Call Center and CRM Best Practices

A most often asked question is “Where do you begin your search for the KPIs and supporting metrics you need?”  The starting point may not be in any particular contact center system, application or report. It isn’t in the contact center at all…. it’s in the executive suite.

The  contact center’s KPIs from strategic targets and goals is set for the company as a whole by its leaders.  An hour spent with the vice-president of sales and marketing or the chief financial officer — or the CEO — can go a long way towards defining what needs to be measured back in the call center.

You  can count on most broad strategic goals boiling down to specific, measurable actions in the contact center.  For instance, if a financial institution’s strategic goal is to move into a new market category as home insurance, then measuring and improving cross-selling by customer service agents handling mortgage inquiries will serve that strategic goal

To be sure, the organization’s strategic goals are not likely to be achieved simply by tuning performance within the contact center. If you are measuring a KPI that can’t be mapped directly to one of those goals, then it’s likely to be of secondary importance. Operational efficiency metrics and KPIs, which help managers operate the contact center at the lowest cost, should always be sub-ordinate to strategic KPIs. At best, a “merely efficient” contact center is doing no harm; at worst, it could be efficiently driving its resources in the wrong direction.   A white paper    Nine Pitfalls to Avoid in Defining KPIs for the Contact Center outlines will help you to look for correct KPIs.

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