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4 Call Center Agent Performance Metrics You Might Be Overlooking

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Transforming your call center into a thriving hub of customer satisfaction requires the right blend of efficient agents who can effortlessly meet customer needs. But have you considered the untapped power of agent performance metrics?

These four overlooked or, at the very least, underestimated metrics hold the key to unlocking a data-driven strategy that maximizes your agents’ contributions and revolutionizes your customer experience.

1. Average Hold Time

Average hold time is a crucial metric that measures the duration a call center agent keeps a customer on hold during an inbound call. Unsurprisingly, long hold times can swiftly lead to customer frustration and a diminished experience.

When assessing agent performance, it’s imperative to investigate their average hold time and identify any red flags. Elevated hold rates may indicate a need for assistance or additional training, struggles locating essential information to assist the customer, or delays caused by sluggish or limited technology. While some hold time is understandable, consistently high hold rates warrant a thorough evaluation.

Hold times significantly impact the overall average handling time of customer interactions, a vital key performance indicator (KPI) for evaluating the center’s operational performance. Excessive hold rates can disrupt a call center manager’s ability to appropriately staff their team and effectively develop agent schedules and forecasts. Call centers can enhance customer satisfaction and operational efficiency by addressing and optimizing hold times.

2. Answer Rate

Answer rate measures the percentage of calls an agent successfully answers out of the total number of calls they are presented with. It plays an important role in determining the overall service level of the call center and provides valuable insights into an agent’s accessibility compared to their teammates.

While a high answer rate indicates good availability, it’s important to note that accessibility alone doesn’t guarantee the effective resolution of customer issues in a timely or satisfactory manner. However, analyzing answer rates can shed light on agent activity. If agents are seen to be procrastinating or engaging in non-essential tasks, leading to delays in answering inbound customer calls, it presents clear opportunities for improvement and optimization. Call centers can enhance their overall performance by addressing these issues and providing a better customer experience.

3. Average After-Call Work Time (ACW)

A call center agent’s responsibilities continue after hanging up with a customer. They often must fill out necessary fields regarding the purpose of the customer’s call, how they handled the issue, and whether further assistance from a manager was required. This post-call work, known as After-Call Work (ACW), also includes the time agents must take a breath, refocus, and prepare for the next incoming call.

By monitoring ACW, team leaders can identify agents who complete post-call tasks exceptionally quickly or slowly. This analysis can reveal valuable insights, such as discovering individuals who have found more efficient ways to handle these tasks than their peers. On the other hand, extremely short ACW times might indicate that agents are not taking detailed notes or completing all necessary after-call activities.

Additionally, excessive ACW durations can signal that agents struggle with inputting information promptly or may even intentionally avoid taking customer calls. In such cases, it becomes crucial to reassess the approach to post-call work and explore strategies to lower the averages appropriately. This might involve automating specific post-call tasks or providing retraining opportunities to help agents work more efficiently. Call centers can enhance productivity and overall performance by optimizing the ACW process.

4. Transfer Rate

Transfer rate refers to the percentage of calls agents transfer to someone else within the organization. Typically, calls are transferred when the answering agent cannot fulfill the customer’s request due to a lack of training or access to the necessary tools.

Understanding the average transfer rate of your call center provides management with a valuable metric for evaluating individual agents. If an agent has a transfer rate significantly higher than the average, it warrants further investigation to determine the reasons behind this trend. It could indicate insufficient training or knowledge to address the specific needs of calls directed to their department.

Comparing an agent’s transfer rate to their average handle time is also helpful in assessing agent productivity. A high transfer rate and a low average handle time might suggest that the agent selectively chooses calls and transfers them to other teams instead of assisting the customer. Conversely, a high transfer rate and average handle time could indicate that an agent is struggling and would benefit from additional coaching and support.

By closely monitoring the transfer rate and its relationship to other performance metrics, call center managers can identify areas for improvement, optimize agent productivity, and ensure efficient handling of customer inquiries.

Transforming raw engagement data into actionable intelligence has never been more accessible and efficient.

TCI works with call center leaders like Mitel and Brightmetrics to empower you with the convenience and adaptability to analyze and explore your UC and contact center data, allowing you to gain deep insights into your agents’ strengths and areas for improvement.

By leveraging historical and real-time dashboards, you can access intuitive drag-and-drop tools to effortlessly visualize performance metrics, plan effective strategies, and enhance agent performance and customer experience with just a few simple clicks.

Brightmetrics analytics, when seamlessly integrated with Mitel-powered systems, allow TCI clients to maximize the value of their data and investments.

Are you ready to apply agent performance metrics to re-energize your call center? Contact TCI at (703) 321-3030 or GetHelp@tcicomm.com.
 

