How Contact Centre Benchmarking Can Improve the Customer Experience

Genesys discuss the importance of contact centre metrics before sharing some advice for choosing those to benchmark.

Customer experience is a key competitive brand differentiator. To build long-lasting customer relationships, you must deliver effortless, omnichannel experiences.

The contact centre is often a customer’s first contact with your company. Your success often depends on whether that first experience establishes a long-term, loyal relationship – or sends the customer running to your competitors.

In the recent Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Study from Dimension Data, more than 84% of respondents said that improved customer experience increased revenue; 79% reported cost savings as a result.

In a rapidly evolving industry, it’s critical to keep up with the latest contact centre technologies and base your customer experience strategy on solid, quantifiable data.

Contact centre benchmarking does just that.

Why Contact Centre Metrics Matter

The term “benchmarking” historically refers to standardised tasks that test the capabilities of devices against each other.

In quality terms, benchmarking means comparing products, services, and processes with other organisations’ products, services, and processes to identify new ideas and areas for improvement. It’s an analytical method of studying your contact centre’s capabilities and business processes and comparing them to your competitors – through certain KPIs.

The trick is leveraging that information to make improvements.

Review your practices consistently to improve customer service readiness. Contact centre benchmarking has a range of benefits.

• Access to quantitative data on your operations. You can see if – and how – you are keeping pace with industry trends and how you compare with others in the industry in readiness and maturity.
• An understanding of the customer journey – the full customer experience, including all journey steps and touchpoints along the way to achieve goals.
• Access to data you can use to invest in improvements and inform your managers about where to focus their efforts.
• Guidance on agent training.
• Information for service of financial analysis and business modelling to help you understand, and improve, ROI.

Which KPIs to Benchmark

Various elements affect the overall quality of your customer experience. KPIs are used to understand how you’re doing and how you compare to others in your field. The areas of focus for contact centre benchmarking can vary widely and could include quality, agent performance, productivity or cost.

You can’t measure everything; focus on what’s most relevant to your contact centre operations and what will achieve your organisation’s goals.

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyse and leverage your metrics gives you a better chance to improve customer experience. AI lets contact centres move beyond operational metrics (e.g. SLAs, average speed of answer, average handle times, abandon rates). Predictive AI enable managers to optimise business outcomes, such as Net Promoter Score, First Contact Resolution or sales closure rates, to transform your contact centre into a revenue/brand ambassador centre.

Customer experience is a key brand differentiator. The initial moment a customer interacts with your contact centre is a chance to build a long-term relationship. By studying your performance and using data-driven methods, such as contact centre benchmarking, you’ll have the information you need to drive continuous improvements, deliver excellent customer experience and ensure success.

Author: Robyn Coppell