KPI of the Day – Customer Service: % Call transfer rate
Definition
Measures the percentage of calls transferred between operators from the total number of calls received.
Purpose
To assess the call center’s operational effectiveness and service quality, by indicating what proportion of contacts has to be transferred to another agent or place to be handled.
Recommendations
Although often discredited, the % Call transfer rate affects not only the productivity of the agents handling the calls but also the customers’ satisfaction with service levels. A customer that persistently faces difficulties in reaching an agent that is qualified to help, will most certainly be less satisfied than a customer that was immediately assisted with the problem at hand.
Moreover, agents that handle and solve high proportions of the service requests without having to transfer the call, are considered to be generalists, as such agents are capable of solving a wide range of customer issues. Tracking the call transfer rates helps fine-tune the routing and call handling strategies. It can also help identify any gaps in the level of staff call handling performance.
The causes underlying frequent and chaotic call transfers need to be tracked and used as a tool for fine-tuning routing strategies:
- Blend in CRM functionalities with Business Intelligence for effective customer analytics;
- Capitalize on the historical relationship between callers and their handlers;
- Connect the best prospective customers with the best call handling agents;
- Re-route to direct supervisors for optimizing call transfer times and call resolution rates;
- Outsource expertise by routing calls outside of the contact center.
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