4 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Improve Your Communications & How to Mitigate AI Security Issues

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Unified Communications enable your employees to communicate and collaborate more effectively through screen sharing, video conferencing, mobile apps, and more. Adding artificial intelligence (AI) to the mix promises to send productivity through the roof, so it’s not surprising to see enterprises jump at the chance to experiment.

Still, even as AI transforms communications and collaboration, it raises new security concerns. Let’s dive deeper to understand how AI enhances Unified Communications and what enterprises need to do to maintain a secure environment.

4 Ways AI Is Improving Communications and Productivity

1. Improved Collaboration – Integrating AI chatbots into UC applications opens new doors for collaboration by gathering status updates from team members and alerting members via an app, email, SMS, or push notification if an error occurs on a product or process. When chatbots keep everyone and everything connected employees can more easily troubleshoot together, keep track of each other’s progress on projects and share ideas and information.

2. Easier Access and Use Of Data – AI virtual assistants improve access to documents and other information, automatically gathering and distributing data to employees’ devices — whether a presentation, a video, or a PDF. If questions on a prior discussion or topic arise during a meeting, the assistant retrieves pertinent emails, messages, or documents. As AI voice assistants such as Cortana and Alexa become more ingrained in the workplace, these requests may be made through voice recognition. Attendees stay focused and engaged in the conversation, with all information at their fingertips.

3. Increased Productivity – Chatbots field straightforward calls and online chats with customers, allowing your customer service team to focus on more complex calls and issues. In meetings, attendees concentrate on the content and discussion rather than on the communications tools. The AI assistant even initiates the conference automatically.

4. Better Efficiencies – Wouldn’t it be great to have someone else send meeting notes, assign action items, and schedule follow-up calls? The AI assistant handles all of it, allowing human attendees to spend their time on more complex and higher-value activities. AI also simplifies scheduling by identifying times that work for everyone. In the not-too-distant future, facial and voice recognition technologies will take attendance at meetings, eliminating yet another mundane and time-consuming task.

How To Mitigate AI Security Issues

While the benefits of AI and UC are many, the security of your communications system will also require more attention. AI technology accesses vast amounts of enterprise data on products, processes, and customers. If an attack occurs, all that data becomes vulnerable.

  • New standards and protocols will emerge as AI plays a more significant role in enterprise communications systems, so organizations must remain vigilant to stay compliant with the latest requirements.
  • There are likely security challenges with BYOD as employees’ AI-enhanced personal devices enter the workplace. Some organizations opt to disable voice assistants such as Google Assistant or Siri in the workplace. But as employees bring newer devices to the office, organizations must assess emerging AI technologies for security threats and establish clear guidelines in a formal security policy.
  • A positive note here is that AI enhances data and communications security. It will scan for potential threats and alert IT and security teams when vulnerabilities or possible attacks occur. Security professionals can respond far more quickly with the help of these technologies.

As AI and UC blend, productivity skyrockets, efficiency improves, and data is more accessible. But the architecture must have a stable base, with security as a main priority.

Thinking about adding new technology and capabilities to get more from your UC platform? Contact us today: ((703) 321-3030 or GetHelp@tcicomm.com.

Expert Insights: 2023 Unified Communications Predictions

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Today, unified communications (UC) technology is more than just IP phones and simple features like live chat. You’ll want to partner with a local provider who can help guide you toward the right mix of today’s solutions and evolve with you in the future.

TCI has been supporting the DC Metro Region for 40 years and we’re here to help. As we look toward the new year, we know many organizations will be modernizing their communications systems to streamline operations and keep employees and customers connected.

Our strategic technology partner, Mitel has weighed in on what UC will look like in 2023. Here are their predictions.

Generative AI will take off.

Generative AI can create content automatically. It has the potential to revolutionize certain aspects of business, specifically when it comes to content marketing and contact center communications.

The technology can improve the chatbot experience on websites and provide personalized content to customers based on their history. In the contact center, Generative AI can produce content for agent coaching. It can also document and summarize interactions between agents and customers, creating content that can be used for training and development.

Organizations and UC providers need to stay on top of the role Generative AI will begin to play and be able to incorporate the content produced by it into their UC technology stacks.

CISOs will focus on recruiting employees to play a bigger role in preventing attacks and securing edge devices.  

Phishing attacks rose in 2022 and organizations are concerned about unauthorized access or leaks of their proprietary information. Business leaders need to raise employee education and vigilance in avoiding ransomware, phishing, and other threats coming in email, texts, and social media.

Another challenge is securing a rapidly expanding universe of edge devices, both professional and personal. Most employees work on multiple devices, and you can’t protect what you don’t know about, so auditing and securing a widely dispersed infrastructure will be essential.

Mitel and TCI offer a software assurance (SWA) subscription that keeps your UC up to date on the latest software, security fixes, and compliance requirements.

