase the SL. However, this can have a negative impact on service quality.

2. Wrap Up Time or After Call Work (ACW)

Wrap up time or Average After Call Work Time is a great way to measure call center agent productivity. Average after call work time measures the average time it takes agents to do the work associated with a call after it’s finished.

You need your agents to spend enough time to do this work accurately and thoroughly. However, if you find that the average After Call Work time is too high, there may be something else going on.

The value of wrap up time or the ACW can be entered in your call center platform based on your historical calculation of the average ACW and its impact on SL.

3. Average Speed of Answer (ASA)

With this critical metric, call centers can assess how long it takes for agents to answer a waiting call. When this metric is too high, it can mean that agents are taking too long on calls or taking too much time to pick up new calls.

CASE STUDY

How to improve the SL by implementing the ASA KPI?

The Company	MarkaVIP
Challenges	E-Commerce shopping company selling and delivering orders to the GCC, Jordan, and Lebanon. A huge number of inbound calls to the call center. High waiting times.
Solution	Setting ASA to 3 rings instead of 9 rings. After 3 rings, if the agent doesn’t answer the call, it will be forwarded to the next available agent.
Results	Achieving successfully a SL of 80/20. Enhanced agents’ productivity by answering more calls thus increasing the service level.

10- Occupancy and Utilization

Many professionals are mistakenly thinking that occupancy and utilization are the same while they are completely different metrics.

What is Occupancy?

It is typical for a contact center’s occupancy to lie between 80 and 85%, and if your occupancy rate is at this level, it is likely that your Resource Planning team is doing a good job. However, if occupancy is consistently higher than 85%, you are at risk of agent burnout.

What is Utilization?

Like occupancy, utilization is calculated as a percentage. However, it differs from occupancy as utilization instead represents the amount of time that advisors spend logged-in, handling, and expecting contacts while being present in the call center.