Use Analytics in Your Call Center to be Best of Breed: Aberdeen

Companies must use analytics to improve their operations and ensure they provide the best contact center performance, according to the “Contact Center Analytics” report from AberdeenGroup.

The Boston-based analyst of business technology issues points out that there is a mountain of data available within a contact center. Using this data to manage and improve customer service to drive business decisions can help companies improve the customer experience and optimize the use of available resources.

Best-in-class companies are benefiting from performance monitoring solutions that help improve agent performance, including shorter call duration rates, lower call abandonment rates and lower on-hold times, Aberdeen found. However, call duration measurements can be misleading. If a customer’s issue isn’t settled on the first call, he needs to call back, which means a less satisfied customer. So some contact center analysts see “first call resolution” as a more important measurement than average call time.

But firms planning to add or upgrade analytics capabilities in their contact centers should recognize that these deployments can be both complex and lengthy, Aberdeen cautioned. In order to achieve the best business results, companies need to spend time up front to ensure that they collect the correct data. A good example is the first call resolution versus average call holding time. If the firm’s goal is to minimize call backs and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction, the average call time measurement becomes less meaningful.

 “Ultimately, what gets measured gets done,” said Alan Hubbard, senior vice president, customer service and support for Aberdeen and author of the report. “The unwillingness or inability to identify and measure key performance metrics means the firm can’t get the necessary feedback to make the adjustments in performance to ultimately result in attainment of contact center goals.”

Leading firms have a comprehensive call analytics solution to enable employees to review and understand the entire agent and customer interaction from the moment a customer dials into the contact center until he hangs up. Twice as many best-in-class firms use predictive analytics as all other firms.

The goals of the contact center must be aligned with those of the company as a whole, according to Aberdeen. The firm also recommends that contact centers employ speech analytics in order to provide more robust analytic capabilities that will allow for better insight into key performance indicator improvements.