It’s no secret that data analysis is playing an increasing role in helping call centers work smarter, not harder. As competitive analytics is becoming a growing trend that delivers real-time intelligence through easy-to-navigate dashboards, the question becomes – how to gather, analyze and most importantly, implement these changes. While it’s certainly no easy task, more and more call centers are learning to face the initial challenges head on, knowing how significant the advantages will be down the road.
Pain Points
So, what are the challenges or major hurdles that organizations are faced when it comes to implementing competitive analytics? As most businesses would agree, especially those that fall within the small business realm, the primary hurdles include:
• Budget: Installing new servers or hiring a data analyst to oversee all efforts can be a steep investment
• IT Expertise: With little to no IT experience sometimes, small businesses are often left with more questions than answers when it comes to data analysis
• Data Cleanup: Insights are only as valuable as the data that’s being analyzed, so it’s critical for duplicate or unnecessary data to be scrubbed prior to the analyzing stage
Start Off on the Right Foot
While there are certainly many benefits and insights that come with data analysis, the first step should always be to make sure you’re looking at the right data to begin with. Within the contact center industry especially, there are a handful of core metrics that you can gather information on and leverage to make your business more efficient and get you one step closer to reaching a desired end goal. Some of these key areas might include:
• Agent Overview
• Manual Calls
• Inbound Calls
• Outbound Calls
• Cost Summaries and Totals
• Call Center Overview
Sure it’s helpful to gather this information across the board, but data analysis alone is not what helps an organization grow and be successful. Instead, it’s important to leverage these metrics and use them to improve core areas and devote additional resources to build upon any exposed weaknesses. Small businesses especially have a lot to gain if they’re able to act upon these results and use it to their advantage in making smart business decisions, given limited resources.
What to Expect?
The ability to analyze data and use that insight carries different advantages for almost every industry. Within the contact center industry, two metrics stand out:
• Average Handle Time – Length of time a customer spends on the phone with a call center agent. In an ideal scenario, every call is kept down to a low average handle time, which signals overall efficiency
• First Call Resolution Rate – The number of calls or transitions it takes for a customer to be connected to an agent that is able to resolve their issue
Within the call center industry, tracking metrics like average handle time and first call resolution rate can make a world of a difference in terms of better managing personnel, reducing costs per call, tailoring training programs and helping employees reach their full potential.
The takeaway – data analysis is playing a key role in helping businesses of all shapes and sizes work more efficiently and make smarter decisions. Within the call center space especially, where time and cost is of the essence, we should expect to see more and more organizations leaning on data analysis to optimize their operations and improve productivity and efficiency.
