Call center metrics are the most important performance indicators that monitor how effectively your call center is running. This includes anything from how fast your agents pick up calls to how frequently customer issues are resolved on the first call. These insights are highly valuable, enabling businesses to understand what works and what does not when it comes to improving customer experience. The right performance metrics here can equip your call center to pin down areas of concern, increase service quality, and make optimal decisions to keep customers happy.
The success of your call center largely depends on you gaining actionable insights for long-term improvements and adjustments. It is not just about how many calls your contact center handled or how your new policies reduced attrition. There are a number of caveats that can quickly overwhelm your operations unless you have the right performance metrics in place to keep eyes everywhere.
Metrics give you a complete picture of how well your agents are performing, how resources are being used or optimized, possible operational bottlenecks that must be removed, etc. Your data-driven decisions often depend on these insights, without which your call center risks degrading the average customer experience and increasing operational costs.
There are a number of metrics and KPI standards that call centers can use to monitor their CX levels, as well as internal workflows and operations. Below are the most popular metrics out there, alongside their formula.
CSAT is one of the most common performance metrics used by call and contact centers worldwide, and as the name suggests, it measures how satisfied customers are with your products, services, or support.
Customers are typically asked to fill out surveys for feedback right after interacting with your support team. These surveys are pretty straightforward, asking customers to rate their experience on a scale of 1-10 or choose from qualitative measures such as "unsatisfied, somewhat satisfied, very satisfied."
The simplicity and ease of CSAT enable businesses to quickly find how customers see their support services and identify lingering issues if the collective scores are overly negative.
How to Calculate CSAT: (Total Positive Responses / Total Responses Received) x 100
NPS is all about finding out whether the average customer is going to recommend your business to their friends and family or not. This helps you measure customer loyalty, which in turn helps in improving customer retention and experience.
Customers are given a sliding scale of 0-10 to rate how likely they are going to recommend a service or product. The collected feedback is then grouped into three categories:
Promoters are your best supporters, while Detractors are unhappy customers. Passives are still considered satisfied customers, but they might not always be that enthusiastic to refer your business to others.
How to Calculate NPS: [(Total Promoters / Total Responses Received) x 100] - [(Total Detractors / Total Responses Received) x 100]
FCR is another popular performance metric to find out how capable your call center is in resolving customer issues and queries within the first interaction.
The first point of contact is an important one when mapping customer journeys. Immediate resolutions right there leave the customer highly satisfied and happy, with a large likelihood of returning and referring your business to others.
How to Calculate FCR: (Total Issues Resolved on First Call / Total Calls Received) x 100
AHT is your standard employee KPI metric for call and contact centers. It enables businesses to track how long live agents take to resolve cases on average. This is a tricky metric because the overall AHT score does not completely reflect the capabilities of the agent or support team. Longer AHT scores may flag agents with insufficient skills or expertise to close cases in a timely manner, but they may also be meeting all the customers' needs, which agents with higher AHT scores might not be giving by closing cases fast.
How to Calculate AHT: (Total Talk Time + Total Hold Time + Total After-Call Work Time) / Total Calls Received
CES tells you how hard or difficult it was for a customer to get an issue resolved by your customer support team. This also includes the effort it takes to reach a live agent. CES is measured through customer surveys, which have only one question asking them to rate the ease of their interaction on a scale of 1-7 or 1-10. Lower scores foster satisfaction and loyalty among customers.
How to Calculate CES: Total Sum of Customer Ratings / Total Responses Received
It is not uncommon for customers to hang up before an agent picks up. This can be due to several reasons, not all of which can be pinned on the agent or support team. CAR offers a way for call centers to measure that call abandonment rate.
How to Calculate CAR: [(Total Calls Received - Total Calls Answered) / Total Inbound Calls] x 100
AI-driven call centers or contact centers can catch emotional cues and other nuances during real-time customer interactions to ensure quick resolutions. This is done through sentiment analysis, one of several technologies driving modern customer experiences. For such businesses, knowing their overall sentiment scores helps them understand whether a customer interaction on a specific channel was a positive, neutral, or negative experience. It ultimately leads to improving customer experience.
However, calculating a call center sentiment analysis score is a complex process. It involves an in-depth scorecard that tracks several aspects such as language, tone, accent, context, etc., using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning.
How to Calculate Sentiment Score: There is no one way to calculate your sentiment score since training data for the AI can be processed in different ways. The easiest and simple way is to assign scores to predefined words such as 10 for "excellent service" and 0 for "terrible experience". The AI will automatically add the scores when their relative words are triggered. Divide this by the total number of words received, and you have your sentiment score.
