Overhead projectors. Pagers. One-line red LED tickers.
These were the early ways we shared our call center statistics.
It is incredible how much the contact center landscape has evolved since then. Words we use today such as chatbots, predictive analytics, sentiment analysis, artificial intelligence (AI), call routing, and voice assistance would be unheard of a few years ago (SEE FIGURE 1).
These concepts have changed how consumers interact with companies, and in many cases have enabled contact centers to become an integral part of a company’s ability to shape the customer experience (CX). The evolution of both technology and metrics has also created a new landscape for screening, hiring, managing, and coaching agents.
Criticality of Measurement
One aspect of driving improved CX results that has not changed is “what gets measured gets done.” As the industry has evolved, the focus on what to measure and how to measure it - ensuring the right outcomes at each point of contact between customer service representatives and their customers - has become essential to obtaining and retaining an organization’s competitive advantage.
The shift to a more data-driven approach in measuring CX has become critical in driving improved results. Organizations now place greater emphasis on identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) that truly reflect customer satisfaction and loyalty.
This involves not only tracking traditional metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores but also incorporating advanced analytics and real-time feedback mechanisms.
By leveraging technologies such as AI and machine learning, companies can analyze vast amounts of data to uncover deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences. This allows for more personalized and proactive engagement strategies, ensuring that the right outcomes are achieved at all points of customer contact.
Moreover, the integration of omnichannel feedback and seamless communication across various customer touchpoints, ensures that organizations can quickly respond to issues and adapt their strategies to meet evolving customer needs. This holistic approach to measuring and improving CX helps businesses maintain a competitive edge in a rapidly changing market.
One aspect of driving improved CX results that has not changed is “what gets measured gets done.”
Contact center representatives are no longer viewed as backroom operators for handling customer inquiries. Instead, they represent the face of their companies. Accordingly, the screening for these positions has evolved from one in-person or phone interview to a series of assessments and interviews.
Some of the attributes we screen for have stayed consistent, like active listening, attention to detail, and stress management.
Others have evolved:
- Phone communication skills, from both verbal and written, politeness, or being courteous to a full customer service orientation and expanded from typing and basic computer skills to technical skills.
- Basic problem solving expanded to solving more complex problems using a myriad of tools, glossaries, and technology.
While operational efficiency is vital, metrics solely focused on staffing and internal processes often overlook the customer’s perspective.
There are also new skills that weren’t around in the beginning of my career, like empathy, adaptability, flexibility, the ability to multitask, time management skills, and teamwork and collaboration.
The questions to ask are (a) whether the face of your company is showing up in each customer interaction and (b) how do you measure it to ensure the brand is well-represented?
Metrics Timeline
In the early days there was a saying in the contact center world: “if it moves, we measure it.” Contact centers were focused on the efficiency of the center as most were considered a cost center.
A contact center had real estate, technology, people, and time as expenses. Average Handle Time (AHT), Calls Per Hour (CPH), Call Volume, Average Speed of Answer, Hold Time, Service Levels, Abandonment Rate, and Wrap-Up Time were the way everything was measured in relation to the call.
The goal was efficiency. Agents were trained to answer the calls within three seconds, manage their handle times, and wrap up calls in short order to get to the next call.
In many cases, the most important person on the team was workforce management (WFM), who was focused on the call center staffing model and analytics.
It is worth noting that there is a key word missing from these metrics: “customer.” It wasn’t until later that we started to focus as an industry on the customer and their experience and started to create Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to harness the data.
While operational efficiency is vital, metrics solely focused on staffing and internal processes often overlook the customer’s perspective. This gap can lead to a misalignment between what the organization measures and what drives customer satisfaction and loyalty. To bridge the gap, metrics such as CSAT, NPS, and First Call Resolution (FCR) put the customer at the forefront ensuring the right outcomes.
As an industry, we continue to evolve by leveraging digital transformation and modernizing our metrics with the coming of Customer Effort Score (CES), a Digital Engagement Score, and Sentiment Analysis.
Once some companies started to adopt digital technologies, it was a race across each industry to implement them as well. Technology startups and in-house software digital teams were leveraging Agile approaches to deploy even faster.
