What is Efficiency Metrics?

Efficiency metrics is also known as activity ratio. It is used for measuring a company's ability to use its resources efficiently. These metrics or ratios are at times viewed as measures of management effectiveness. In most companies, important business objectives are defined and measured in terms of activity and efficiency metrics. It is the ability to do work successfully without any waste. Efficiency is often confused with effectiveness. Efficiency is about doing things right, whereas effectiveness is about doing right things.

Handling non-core business processes in-house involves a large amount of time to handle the influx of customer calls and resolving their queries. By partnering with call center India, businesses can adroitly focus on their core operations and allow service providers to handle customers’ calls and issues. The service providers have team(s) of diligent and efficient professionals, who skillfully resolve customer queries and offer the best in class resolution for the same. The call center agents proficiently handle demands of customers. In addition, the service providers from time to time measure a company's ability to use its resources effectively.

Efficiency is often measured as the ratio of useful output to total input, which can be expressed with the mathematical formula r=P/C, where P is the amount of useful output ("product") produced per the amount C ("cost") of resources consumed.

The efficiency of call center in India is measured with the help of following efficiency metrics:

Average Call Abandonment Rate: In a call center, this efficiency metric refers to the percentage of calls where a caller hangs up before the agent answers. A high abandoned call rate indicates lengthy wait times or an inefficient IVR system. To keep the rate to a minimum, identify the problems affecting your agents and see why they cannot get to your customers on time.

Average Time in Queue: Average time in queue is measured by dividing the total time callers spend in the queue divided by the total number of calls answered. To keep this efficiency metric to a minimum, you can offer customers a call-back service so that their need to wait is done away with.

Service Level: This efficiency metrics measures the agents’ efficiency in real-time. Service level can be defined as the percentage of calls answered within a specific time. It helps assess if the agents are quickly moving from one call to the other.

Average Handle Time: Average handle time is the average time duration of the call. This efficiency metric is slightly difficult to measure because if the average time is too high, it means the agent has been struggling with customers’ requests. On the other hand, if it is too low, it means the customer is not getting proper support.

To keep this metric within an acceptable range, it is vital that call centers offer premium-quality training and customised coaching to their agents. Besides being trained on call handling and product knowledge, the agents should be imparted tool-related training.

Another way of minimising this metric is by automating tasks such as filing of forms or note taking. Simple features such as call routing or call recording can go a long way in bringing down AHT.

Occupancy Rate: This efficiency metrics assesses the productivity of an agent across their call-related duties. Occupancy rate measures the time agents spend on live calls and completing work related to these calls.

If the occupancy rate is too low, the agent is not spending much time on work-related stuff. In such a scenario, you need to identify the duties of an agent and pay attention to tasks that do not fall under the purview of call-related work.

First Call Resolution: It is one of the vital efficiency metrics. First call resolution or FCR reflects your agents’ and your company’s capacity to solve problems and offer support the very first time a customer makes a call.

According to a recent study, over 60 % of the call centers measure FCR as an important key performance metric (KPI). The better a call center’s FCR, the more efficient they are in providing solutions to clients’ issues.

FCR is calculated by dividing the total number of cases resolved in a single call by the total number of issues resolved. The cases included in this formula should be the things that can be resolved in the very first call e.g. cancellations, booking modification, etc.