What generice KPIs should we monitor within Call Centres, does anybody have examples of best practice they would like to share.

My client, a multi-national consumer electronics company wants to establish a standard set of KPIs across its European Call Centres. Each centre is a distinct operation with its own blend of technology and business processes but the aim is to have some generic KPIs.

This isn't my area of expertise so I'm just looking for some help to point them in the direction.

Steve,

There is enough material with the messages of this forum.

If you can spare some time please do go through the messages.

From what you have added to the message, I gather that the Call Centres are already into place.

You brief appears to be standardising the quality across the Call Centres.

This happens to be the area that I undertake.

So if you have any queries, you could address them to sinja@sify.com.

What is required is a process of Handholding through the CRM implementation process - as this is an area, very critical to the organisation.

Regards,
Mahidhar

Steve,

You say “Each centre is a distinct operation with its own blend of technology and business processes but the aim is to have some generic KPIs”. While I agree that a common set of KPIs is the right approach, this may turn out to be an involved task.

The purpose of KPIs is not to simply compare performance of various call centers relative to each other or to “best practices”. The purpose of KPIs is to identify performance characteristics that reflect your business goals and provide the necessary visibility to ensure you are meeting these goals. So when selecting a KPIs and setting a performance targets, you must also have the business case behind each and everyone, which also helps sorting out the challenge in that certain KPIs drive other KPIs in the opposite direction, so that improvement in one area lead to a reduced performance in another…

Neglecting the business rationale lead to an arbitrary set of performance criteria, often too many to allow effective management and improvement program and an endless search for “gold standards” that do not exist – a situation I encounter all too frequently.

If indeed you call centers offer different types of service to different audiences in a variety of business cultures, you may have to develop a matrix structure that reflects each organization’s business goals and yet allow you too view their operation them a single virtual call center.

Selecting KPIs and performance criteria in a business context is a well-defined structured process, but too complex to cover here. I’d be happy to discuss with you – please email me at jbarkai@DiagnosticStrategies.com.

Joe

How about measuring Forecast Calls (+ % Forecast Accuracy), Offered Calls (+ % Handled, Abandonment Rate), Service Level, Average Delay, AHT, Occupancy, Utilisation/Productivity, & Adherance. Depending on the configuration of your routing IVR Handled Calls and Repeat Call Ratio may also be applicable.
They are all generic call centre KPI's that can be applicable to any Call Centre environment. The combination of these KPI's would enable you to determine site performance, just remember to set site specific targets, as something achievable in one site may not be in another (or may not be required in another).
Maybe you could set acceptable target ranges for each measure for each site, traffic light colour code the result and then summarise the the sites and their corresponding colour for each measure, you would then instantly see how they compare.
As Joe mentioned the tough bit is setting the targets, as these are all quantative measures, maybe look at each sites history to initialise your targets and going forward adjust the targets to meet business objectives. Also remember these are only Call Centre specific measures, these measures don't look at the specialist activities of your centres.

Just a suggestion :)

Ben

Of course, it would be more beneficial to, as Joe advised, analysis your business objectives and set KPI's specific to there requirements.

Ben