Let’s face it. It is not rocket Science and I am not spilling any secrets when I say that in the direct response industry the only way to effectively gauge and control performance in a call center is to manage by a defined set of metrics, or better yet by KPI (key performance indicators and pun intended also)

One of the biggest challenges is finding an organization that operates under the same interpretation and the same definitions of those metrics. Especially when you are dealing with multiple call centers. That challenge, at times, seems a step closer to rocket science.

For the most part, each center manages by using the same set of metrics. We might refer to them differently…Is it Average Order Value or Average ticket? Do we track Revenue per Call Received or Answered?

A few of the standard metrics being:

On the sales side, we have Conversion (Sales) Abandonment (calls that didn’t get answered) AOV (Average order Value) RPC (Revenue per call) MER (Media Expense Ratio) etc…

On the customer service side, we have Re-order Conversion, Average talk time, Abandonment, AOV, Saves (Customers who were retained after requesting for refund/return) ASA (Average Speed of Answer)

As previously posted blog Where the rubber meets the road, discusses the hybrid employee solution, regardless of whether your employees occupy the seats on the sales side or the customer service side, the measures in which we track performance and success are and should always be the same.

With the technology of today, we have the data at our fingertips. Real time web reporting that can be so addicting we get caught sitting at our desks for hours just hitting the refresh button.  Gone are the days where we have to request reports, and wait a significant amount of time to receive them before we can do our analysis on campaign A and campaign B. The secret of success isn’t whether we can get enough data to analyze anymore, but whether we can dissect the data, and whether we can trust it’s accurate and can we truly use this data to measure performance and implement changes. Are the call centers using the same definitions for short calls (is it under 30 seconds or under 26 seconds?) for our “apples to apples” comparison?

To be great at this business, you have to be a data geek. Just accept it now; it will be easier in the end. With all this visibility to data it can be easy for some managers and trainers to get lost in it. At first glance, it is impressive when the new hire trainer can tell you within a few moments, what the average order value was for the new hires for the past month and how many calls they dropped within that same time frame. If you want he can even give you these results by supplier, by day, by hour, by minute…Heck, I can get all these numbers myself in just a few clicks…..But what does all of this mean though? When you are drilling down to miniscule details of your metrics are you really getting the big picture?

The sense of urgency becomes in getting the right metrics program in place so you can eventually understand the minimum number of measures that give you a clear understanding of the state of your company. It all comes down to a formula.
I read somewhere once that the average customer service department tracks at least 25 metrics. While each of these metrics may be useful to trend internally, tracking these items and having the data to support these metrics does not really answer the question how is my call center or company really doing? These 25 metrics make up a somewhat redundant list of statistics and can really be rolled up under 5 KPI’s (key performance indicators) 1) Cost per Call 2) Customer Satisfaction 3) First Call Resolution 4) Agent Utilization (what I like to refer to as BIS =butts in seats) and 5) Overall Call Center Performance

So why is less more in this case?

Defining goals for each KPI is critical in tracking call center performance. Having 5 performance metrics to manage instead of 25 definitely streamlines your process making it easier to:

1. Identify strengths and weaknesses within your department(s)
2. Provide necessary training and cross training for agents in opposing departments, as well as support to give your agents the power of knowledge.
3. Establish performance goals for both individual agents and as a team
4. Consider the potential benefits of introducing a performance based incentive plan to motivate and compensate your agents
5. Implement new processes and policies in place to overcome specific obstacles (IE talk time increased due to lack of training on a new order management system)

Once you have a set of measures that you can benchmark against other companies to understand where the existing opportunities lie and where you need to create opportunities to move toward, you are better positioned to add staff or other resources before you get caught short-handed.

Most importantly, once you have a grasp on the above, you have a solid platform for experimenting with the fundamental changes you make to your existing business operations. Only then can you accurately evaluate the effectiveness of the new approaches you take and be rid of the ones that don’t.

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We’ve all heard the scoop on our competition from some other industry source.  Supposedly their campaign is generating millions in sales, has a 3.0+ MER,  40% web conversion, has an average of 5 turns of continuity…AND only a 2% return rate.  You start to beat yourself up over the harsh reality that you are nowhere near any of these numbers, and it can be a bit discouraging.  Well, two months later their show goes off the air and you hear the company has gone belly-up.  What are we missing here?  Well, my initial guess is that the supposed “scoop” was probably a combination of white lie, some exaggeration, and about five different definitions of each metric being referenced. One of the key reasons we have metrics is so that we can compare ourselves to others, however, one of the main reasons we resort to faulty comparison is because we are not comparing apples to apples. The correct comparison of metrics is often called benchmarking.  Our dear friend Wikipedia defines this as:

The process where you compare your process with that of a better process and try to improve the standard of the process you follow to improve quality of the system, product, services etc.

How to benchmark

Okay, so you are interested in benchmarking.   Where do you start?

Before you can compare yourself to others you need to compare to yourself.  It may be intuitively obvious but nonetheless necessary that you know your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), know how you’re trending, and know what you’re trying to achieve.  If you have not done so yet then define all of the metrics for your business and begin methodically tracking each one.  Learn what affects them, learn how to improve them.

Seek out real data, not hearsay.  I could tell you that my campaign converted at 60%, 47%, or 36% last week.  All numbers could be true but are meaningless unless I tell you exactly how I measure conversion.  My suggestion is that unless you have a reliable means to get real, rich, data you should focus on the simple things that could be useful in your decision making process.  Example: you have a weight loss product and you know your media agency has a similar product and are running a large TV campaign.  If you are able to reliably determine from your agency that their creative runs at 50 CPK (Calls per thousand in media spent) and you test a show that runs at 20 CPK you can save yourself a lot of time by immediately focusing on better creative.  The reason I would choose a metric like CPK is first, that it’s a good indicator of your front end creative success, and secondly, it’s a measure that your media agency should reliably know.

Dig in to the minutiae and test. So, what if you’ve figured out your metric and also figured out you’re lagging behind your competitors.  What can you do about it?  My suggestion is that you dig into every little detail of both your campaign and your competitors.  There is no silver bullet out there but we at KPI believe that systematic diligence and testing will pay off in the long run.  Look at other websites, call other call centers, sign up for other continuity programs.  Be careful not to assume whatever they’re doing is better than what you’re doing, but also be sure to never stop testing.  It’s the only way to improve.

The future of benchmarking

Several weeks ago Google announced something pretty revolutionary: the addition of benchmarking tools to their Google Analytics platform.  Basically what this boils down to is that anybody who chooses to share their data will be able to see how they stack up against other competitors in their industry vertical space.  What makes it so powerful is the fact that it is real data coming from real sites and that it is a common standard (no fudging of the definition of MER is allowed!).  Personally I think this will be the future of benchmarking in the DR space.  We will no longer have to distill the hearsay from truth; instead technology providers will serve as data aggregators.  Companies that so choose will be able to objectively and confidentially know how they stack up against the competition and in the end we’ll all be better because of it.  And isn’t that the point?

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