Running a contact center for your organization means you are constantly aware of the needs your customers are facing. But even with this daily customer input, relying solely on your intuition and assumptions about how your business should improve to serve your customers can feel like a guessing game.
There is nothing wrong with drawing personal conclusions about a customer’s desires and needs, but this can become tedious and confusing when operating a customer-centric service like a contact center.
Rather than continuing to take shots in the dark about improving processes and serving your customers, contact center reporting should be consistently leveraged to enhance your understanding of your customers and drive your contact center's success through data-driven decisions.
Contact center reporting enables data analysis based on various call center metrics. These reporting results can help business owners make objective decisions about call center optimization and strategy.
Data-driven reporting for call centers can be useful in a variety of different ways depending on the needs of your organization. Uses for call center reporting include understanding seasonal client trends and adjusting staffing needs accordingly, gap and workflow identification, well-informed budget decisions, and real-time performance analysis.
The metrics your company chooses to track will be highly dependent on your particular needs and organizational goals.
A few of the most common metrics used in contact center reporting are:
Average Handle Time (AHT): AHT tracks the amount of time a customer spends on the call with your contact center, including interactive voice response (IVR) time, hold time, and more.
First Call Resolution (FCR): FCR measures a call center’s ability to resolve a customer's problem within the first call interaction.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): The CSAT score measures the customer's level of satisfaction immediately following a contact center call.
Net Promoter Score (NPS): This metric tracks the likelihood of customers who would recommend (i.e. promote) your company to others against those who would not.
Self-Service Rate: The self-service rate, also known as the containment rate, measures the amount of customers who successfully have their questions answered by an IVR service, without needing to be transferred to a live agent.
This particular data is gathered via call logs and used in a variety of ways. Some metrics are focused on evaluating aggregate results from a high-level view such as the total of all calls received, and which calls were successful or failed. Other metrics are gathered on a daily basis by teams investigating specific calls to find defects and make granular observations.
The method your company uses for gathering call center reporting metrics is as important as the metrics themselves, because if the data is not accurate or complete, the conclusions drawn won’t serve your company in the long run.
A solid reporting structure requires good data, which means the success of your call center data is fully dependent on the correct logging of calls, taking adequate recordings, and transcriptions.
When contact center reporting is executed with a high level of intention and accuracy, your organization will experience exponential benefits from successful data-driven reporting.
So, what happens when a strong reporting foundation is in place, and data is being analyzed consistently and accurately?
Improved decision-making: Real-time data means that you now have access to the most accurate information available about your customers and call center, which contributes to more confident and informed decision-making.
Enhanced customer experience: Insights into a customer’s call center experience create the ability to resolve their frustrations more quickly. You can effectively reduce the time delays they experience, improve customer satisfaction scores, and help your organization reach its annual targets.
Increased operational efficiency and performance management: Effective reporting frees your organization up to move faster because of the insights at your fingertips. Rather than guessing about which solution will work, you can confidently prioritize development resources on bugs and enhancements that will address the largest percentage of customer needs.
Now that you know the importance of contact center reporting, it's time to get into the details about which contact center reporting software features will be most useful for your organization. Many CCaaS vendors have integrated reporting solutions already built within their software. Whether you use an existing solution or want to seek a new solution, we’ve outlined the top criteria for you to consider below.
Flexibility and customization: No two businesses are the same, and what works for the call center next door will likely not serve your organization in the same way. Focus on the type of flexibility your organization needs, and choose a product that has the ability to serve your organization in a variety of ways.
Integrations: Your call center data needs to be easily integrated into your current data lakes or warehouses so that your Business Intelligence (BI) tool can seamlessly pull data whenever needed.
Current tools: Allow the tools your organization currently uses to inform your decision for a call center reporting tool. For example, if your organization exclusively uses Microsoft products, Power BI is likely the best choice for your call center analytics. Other popular tools include Tableau and Qlik.
Enterprise support: Get buy-in across your team and organization prior to making a reporting software decision. The success of your reporting initiative will only be as strong as the enthusiasm and willingness of agents and customer service representatives who are handling this data day-in-and-day-out. Take time to invest in change management by educating your team members to access and leverage data and insights effectively. This education will invigorate your team members about the potential this solution will bring to your company.
Keep your reporting analysis relevant by having consistent review checkpoints throughout your days and weeks. Create space to share the analysis resulting from this data and push stakeholders to implement changes that will increase positive outcomes.
In addition to using current data for timely problem solving, historical data from call center reporting that is gathered over time is extremely useful for forecasting and planning future call center changes or adjustments, which could include integrating AI, adjusting call center staff, or making IVR menu changes.
As mentioned above, buy-in from your team on the importance of contact center data will make all the difference in the success of your call center reporting and analytics. Give them comprehensive training on ensuring data accuracy and analytics interpretation so they can take ownership of the reporting initiative and see the direct results of their efforts.
Contact center data is useful because of the actions and insights it enables your company to adopt – so don’t hesitate to consistently adapt and make improvements based on reporting. That’s what it’s there for to begin with!
Contact center reporting is an effective and important tool for any organization with a call center. While you run an effective organization that serves your customers, you may not have the resources to fully implement an effective reporting and data analysis solution. That’s where Kenway’s Contact Center and Data & Analytics solutions come into play.
Kenway is proud to have a proven record of partnering with companies to successfully optimize their contact center operations in a variety of ways:
Whatever contact center reporting needs your company is experiencing, Kenway is here to provide custom solutions and guidance to get your call center and your customers on the same page.
Contact center reporting compiles call center data for organizations to more effectively and efficiently serve customers through detailed data analysis, timely problem-solving, and call center solution forecasting.
Key metrics in contact center reporting include Average Handle Time, First Call Resolution, Customer Satisfaction Score, Net Promoter Score, and Self-Service Rate.
Prioritize flexibility and customization capabilities, evaluate your current digital tools for compatibility with a new reporting tool, and ensure buy-in from the rest of your team.
Focus on laying a strong foundation for accurate data collection. This starts at the individual-employee level, so use education to garner a sense of ownership among your team.
