KPI of the Day – Customer Service: # After call work time
Definition
Measures the average amount of time it takes for a customer service representative to complete the service request or for a sales representative to complete the sale, after the call has ended.
Purpose
To track the amount of time agents spend on solving one request or sale, as this impacts the number of requests/sales they can manage.
Recommendations
# After call work time provides insight into the efficiency of call center operations. Eliminating unproductive after call time work can either be a matter of effective employee coaching and training, business processes, software, internal communication systems or bureaucratic streamlining.
In order to consider the differences in call patterns, various times of the day or various days of the week should be measured separately. One particularly noteworthy limitation for this KPI is the fact that it requires each agent to monitor every contact they handle, which can be time consuming and subjective if no automated monitoring systems are in place.
Some recommended practices to reduce after call work time as far as customer service goes, include:
- Analyzing business processes that staff have to follow and eliminating the steps that are superfluous or inefficient;
- Perfecting call center software to fit business needs (e.g. pre-populated caller data, easy note taking, pop disposition codes after call ended);
- Merging all business tools into one desktop for easy information updates;
- Reducing errors and time spent by automating repetitive tasks with software solutions;
- Creating a knowledge base that staff can consult when questions occur;
- Using easy-to-use internal communication systems;
- Doing away with manual processing, paper documents and files.
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