Have you ever noticed marathon runners checking their watches as they compete in a race? Why do they do that? Is it not a distraction from what they should be doing?
The answer, of course, is that they are monitoring their own performance. Before a race, each competitor will have their own targets, pre-set goals of reaching certain points within a certain time. Checking how they are faring against these will give them an indication of whether they are on course to meet their target time for the whole race, and adjust how they go accordingly. They can also adjust targets mid race, or set new ones.
The point is, if you want to achieve a big target, such as finishing a marathon under a certain time, it helps to have some means of checking your progress against certain milestones in real time as you go. If you are missing targets, it provides motivation to strive harder; if you are on track, it provides reassurance. And if you are smashing it – well, it gives you an incentive to set new, better targets.
Bigger picture
Contact centres also have ‘big’ targets. In order to optimise customer service, they might have targets about answering calls within so many seconds, about keeping agent availability above a certain percentage to prevent queues building up, about minimising missed or lost calls.
Ultimately, these targets relate to the performance of the whole team. Achieving them, however, depends on the performance of individuals. But how are individual agents to know whether they need to collectively redouble their efforts because the targets for the day or week are set to be missed? How do they know when they need to buckle down on their availability to handle a sudden spike in the queue?
The answer is, live call reporting. Displayed on dashboards, either on large shared wallboards or in each agent’s browser, live call stats are to contact centre staff what watches are to marathon runners. By displaying key performance data in real time, they ensure everyone knows exactly where they are and what they need to do to meet their targets. They also provide essential oversight to supervisors, who can use them to make tactical decisions ‘in-play’ to optimise overall performance.
Power and Empowerment
Nowadays, most leading call analytics platforms include live reporting in their packages. In some single pane of glass solutions, such as Oak’s Evolve platform and Broadsoft’s CC-One Analyzer, live stats are bundled in alongside historical reporting, and in Oak’s case, call recording. Others, such as Tollring’s iCall Suite and RingCentral’s Live Reports, take a modular approach, offering live stats as distinct platforms.
The latest live stats solutions by and large offer:
- Fully customisable displays, so you can show the metrics which matter most to your business.
- ‘Traffic light’ colour coding to provide warnings when performance wavers off track of targets, or there is a sudden surge in calls.
- A variety of graphical options to display data in easy to read charts and graphs.
- In examples such as Oak’s Evolve, the ability to stream external content such as news ticker feeds to keep everyone engaged.
For agents and supervisors alike, knowledge is power – if you can see a queue is too large and has gone red, or availability has dipped below target levels, you can do something about it. Supervisors can adjust targets, or choose which metrics to focus on, based on a broader performance intelligence, keeping everyone on their toes and always striving for that extra percentage point improvement.
Knowledge is also empowering. Individual agents can see how their efforts fit into a bigger picture, there is a collective unity of purpose as everyone strives for the same goals. But on a personal level, it also provides extra motivation, the freedom to set your own personal targets, to beat what you did yesterday or last week.
Added together, those kinds of small steps add up to something significant for a business.
As always, we would love to hear your opinions in the comments section below, and why not share this article on social media and invite friends and colleagues to join in too?
If you’re thinking of buying Call Reporting & Analytics, or still deciding whether your business needs it, please take a look at our comprehensive, independent buyer’s guide.
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