The New Generation of Call Center Metrics and How They Help the Modern Contact Center

Managers love numbers. Numbers are concrete items that can be understood and manipulated to improve department performance. Early development of call center metrics in the 1980s was seen as a great step forward for contact centers, but the industry has not evolved as quickly as the metric technology has.

The Original Call Center Metrics

Twenty or so years ago, there was little integration between a company's phone system and its computer network. Gathering information was a chore, so call center metrics were limited. Managers focused on basic statistics such as the number of dropped calls and average hold time. Reports showed daily or weekly averages, and it was difficult to get more detail such as statistics broken out by agent or type of call. Information was compiled and manipulated in spreadsheets rather than dedicated call center analysis software.

Wallboards were quite primitive, often showing just a few numbers such as current queue length. They updated slowly and were hard to see from certain parts of the contact center. Onscreen wallboards were rare since early computer displays could show both phone center statistics and customer information.

Metrics Evolve As Computers Evolve

Throughout the 1990s, business computers became more powerful. Agents were no longer using thin clients running network applications. Instead they were using standalone computers running multitasking operating systems such as Microsoft Windows. Company computer networks were faster and more robust, making it easier to pass large amounts of information throughout the organization. The line between the phone system and the computer system became blurred by the development of VoIP systems.

Call center metrics evolved to take advantage of this rich new environment. Applications could produce highly detailed, realtime reports of caller and agent activity. Calls could be recorded digitally and listened to by any authorized user on the network. Unfortunately, companies still tended to depend on the same metrics such as average hold time.

The Industry Matures

It took longer for contact center management to adjust to the new capabilities of modern call center metrics and other technologies. Managers have come to realize today's phone centers don't live and die based on just average hold time. They can conduct intensive, highly detailed analysis of caller traffic and create complex solutions to ensure adequate agent coverage.

Contact center software does more than just measure metrics. It is now the heart of a complex information management system that includes wall-mounted digital signage, agent desktop dashboards and complex analysis capabilities. No longer to agents have to wait for manager analysis of metrics days after a spike in traffic. Instead, employees can monitor and react to traffic on their own, giving them more control and freeing up managers to take a bigger picture view.

Call center metrics do nothing by themselves. Make metrics part of a larger system of policies and procedures to get full benefit from these statistics.

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