Why sales managers and agents should care about call center performance

Your call center needs to run like a well-oiled machine, where everyone plays their part in turning dials into dollars. Reps are on the front line of this effort, connecting with leads and closing deals through the day, but their targets and quotas are only part of a complete picture. While sales might ultimately be the name of the game, there are other aspects of call center performance and strategy that need a close eye.

This is where reporting and analytics come in. Chances are, you’re used to checking in on your agents’ KPIs — but performance monitoring is something your whole call center needs to adopt, including managers, agents, and trainers. We’ll talk you through the value that metrics provide to everyone in the business, and how taking a team-wide approach to measuring them helps to drive better performance in your call center.

The 101: Why track call center performance?

The needs of your customers and prospects are always evolving, and your call center should be prepared to meet them. From one quarter to the next, this could mean switching up your sales scripts, implementing fresh lead gen tactics, or running new training sessions. You’ll only know what and when to change, however, if you’re setting clear goals and consistently evaluating your call center performance against them.

Hustling to hit targets and bank bonuses every month comes with a great deal of excitement and pressure, but it’s important not to lose sight of the deeper strategic value that call center metrics can provide. Reporting and analytics are at their best when they support goal achievement, so while the numbers will help you get a sense of current results and performance, you’ll find them much more beneficial when you look to spot practices that help or hinder your results.

Your call center is constantly gathering data on calls, campaigns, and agents — and this approach will help you narrow down what to track and target. Begin with a big-picture goal for your reps to work toward, like high customer satisfaction, high conversion rates, or low abandon rates. Then, identify and track a number of relevant metrics, such as average call speed or first call resolutions. Make these goals and metrics available to your agents and supervisors, and they’ll have the context and information they need to understand how they’re performing and where to improve.

Getting the whole team involved

Do just a handful of people in your workplace take ownership of reporting and analytics? If so, you’ve got an opportunity to improve sales performance management by making metrics visible and relevant to every role — because when people know better, they do better.

• Managers: Keeping a close eye on metrics is key to seeing how your vision for the call center and performance objectives are progressing, and for actioning the right changes to keep sales coming in.
• Team leaders: Monitoring KPIs and call logs will help you keep tabs on how agents are doing with respect to established processes, policies, and strategies.
• Agents: When reps are clear on their KPIs, and on the goals and performance of the team at large, they can gain confidence in the successes of their work and become more proactive in pursuing self-improvement. Tying incentives to KPI achievement can further motivate your agents to be their best.
• Trainers: In order to deliver the most beneficial training sessions to your team, and to the right people, trainers naturally need an accurate grasp of performance trends to identify the knowledge, skills, processes, and staff to focus efforts on.
• Analysts: Access to a breadth of metrics gives analysts the evidence they need to make useful assessments and forecasts, like anticipating call volumes, determining the resources needed for upcoming sales campaigns, and spotting emerging customer expectations.

The big picture: Achieving better results

When your entire team is actively measuring KPIs, the whole operation gets better at uncovering needs, trends, and opportunities to improve call center performance — and at acting on them.

As an example, let’s say one of your agents is at pace with the team when it comes to conversion rate, but they have relatively high handle times (and low call rates). When the metrics are clear and visible to the relevant people, you’ll all be on the same page about what to do; that agent will know where they can make improvements, and supervisors and trainers can gear that rep’s personal development around call speed.

And when trends emerge — say, low call quality rates for agents on a particular sales campaign — you’ll all have a voice about how to make improvements. How does each agent find the sales script? Are unanticipated product questions coming up? When your team works together to track the numbers, you get better at finding the answers.

Looking to kick your performance management up a notch? We’ve got you covered. ReadyMode has detailed reports and analytics into agents, calls, campaigns, leads, and customers, so your team can spot the next big opportunity. Schedule a demo to see for yourself.

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