Pulling that into a synopsis is a bit unsettling. Every item listed took years to conceive of, develop, and launch. Every client struggled with a capabilities gap, a wish list, and later a project plan for each capability.
It is truly incredible to remember back to the struggles of how to intelligently categorize and route types of callers with IVRs and call monitoring technologies when fast-forwarding to the current day.
Think just about the data:
- First, we didn’t have any.
- Then we didn’t have anywhere to put it.
- Next, we had places to put it but couldn’t find people to analyze it.
- Finally, we had a combination of people and machine learning, but by the time we executed changes based on the findings, some other competitor or technology had leapfrogged us, and we were back to the drawing board.
Now we are nimble, but our customers are more demanding than they used to be, and we need to be smarter, faster, and able to resolve problems in a single interaction. But are our jobs becoming easier or harder?
Shift to Complexity
The call center industry continues to evolve and often success is measured by a combination of traditional and modern metrics.
The job of a contact center representative is becoming more complex due to several factors and one key driver is the use of AI.
With the introduction of AI, customers can interface with companies via channels like chat and text to resolve their questions without needing live interactions, which leaves more complex conversations for agents.
Companies are leveraging chat and text to improve efficiency and use algorithms to analyze customer sentiment in real-time during calls or chats, which helps agents to gauge CSAT and adjust their approaches accordingly.
As an industry, we are processing vast amounts of data to extract actionable insights, helping contact centers improve processes, optimize resources, and enhance CXs.
Contact centers are where frontline service can exceed expectations and best represent a company’s brand.
These centers are often the primary points of interaction between companies and their customers, making them crucial in shaping customer perceptions and loyalty. When managed effectively, contact centers can transform routine interactions into opportunities for building lasting relationships and enhancing the brand’s reputation.
...often success is measured by a combination of traditional and modern metrics.
Ensuring agents are up for the challenge is the real question in the ever-changing contact center world. To level up to the more complex expectations, an investment needs to be made in the frontline contact center agents regarding comprehensive training, clear guidelines, and the autonomy to make decisions that benefit the customer. Empowered agents are more likely to deliver exceptional service.
This is a new world for agents, and it requires emotional intelligence skills such as empathy, active listening, and effective communication. These skills help agents connect with customers on a personal level and resolve issues more effectively.
By investing in the contact center’s technology and people, leaders will be able to identify trends, predict customer needs, and optimize contact center operations. They can then produce informed decisions that enhance the CX while resolving customer issues efficiently and creating memorable experiences that exceed expectations and strengthen the brand’s reputation.
Changed Measurements
AI applications streamline operations and enhance CXs, but they also have changed the way we can measure performance in the contact center space.
Agents handling more complex topics shift KPIs from expense-oriented metrics, like AHT and CPH to customer-first ones like FCR and sentiment analysis.
Contact center leaders and representatives are focused on metrics, so ensuring the right outcomes are defined is critical...
CSAT scores remain a crucial measure of success, reflecting how satisfied customers are with the service received. CSAT remains an important metric for almost 75% of customer service leaders (Source: Hubspot Annual State of Service in 2022).
However, the contact center scorecard also looks different as our industry has evolved. NPS measures customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking customers how likely they are to recommend the company to others. This metric has been driven at an individual contributor level in the past five years.
Over time, customers’ needs have shifted, and they are more discerning than ever. Data tells us customers want three things:
- Ease of doing business (respect their time).
- Issue resolution.
- Professional/caring interactions.
The key to driving these outcomes is measuring the right drivers. Contact center leaders and representatives are focused on metrics, so ensuring the right outcomes are defined is critical to the success of any organization.
If you had told me a few years ago that AHT and Hold Time were going to morph into CSAT and Sentiment Analysis, our “call centers/cost centers” would shift to “contact centers,” and opportunities to improve outcomes for both our customers and our company (SEE FIGURE 2) - I would have never believed you.
Year-by-year and minute-by-minute, the contact center world is being reshaped by technology, our metrics are becoming much more sophisticated, and our frontline employees are becoming some of the most important resources. The good news is that we are armed with the right tools and ready to meet the challenge.