7 Important Agent Performance Metrics That Drive Success in Customer Service

Oct 27,2023 / by Kolaxo CCS

Delivering top-notch customer services is not always easy, particularly when you don’t have any clear criteria to track the success rate of your third-party contact services provider. It’s not only important to comprehend the needs of your customers but also to monitor your customer service provision to make some critical improvements in them. 

Following are the important agent performance metrics that drive success in customer service so you can employ them to quantify any contact center efforts. 

1. First Response Time 

When customers submit their queries, the time it takes to respond to the customer by the agent is termed the first response time. The lower response time of a contact center indicates high efficiency as it exhibits that the agents are professional enough to address the issues quickly. The longer response time means dissatisfaction and frustration among customers. 

2. First Contact Resolution Rate

The contact resolution rate helps evaluate how many inquiries the contact center resolved in the first customer interaction without moving on to any other escalation or follow-up. It’s one of the major agent performance metrics in which a higher percentage is a vivid indication to come in business terms with the third-party contact center service provider. 

3. Rate of Answered Calls 

Answering calls is a percentage that can be calculated by dividing the incoming call by the total number of calls. The performance metrics show how agents manage to deal with high incoming call volume without missing a few. Best contact centers use call routing technology to distribute incoming calls which helps to mitigate the chances of missing calls.  

4. Average Handling Time 

Average handling time consists of the span of time that is taken by the agent from the first interaction to the resolution of the issue. The higher average time exhibits the inefficiency of the agents for resolving the problems. To reduce the average handling time, it’s important to hire agents who have some knowledge about the product or services, they support. 

5. After Interaction Work 

After interaction work, the performance metric is used to calculate the efforts and time of the agent taken after the conversation has ended. The agents who are experienced and well-versed in the techniques of comprehending and taking accurate notes will require less time to sum up the interaction.  

6. Quality Assurance Score 

Quality assurance score is one of the critical agent performance metrics that shows the disciplinary parameters of the agents as to how they stick with the company guidelines for customer interaction. In the quality assurance score, factors such as tone of voice, product knowledge, and politeness are included. 

7. Customer Churn 

It is also termed customer attrition, which measures the number of customers who stop using a specific brand services, or product. Customer churn is one of the intricate parameters to calculate because it’s not only the customer services that play a role in affecting its value but there are a lot more dimensions to cover for reliable evaluation. 

Conclusion 

As a business owner, it is important to know agent performance metrics before hiring the right third-party contact service provider. For instance, lower first response time and average handling time of a contact center are strong indicators that they are using advanced technology and have experienced agents to deal with customer inquiries. Hiring such a contact center will provide enough time to focus on your core responsibilities that drive success in your business.