Data is the new gold! And so much data flows in and out of contact centres every day. Call volumes, average handle time (AHT), customer sentiment, first call resolution rate, etc. Each of these data points tells one part of your contact centre story.
When you have the means to piece it together and see it in an easy-to-understand format, you can use your contact centre data to drive improvements in productivity and agent performance. Yet, there are still so many contact centres without the right data capabilities who have not truly realised the value of their data.
How can you get get more from your contact centre data?
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for getting the most from contact centre data. But, you can take a couple of approaches to glean more value from it.
1. Develop a strategy
Before you deploy a solution for reporting and analytics, you need to establish a strategy that outlines how precisely you will leverage it. Ask yourself and others in the leadership team: What do you want to achieve with data and reporting? What do you need to provide more than just reports but true actionable insight into your contact centre performance?
You might start with an issue you have noticed. Perhaps you wish to improve your Net Promoter Score (NPS) and therefore need to monitor customer satisfaction. Your strategy would need to focus on the data you want to monitor and prepare for the changes required to boost your NPS.
Contact centre data supports your strategy in the following ways:
- Reporting highlights issues and identifies areas of improvement.
- You can leverage data to track the progress of your new initiative and measure success.
- Data provides insights into the customer experience for you and your agents to leverage.
2. Facilitate a data-driven culture
Your data strategy is not merely a project for the leadership team. You should educate others in the company to support your strategy and encourage them to identify problems they are looking to solve or areas of performance they are looking to improve by leveraging data.
Your frontline staff, in particular, can benefit from insights gathered through data analytics. When your agents understand how to leverage data while working with customers, they can identify areas where they can provide a better experience. They can also use data to spot trends and potential problems before they happen.
How contact centre analytics transforms granular data
Contact centre analytics can be far more than an exercise in citing numbers, graphs and KPIs. Contact centre solutions with reporting capabilities transform these figures into digestible insights that paint a complete picture of your contact centre in a way that enables you to take further action.
Speech and text analytics provide insights into customer behaviours and agent performance by collecting data from chat, SMS transcripts, phone calls and emails. These data points take audio from a call and analyse it to suggest the customer’s tone and gauge their response to the service given by an agent. You can then leverage this data to extract insights on customer satisfaction and deliver training to agents on the best approaches for managing specific queries.
Self-service analytics have become an increasingly important metric as self-service options have become prevalent in many contact centres. Whether via your FAQs page, through an IVR solution or a customer portal online, there is much data to be collected from the customer’s experience. Contact centre reporting and insights on self-service options enable you to identify which ones work best and which might need improvement. So, you can ensure that even your chatbots deliver the best CX possible.
Desktop analytics collects, analyses, and reports on the software leveraged by your agents to handle customer inquiries. It collects data on customer interactions, call times, agent performance, and more. When you monitor desktop analytics, you gain valuable insights into your contact centre from an operational standpoint. If you are unsure how your contact centre or call centre software is performing, this is a great metric to watch.
Predictive analytics uses past data to predict future outcomes, and prescriptive analytics leverages past data to identify the best course of action to take in a given situation. You can leverage both metrics for resolving current challenges in your contact centre based on past issues and their solutions. For example, predictive and prescriptive analytics assist with forecasting peaks and troughs in customer demand, so you can ensure you have the right number of agents available.
Three traditional metrics to monitor in your contact centre
1. Average handle time (AHT)
We work with many contact centre leaders whose aim is to reduce AHT. Contact centre data might reveal that the reason behind long call queues is high AHT. You might provide additional training or establish smarter self-service workflows or digital automation for particular inquiries.
Then, you can leverage your data to monitor the impacts of these solutions on AHT and place more emphasis on developing the one that works best.
2. Improve first call resolution (FCR) rate
Contact centre analytics report on FCR by tracking and analysing the number of times a customer reaches out about a specific query. The data will recognise trends that cause the customer to reach out multiple times.
For example, if the analysis reveals that a particular customer query is consistently leading to FCR issues, the contact centre can implement measures to address this query. Again, you might provide additional training for handling that type of issue or change how agents log and process queries.
3. Forecast for peaks and troughs in demand
Contact centre analytics can forecast peaks and troughs in demand, allowing you to better plan for periods of high and low call volumes. A classic example is more staff needed over December as shopping increases and businesses close over the holidays.
You can leverage such information to adjust staffing levels, shift resources around and make other operational changes to ensure that the contact centre can meet customer needs during periods of high demand.
How Premier Contact Point supports analytics
Today’s call centres require flexible and real-time reporting delivered to managers and agents in a highly complex and ever-changing business environment. With the right data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions about your call centre as issues occur and plan for future demand by reviewing historical data.
We provide contact centre training, affordable & innovative features, such as visual IVR, CRM integration, self-service options and omnichannel queueing.
Our call centre management software helps you achieve your dream of delivering the ultimate customer experience through our Reporting and Intelligence capabilities.