Call Center Software

Call Center Reporting: The Definitive Guide (Updated)

A call center works on various metrics that determine its overall performance. Starting from staff productivity to the number of tickets solved per day and so on, each business needs call center reports for an accurate analysis of its daily tasks.

Call center reporting comes as an amalgamation of factors that influence the performance, and thus revenue, of a call center or business. It is an essential feature for smooth operations and must be carried out efficiently for a better understanding of the business processes.

In this article, we will explore the fundamentals of call center reporting, its key performance indicators (KPIs), benefits, and best practices. So, let’s dive in.

What is Call Center Reporting? 

Call center reporting is the process by which call center managers measure performance and efficiency. It involves converting raw data into insightful reports based on crucial KPIs. There can be several types of data reports in a call center, derived from platforms like interactive voice response (IVR), workforce management system (WMS), automatic call distributor (ACD), etc.

Reports can be created by gathering data points and organizing them into categories of KPIs. Based on the type of report, you can analyze factors like agent performance, call metrics, and other critical functions that affect the performance of customer service.

Call center reporting helps identify and resolve workflow issues to boost productivity. It also helps managers to create successful strategies for customer engagement. Some common metrics considered in these reports are:

  • First call resolution: The ability of an agent to successfully resolve a customer query on the first call
  • Schedule maintenance: Whether agents are sticking to their shift schedules
  • Customer satisfaction: The positive or negative response of a customer about the business’s products or after contacting the call center
  • Average waiting time: The amount of time a customer spends waiting either on a call queue or on the callback list

These metrics, for a specific time period, are turned into graphs or charts and analyzed to optimize the call center processes. A call center report can be generated manually or through automated software, including artificial intelligence (AI).

Why is Data Analysis Important for Call Centers?

Data analysis is crucial in modern business management and decision-making, and the call center industry is no exception. 

In call center operations, data analysis allows managers to assess the performance of their agents, track customer behavior, identify trends, and make informed decisions to optimize their service delivery.

The importance of data analytics in call centers lies in the fact that it provides a comprehensive view of operations, enabling managers to make data-driven decisions that can positively impact their business. 

Analytics call tracking, for example, can provide managers with real-time insights into how calls are being handled, identifying trends, and potential issues that require immediate attention. Additionally, call center analytics software can monitor customer interactions, assess customer satisfaction, and gain a deeper understanding of their needs.

By analyzing data, call centers can also identify opportunities for cost savings, improve customer retention, and streamline operations. 

So, there are several reasons why data analytics is important – reasons that have a direct impact on business growth. This is why modern call center analytics software solutions are such a big piece of the call center success puzzle.

Types of Call Center Reports

Call center reports can be based on various aspects, like employee performance, customer responses, and revenue generation. Depending on the type of business, each call center has a specific set of metrics to track and analyze.

However, there are some types of reports that are relevant to call centers of almost all industries. Let’s discuss a few of those here. Note that the report names are not absolute and can vary from company to company.

Agent Performance Report

The Agent Performance Report contains information about the activities of call center agents, like:

  • The number of incoming calls attended
  • The total time spent on calls
  • The number of issues resolved
  • The total handle time, and so on.

Managers can use this information to track the performance of each agent and ensure that they are being productive. This report also contains historical data about the agent’s daily tasks and can help decide their promotions, hikes, etc.

Agent Schedule Report

The Agent Schedule Report is basically an availability report that details how long an agent was working, when they logged out, how long they were idle, and so on. Some statuses mentioned in this report can be:

  • Available
  • Busy
  • Idle
  • Signed out
  • On break
  • Absent

This report helps to calculate how strictly agents stick to their schedules and can be used to calculate absences, overtime, and so on.

Call Reports

This category of reports covers everything call-related, including how many calls were attended, how many were abandoned, how many issues were fixed, etc. There can be many types of reports that qualify as call reports.

  • Call Detail Report: Details the start and end times of a call, its hold time, and the caller’s information. It is used to verify complaints and claims, and also for quality review purposes.
  • Call Abandon Report: Shows the percentage of abandoned incoming calls and records any available details about those calls 
  • Call Transfer Report: Highlights how many calls were made or received for a specific direction or department. It helps to understand customer demands better.
  • Call Summary Report: Shows details about all incoming calls in a specific time period, including data such as the number of answered calls, talk time, agent picking speed, abandoned calls, etc. 

Queue Activity Report

This report contains statistics on how customers are handling wait times and queues after placing a call to the call center. It can track information like the average wait time, longest wait time, the number of dropouts from the queue, etc. This report helps optimize waiting systems to meet service standards. 

Service Level Agreement (SLA) Report

SLA is the agreement between a call center and its clients detailing the service standards and the maximum time within which an agent must answer a call. An SLA report helps call center managers identify how often the standards are being breached and why. 

