Call Center Benchmarking
Benchmarking for Call Centers
Call center benchmarking is the search for best practices among other call centers, and is often used in the assessment and development of call center policy, performance measures and objectives. These reports typically illustrate call center operations, practices and trends, including changes that are producing the greatest improvement in customer satisfaction and call center efficiency.
Call center benchmarking reports can provide valuable standards to help improve the life of the contact centers' operation. True call center benchmarking follows a progressive path towards a desired outcome in a phased process that establishes improved customer experiences.
Objective measurements of quality standards built into call center benchmarking plans can help highlight areas of strengths and weaknesses. These measurements can impact the team as well as the individual. Conducting a benchmarking study once can be extremely valuable. However, the actual benefit comes from repeated studies over the course of time. The survey should be repeated at least annually, possibly semiannually, quarterly, or even monthly. The benchmarking results then become a regular report card showing successes and shortcomings. This provides the basis for celebration and improvement.
The Path to Benchmarking
Comprehending and embracing benchmarking efforts can be a challenge all by itself. Finding the right technology that tracks key measurements to allow an organization to consider timely benchmarking studies is a unique challenge altogether. In order to start down the path of benchmarking a solution that compiles vital metrics while enabling contact centers to visualize customer service efforts is necessary.
Key effectiveness measures, such as first call resolution and solve-rate, are essential for organizations to see how well CSRs are resolving customer issues. Where popular contact center reporting systems simply collect discrete pieces of data, they fail to link the data and analyze it in a meaningful way. Jacada® Insight collects the appropriate data in real-time and across multiple contact channels, and enables organizations to have a more complete view of the customer's experience.
Because of these benefits, it is an ideal solution for producing an initial set of metrics that aid management in benchmarking processes. Corporate improvements can enhance productivity, or create inefficiencies. The best intentions sometimes fail because of hidden factors. Jacada Insight allows call centers to get to the bottom of these factors with true business intelligence available 3, 6, 9 months or anytime after initiating improvements. With Jacada Insight's strategic analytics, companies can create a continuous improvement plan having objective measurable benchmarks at its contact center.
