Contact Center efficiency requires this well-known mantra: reporting, reporting, reporting!
When I consider the challenges of contact center reporting, the biggest issue is that most people only want to see the numbers alone. But this is only half of the process. When I open dialogue with clients, a central part of the discussion is figuring out what exactly they need from a reporting point of view. This is so crucial to speak about because the results that you’re looking to capture in data often impact how you will configure the system.
But why is contact center reporting so difficult and confusing?
When thinking about contact center reporting and all the difficulties that come with it, I remember an analogy I heard years ago. It resonated with me so much, I’ve kept it to this day: “Contact Center reporting is where art meets science”.
The science of Contact Center reporting is the black and white. For example, “how many calls am I getting?”, “what’s my abandon rate?”, “what’s my agent availability?”, etc.
But what does it mean for me and my business operations? This is the art piece. The art requires a little more craft and critical thinking.
Let’s dive into some of the problems I see most frequently with contact center reporting:
1. Many users are not trained on the basics or do not understand the basics, aside from the black and white results.
Part of the problem is that clients tend to look at the reports as basic numbers without the necessary training to understand what they mean.
As a good practice, it’s always best to look at the numbers in your report as “results = symptoms”. Your results will always point to a problematic symptom in the operation. And the symptoms may be on the customer level, the agent level, or even the supervisory level.
2. Clients don’t know how to properly interpret reports.
The sales environment is incredibly different than the customer service environment, so why should we try to interpret their reports in the same way? The reports in one area of the operation may look completely different compared to another, and it’s important to recognize those distinctions.
3. There is no call to action.
When it comes to reporting, just looking at the numbers alone is not enough. It’s a critical issue if clients look at the numbers and them tie them back to their needs, and end the discussion there. Often times folks don’t take the critical step of a call to action. And you’d be surprised to learn that the holy grail to spring-boarding an operation is taking that call to action. Furthermore, it keeps individuals in touch with the people in their operation.
4. The art of reporting takes time.
It takes commitment and diligence. It requires taking time out of your daily schedule. You’ve got to be willing to do this. Quite frankly, I often see supervisors and analysts just run numbers maybe once a month or once a week, and that’s not enough. Setting aside time in your daily to-do list to really analyze one aspect of reporting can pay off big for your operations.
5. You must understand the relationship between the call to action and the actual numbers in the report.
Once the relationship between the call to action and the black and white numbers is understood, you’ll see huge dividends for your customers and your actual agents. And when I say agents, I speak about agents as internal customers as well.
If you’re familiar with Virgin America, one of the owners, Richard Branson has a philosophy that resonates deeply with me and Inflow Communications, “If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers.”
Fortunately, with the culture at Inflow, we’re well taken care of and it’s evident in the way we take care of our customers. This is our main focus at Inflow, and improving our operations to better serve our customers is ultimately the driving force behind every report.
Want to learn more? Check out our whitepaper on this topic and browse through our other educational resources in our Knowledge Base Portal.
About Inflow
Founded in 1997, Inflow is one of the nation’s top Unified Communications and Contact Center consultants in today’s market. Pioneers in cloud unified communications and cloud contact center success, Inflow is the first company to provide contact center consulting and training focused solely on helping you elevate your customer experience.
With over 200,000 endpoints supported under Inflow’s innovative success programs around the world, Inflow built its brand and reputation around providing unrivaled customer support. Inflow is in Mitel/ShoreTel’s top 2% in global customer satisfaction, and quickly acquiring a top spot with RingCentral, Genesys PureCloud and NICE inContact.
By partnering with Inflow, you can expect the highest level of strategic consultation, execution, and optimization available in the industry.