This form of live call center reporting provides valuable insights into the working standards of the place and the gaps that might have been overlooked. It also helps managers assign agents to busy departments during peak times to handle the call volume efficiently.

Call Center Reporting KPIs

Call center reporting metrics or KPIs are the blocks on which all call center reports are built. Key performance indicators are measurable factors that influence the success and growth of the organization. For a call center, there are several KPIs that affect business and customers.

We can group call center reporting KPIs into three categories, ones that affect the business, customers, and process. Let’s discuss this in further detail.

Business Critical KPIs

These KPIs affect the success and profitability of the business as a whole. 

  • Net Promoter Score (NPS): This KPI focuses on customer satisfaction by measuring aspects that affect the user experience. This includes the likelihood of a customer recommending your products or services to someone else. A high NPS score leads to better customer retention and profitability.
  • Average Turnover Rate: This metric measures the rate of the turnover of your call center agents. If you have a high turnover rate, it means your workplace needs improvement in culture or benefits.

Process Critical KPIs

These KPIs focus on measures that control the integral processes of a call center.

  • Average Answering Speed: This KPI indicates the average time an agent takes to answer a call after it starts ringing. It does not include the time spent navigating through the automated menu of your IVR system, and only measures how prompt an agent is after the call reaches him.
  • Average Call Duration: This KPI measures the average duration of both incoming and outgoing calls. A very low duration indicates that customer problems might not always be solved, while a very high duration may indicate low competency.
  • Call Arrival Rate: This KPI notes the highest and lowest volumes of customer calls at certain times of the day and week. It helps managers plan working schedules so that the office has enough staff to deal with the call volume. 
  • Average After-Call Work Time: This measures the time that an agent takes to complete miscellaneous tasks apart from attending or making calls. These tasks may include reporting issues, completing reports, updating databases, and so on. 

Customer Centric KPIs

These KPIs are customer critical and provide insights into how efficiently the call center handles customer issues. After all, the customer is the central entity of a call center, without whom call center metrics analytics and reporting are in vain.

  • First Contact Resolution: This metric denotes the rate at which your agents are able to solve customer issues satisfactorily during the first call.
  • Average Abandonment Rate: If your customers hang up the call before reaching an agent, the interaction is counted within the abandonment rate. A high abandonment rate, anything above 10%, indicates you have long waiting times and need more agents for a shift.
  • Average Wait Time: As the name suggests, this KPI is calculated by dividing the total time customers spent in the queue by the number of calls answered during that time.
  • Blocked Calls: This is the percentage of customers who tried to reach you but found the line busy. It is again a reflection of being understaffed and poor management. 

Benefits of Call Center Reporting

There are manifold benefits of call center reporting.

  • It enhances customer service by improving the retention rate, sales, revenue, brand image, and so on.
  • It helps to understand target customers better through real-time call center industry report insights.
  • It boosts agent performance by reviewing interactions, highlighting errors, and optimizing the workflow. You should have a call center monthly report format to evaluate agents.
  • It cuts down on underperforming areas and optimizes costs.
  • Reports help to identify trends that may lead to impending issues.
  • It helps managers to navigate through large volumes of data in a visual and interactive format.

Tips for Efficient Call Center Reporting

Since call center reports involve so many KPIs and metrics, it has a lot of scope for going wrong. This is why you should keep these tips and call center reporting best practices in mind.

  • Set relevant KPIs that actually affect your business performance.
  • Set targets or benchmarks for each KPI and measure your progress against them.
  • Don’t set unrealistic goals that will only put pressure on your agents.
  • Use automated tools and dashboards to get an accurate and interactive representation of data.
  • Incorporate customer feedback from reports into your future strategies to increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn.
  • Invest in tools and technologies that make the jobs of your agents easier, like AI and predictive tools to generate reports.
  • Make a note of every adherence report call centers should have, and keep tracking them regularly.

Conclusion

Call center reporting makes it easy for managers to analyze factors related to performance and financial goals. This way, they can formulate effective strategies to optimize tasks and close gaps in the workflow.

You can create excel templates for call center operational reports to track data in an organized format and use them as raw material to generate visual reports. Or you can rely on your call center software for real-time analytics and comprehensive reporting.

Using call center analytics software, managers can track important data in real-time, generate more comprehensive reports, and be more efficient in decision-making.

In all, the importance of data analytics is paramount. Every call center needs regular insights into tasks and processes, and call center reports are the best way to achieve that.

Taran, as the Support Manager at JustCall, spearheads efforts to enhance customer satisfaction by strategically collaborating with client-facing teams. He upholds rigorous standards, ensuring JustCall's support services consistently excel. Passionate about superior customer experiences, Taran champions a company-wide dedication to a customer-first mindset.

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