How Contact Center Metrics Add Value to PBX
In the digital age, every company should operate on the understanding that speedy customer service counts for a lot.
The reason for that is a story told by statistics. Although sentiment toward customer service is positive on the whole, over 50% of consumers will cancel a purchase if they aren’t given good service, with 40% want that service performed “quickly.” Furthermore, 90% of consumers consider “immediate” responses in customer service important to their experience.
The Bottom line is, if consumers experience long wait times, it’s likely to cost you business.
Naturally, the key to handling customer service is a well-trained team of agents, sized large enough to handle the influx of calls you see at peak hours. But to make full use of that team, you also need contact center software to facilitate your communications.
In plain terms, a contact center is an automated call management program for PBX systems. Imagine incoming calls as trains that need to get to the “station” of an available agent; in this image, a contact center is a rail yard for those trains, using automatic routing as “rail switches” to direct calls to the right destination.
As discussed in a previous post, a contact center should also include tools like:
- Call forwarding to specific agents or departments
- Customizable IVR setup
- Ability to tell callers their expected hold time
- Metric generation
Every reason on this list will help optimize any PBX system. But to improve customer service, that last point about metrics is especially important.
Why? Because by studying the data your contact center generates, you’ll know how to streamline your strategy through team training.
Returning to the train metaphor — suppose your train yard functions well, and the “trains” (incoming calls) consistently reach the proper “stations” (agents). To further optimize your operation, you now need to know how long each train stays at its station before departing. You need to be sure that traffic is moving at the most efficient rate.
For both a railway and a PBX system, the first step in optimizing traffic is gathering data. That way, you’ll understand exactly where you can quicken your operation. If reports show one agent works quickly, now you know to study their methodology and find out what they’re doing well. Conversely, if you learn an agent works slowly, now you’ve pinpointed where you can speed up traffic.
For optimal call operation, you need to know:
- How long agents spend on the phone
- How long calls are left ringing
- Which agents are answering most calls
- The cost of each call to your company
Wildix CDR-View pulls all of that information from your existing PBX system, formatting it into a clean, understandable, and customizable layout. The data are also saved by date and time to create a neatly organized archive.
For real-time metrics, Wildix offers Call Center Wallboard, also drawing its information from your existing PBX system.
With that information, you can develop a strategy to smooth out the call process by focusing on the agents handling them. Once your agents are working at improved speeds, they’ll end up reducing wait times — and in the process, remove a prevalent reason for customer dissatisfaction.
By keeping an eye on metrics, you’ll have the tools you need to make customers happier with your service.
Get those tools from Wildix by taking a free look at the documentation over CDR-View and Wallboard, or by contacting us.