Here’s a revealing “chart focus” from The McKinsey Quarterly that addresses “improving call-center performance.”
The initial impression is that Agent A, who is making 894 calls per month and generating $121,000 in monthly revenue is the leading salesperson, and that Agent C, with only 430 calls and $82,000 in monthly revenue needs to “speed up/handle more calls.”
In reality, Agent C “maximizes revenue from [a] smaller number of calls,” whereas Agent A is churning calls, looking for easy sales.
The conclusion: When you’re examining metrics from your call centers, make sure you’re measuring the right kinds of behavior.
Relying on traditional metrics, such as total revenue per month, as a measure of sales performance, for example, can prompt agents to rush from one caller to the next in pursuit of easy sales. The result looks good if companies measure revenue against agents, but not so good if they consider revenue per caller. By the lights of the latter metric, an agent who takes more time with callers may be making the most of each customer interaction, even if it takes longer to do so.
This chart is an excerpt from a longer piece in McKinsey, titled, “Getting more from call centers.”
