Contact centre KPIs that actually matter

Why do so many contact centres measure the wrong things?

Contact centre systems make it easy to measure almost everything. The result is often dashboards with dozens of numbers, many of which are reported but never acted on.

The bigger risk is imbalance. When a contact centre is managed mainly on speed and cost, it can hit every target while customers grow more frustrated and staff burn out.

Efficiency and quality aren't a trade-off. A balanced set of measures lets you improve both, instead of trading one against the other.

There's often a missing link too. KPIs should trace back to what the organisation is trying to achieve. When they don't, the contact centre spends its days putting out fires against targets that don't matter to the business.

What does a balanced set of KPIs look like?

I group the measures that matter into five areas. You don't need every measure in every area, but you do need a view of all five.

1. Customer outcomes

• First contact resolution, or its mirror, repeat contact: how often customers get what they need the first time. It's one of the most useful measures in a contact centre.
• Customer satisfaction or customer effort, measured soon after the interaction.
• Complaints, including the reasons behind them.

2. Service

• Service level: the share of contacts answered within a target time. Targets such as 80% of calls answered in 20 or 30 seconds are common, but the right target depends on your customers and what a wait costs them.
• Abandonment: how many customers give up before being answered.
• Response times for email and messaging, which are often managed less tightly than calls.

3. Efficiency

• Average handle time: useful for forecasting and for spotting process issues, but risky as an individual agent target.
• Occupancy: how much of agents' available time is spent handling contacts. Too low wastes money; too high burns people out.
• Schedule adherence and forecast accuracy: whether the right number of people are available at the right times.
• Cost per contact: a useful overall measure, as long as it's read alongside resolution and customer outcomes.

4. People

• Agent turnover, and when in the employee lifecycle people leave.
• Absence, including patterns by team, day and roster.
• Time to competence for new starters.
• Engagement, measured in whatever way your organisation does it well.

5. Quality

• Quality assessment results, based on a framework that reflects what customers value, not only compliance.
• Calibration: how consistently different assessors score the same contact.

What are the most common KPI mistakes?

• Making average handle time an agent target. It often pushes people to rush or transfer contacts, which creates repeat contact and complaints.
• Measuring too much. If a measure hasn't led to a decision in months, question why it's on the dashboard.
• Looking only at averages. A daily service level can look fine while customers wait far too long at peak times.
• Reporting without context. A number means little without the trend behind it and an explanation of what's driving it.
• Targets without ownership. Every key measure needs someone who is accountable for it and able to influence it.

How do you know what "good" looks like?

The right targets depend on your customers, your industry and your channels, so be wary of generic benchmarks. The principles behind them don't change, though: contact centres are a global industry with defined best practices, such as the global Contact Centre CX Standards, that apply whatever your size.

Comparing yourself with similar contact centres helps you see where you're genuinely strong and where you're falling behind. ACXPA's benchmarking lets you compare your performance with others in the industry.

Want an independent view of your KPIs?

Reviewing whether your targets and KPIs drive the right behaviour is a core part of every call centre health check. If your dashboard is full but you're not sure it's telling you the right things, book a free 30-minute call.