There are dozens of call center KPIs you can track, but these 7 are the only ones you need.
Baskin Robbins is well known for its 31 flavors of ice cream. In 1953, the company introduced the 31 flavors concept into its marketing efforts, and they are still known for this today. That’s true even though they currently offer well over 1,000 flavors.
What’s particularly interesting about this, however, is that decades later, and with every imaginable ice cream flavor available (avocado ice cream, anyone?) guess what the top three flavors are? Vanilla, chocolate, and Mint Chocolate Chip (all three of which were among Baskin Robbins’ original 31) are the most popular flavors out there. What does this have to do with call center KPIs?
Psychology is an integral part of analyzing and adjusting your sales approach. What connects with people? What is your audience most inclined to appreciate?
And in psychology, there is a concept known as the “paradox of choice.” The short version of this concept is that too many choices make it more difficult for us to choose, and leave us less satisfied with our ultimate decision. For example, you like vanilla ice cream. You bought vanilla ice cream after agonizing over whether or not to get that or the honey pickle ice cream. Now you can’t stop worrying that you made the wrong choice.
Or to put it in terms of call center KPIs, when you’re looking at 31 (or more) different analytics results, which ones actually matter? Is it call time? The ratio of closed sales to calls made? Number of five-star reviews for your salespeople?
Make more calls and close more deals with call management software you can trust. Check out a free demo to learn more about all the great features.
The call center KPIs you need to pay attention to (and why they’re important)
First, what is a KPI? KPI stands for key performance indicator. It is a measure of how well (or not) a strategy or salesperson is doing. While there are a lot of factors that contribute to success, KPIs offer a quantitative way to examine and improve our process. They help us look at and discover things like when your customers are most likely to answer their phones or the average number of calls you have to make to close a sale.
It’s important to note that there are different call center KPIs for outgoing vs. incoming calls. Here, we’re looking at KPIs for outgoing sales and follow-up calls, so things like wait time and first call resolution will have little impact on your strategy. That said, there are some call center KPIs that may be very helpful – if you look at them in the right context.
1. Call time
Call time gets a lot of “press” as one of the most critical call center KPIs. Honestly, though, it’s often taken out of context and overrated. It is certainly true that more calls means more contact with people, but what does that mean?
Quantity means little without quality. It’s far more efficient to make one call that results in a $1,000 sale than it is to make 100 calls that bring in $1,000. This isn’t to say that call time is not an important KPI.
Looking at call times over different campaigns and strategies can help you determine which campaigns are your most efficient, which are most effective, and how to maximize your efforts.
2. Calls per hour
This KPI is closely tied to call times. Again, making more calls does not equate to making more sales or potential sales. But there is a beneficial aspect to this.
The number of calls your team makes per hour can give you insight into what your most successful sales agents are doing. Are they making fewer, but longer calls than most of your other agents? Or vice versa? Is there a lot of downtime between calls that could be better used? Are there significant gaps between calls because your call system isn’t user-friendly? Use this KPI to help you hone in on improvements, but keep it in context with everything else that is going on.
3. Follow-through
Depending on what you are selling or offering, your sales cycle may require several calls. Is your sales team following up with prospects? Are those follow-ups productive? Determining how many follow-up calls your sales strategy requires will help you plan and function more efficiently.
4. Conversion rate
No matter how many calls or follow-up calls you make, at some point, you either close the sale or lose the sale. Tracking your conversion rate tells you if you need to alter your sales script if the overall conversion rate is low, or if you need to offer more training if particular sales agents have low conversion rates.
5. Revenue per successful call
Similar to conversion rate, tracking your sales numbers on successful calls can give you important insight into what script changes or training protocols you might need to adjust. Or this number can tell you that you are doing everything exactly as you should.
6. Returned calls
For a large percentage of your calls, you will leave a voicemail. The only way to know if those voicemails are effective is to track your rate of returned calls.
7. Compliance
You know you aren’t supposed to make calls to numbers on the Do Not Call list. You know you need to follow TCPA and TSR regulations. But did you know that there’s more to it than just ensuring you don’t call numbers on the DNC list? Of all the call center KPIs, compliance is the one that is vitally important to your operations.
Bonus KPI – Employee happiness
It may sound trite, but employee happiness is essential in improving your entire sales operation. Happy employees are more stable, and more able and willing to help your customers and clients. Happy employees lead to happy customers; it’s as simple as that.
If you aren’t sure which call center KPIs to track, start with these. You might find they are the only ones you need.
Reach out to more clients and keep track of them with Call Logic’s cloud-based auto-dialing software. Schedule a live demo to find out how we can help you build relationships that lead to closed sales.