This is another aspect of customer interactions that call centers must track. Customers do not like being transferred from one agent to another. While call transfers might be necessary to connect an expert, they can create frustration, leading to negative experiences. Hence, call centers will want to know their average CTR, where a low call transfer rate signifies agents handled issues with efficiency.
How to Calculate CTR: (Total Calls Transferred / Total Calls Received) x 100
This deals with the number of customers who had to contact your support team multiple times to resolve the same issue. It affects your customer effort score as well because follow-ups add up to a negative experience. Businesses will want to keep their RCRs as low as possible by focusing on first-contact resolutions.
How to Calculate RCR: (Total Repeat Calls / Total Calls Received) x 100
Customer loyalty is as important a metric for businesses as any other. CRR helps with that by keeping an eye on how many customers have stuck around in a given period. Long-term growth requires you to aim for as high a CRR as possible.
How to Calculate CRR: [(Total Customers at Period's End - Total New Customers During Period) / Total Customers at Period's Start] x 100
It is important that live agents spend as little time as possible resolving customer issues. CRT measures that as an average to help call and contact centers improve their operations.
How to Calculate CRT: Total Time to Resolve Calls / Total Resolved Calls
Yet another agent KPI to help call centers improve their operations. ASA helps businesses find the average time taken to answer each call. A low ASA demonstrates responsiveness and service quality for customers.
How to Calculate ASA: Total Wait Time for Answered Calls / Total Answered Calls
Not every performance metric has to do with improving customer experience. You need KPIs to improve operations and agent performance as well.
On average, call centers and contact centers are known to have high attrition because of the nature of the work. ATR helps you keep tabs on how many of your agents are leaving within a given period. The insight backs decision-making, such as for hiring and training, management and leadership, office culture, etc, for the sake of retaining agents.
How to Calculate ATR: (Total Agents Who Left During the Period / Total Agents During the Period) x 100
Try to strike a balance between work and play. Your average occupancy rate indicates how much time an agent spends handling calls. High rates show productivity but can also lead to burnout, which in turn can increase attrition.
How to Calculate AOR: (Total Talk and Hold Time / Total Logged Time) x 100
Resolving issues or calls does not mean agents become immediately free. They still have to update their CRMs with data, log notes and perform other post-call tasks that eat up time. ACW measures that time, where higher numbers signify inefficiency.
How to Calculate ACW: Total ACW Time / Total Calls Handled
It is in the name. SLA is a contractual agreement that says your call center can provide the expected level of service to customers. It sets a standard for pretty much everything for a business. How many calls should it handle within a period, the quality of service, and how fast you resolve issues.
How to Calculate SLA: (Current Service Level / Target Service Level) x 100
Every call handled by a call center agent comes at a cost. CPC tracks that cost as an average to help you allocate resources better to improve operational effectiveness. CPC also confirms if your call or contact center is cost-effective.
How to Calculate CPC: (Total Operational Cost / Total Calls Handled) x 100
Your call center needs a system in place to confirm how much traffic is coming in at all times. This real-time insight shows when your agents are facing large call volumes, such as during the day at noon. Hence, you can check your PHT to forecast staffing needs.
How to Calculate PHT: Log the total number of calls received or made every hour. You can simply check the record to find the hourly interval with the highest number of calls.
With so many performance metrics available, it is normal if you are scratching your head over what to choose for your call center. First things first. Do not get lost in the numbers. You just need to focus on your business goals and needs. Below are some excellent practices that you can do to find the best metrics for your call center.
Share how call centers can improve the CX metrics using tailored conversational AI solutions. Share relevant Mosaicx solution page/s.
Balancing customer satisfaction and work efficiency is difficult for traditional call centers, but it does not have to be that way. Mosaicx offers a whole suite of conversational AI solutions that take your contact center operations into the future. The result? Higher CSAT scores, lower abandonment rates, and dramatic improvements in first-call resolution metrics that impact your bottom line.
Mosaicx Engage takes this even further by turning routine interactions into opportunities for deeper customer relationships. Unlike generic chatbots that frustrate customers, our adaptive IVAs learn from each conversation to deliver increasingly personalized experiences that feel remarkably human.
Do not settle for metrics that plateau. Book a demo today and find out how Mosaicx creates exceptional customer experiences that continuously improve and drive measurable business outcomes your leadership team will notice.