A one-size-fits-all approach to delivering UC will no longer work. Organizations are demanding customized solutions.  

Customers have many communication technology choices today, and many use a mix of infrastructures. In 2023, the world’s business communications will occur across a panorama of on-prem, private cloud, hybrid, and UCaaS systems.

Currently, deployed on-premises solutions lead the pack, but Mitel’s survey found that over 40% of enterprises are combining their on-premises solutions with a cloud solution, and almost half are either evaluating or currently moving their on-premises communications to the cloud.

UC providers need to fully embrace Customer Lifecycle Management as organizations look for the right communications solution to deliver long-term value for both the customer and employee experience.

With so many choices regarding technologies and deployment options, organizations need more than just a drop-ship phone provider. They need a local partner who can support them on-site and guide them toward solutions that support shared workspaces, file and screen sharing, and a mobile-first design. Businesses are looking for a quick and sustainable ROI that empowers their customers to collaborate and complete tasks from anywhere.

Our local team of experts is ready to advise you on the best path forward as you implement your 2023 plans. Contact us at (703) 321-3030 or GetHelp@tcicomm.com.

 

8 Reasons to Upgrade to RingCentral MVP

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As of June 30, 2020 no new contracts were accepted onto the MiCloud Connect platform. However, if you are currently a Mitel cloud customer considering an upgrade, replacement, or realignment of your current infrastructure, here are 8 reasons why making the change to RingCentral MVP is going to be good for your business in the long run.

1. More Flexibility

The RingCentral MVP platform complements our leading UC on-premises, subscription, and private cloud solutions. With RingCentral MVP, Mitel cloud customers now have more choice and flexibility in how they evolve their current communication and collaboration infrastructure to enhance efficiency, improve productivity, and deliver better customer service experiences.

2. Full-Featured Phones

RingCentral MVP rounds out its communication and collaboration options with full-featured phone capabilities built on a global calling footprint in over 44 countries, local and toll-free numbers across more than 110 countries, and customization settings in 17 languages. Mitel’s 6900 IP Phones are now officially certified with RingCentral’s MVP platform, making it easier for existing Mitel cloud customers to scale operations quickly with employees who can work from anywhere.

3. Seamless Integration

RingCentral MVP streamlines all communication and collaboration into a single, unified, collaborative, cloud-based hub for team messaging, HD video meetings, and telephony. This intuitive solution makes it easier for employees to work efficiently on mobile or desktop clients, so they can interact with each other, partners, and customers whenever they need to and from wherever they are.

4. Higher Capacity Video Conferencing

RingCentral MVP optimizes the virtual meeting room and makes it easier for you and your team to stay connected. Enjoy HD audio and video, and screen share with up to 200 interactive video participants. Easily schedule meetings with calendar integrations with Office 365 and Google Calendar. Get in-meeting chat, virtual backgrounds, closed captioning, cloud recordings, and powerful background noise reduction technology for a great participant experience.

5. More Powerful Messaging

Messaging is still one of the best ways to stay connected with team members when a video meeting is not needed. RingCentral MVP’s integrated messaging features make messaging a more powerful tool for all instant interactions:

  • Set a custom status to indicate availability.
  • Create teams around projects, specific topics, and departments.
  • Assign tasks to individuals or project teams.
  • Share links and files with no size or storage limits.

6. One Place for All Your Tools

Too many independent tools keep employees bogged down with managing technology rather than doing their jobs. RingCentral MVP eliminates communications silos and technology gaps with over 275 pre-built integrations and more than 500 open APIs you can leverage to enhance business applications and workflows.

7. Reliability

RingCentral MVP has a proven record of providing service to small, medium, and large businesses in a variety of industries. It’s a secure and reliable platform with 99.999% call service uptime. This ensures your communication system is always running whenever your employees need it.

8. Simplified Management

With so much riding on the capabilities and performance of your communication and collaboration system, it’s important to keep tabs on how it’s performing and how it’s being used. RingCentral MVP is delivered with a simple, centralized web-based user and system administration feature that makes it easier to structure rich analytics and real-time reporting.

You now have an opportunity to leverage the market-leading UCaaS capabilities you need to prepare your business for whatever the future may bring.

Talk to TCI today to make your transition seamless and get the features you need with no hassle or disruption to your business: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Work Arrangements for Reopening… Supporting Hybrid Workers at-Home and in-Office with UC

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COVID-19 has become a global orientation session for remote working and opened the eyes of many to the productivity advantages of working from home.

As some employees start returning to the office while others remain at home – some permanently – it’s time to consider the best technology solutions for supporting this new hybrid work arrangement.

Unified Communications (UC) delivered from the Cloud offers a straightforward way to bridge your home and office workers. The cloud makes it easier to access company resources, like documents and spreadsheets, as well as meet and collaborate using built-in audio and video conferencing and messaging tools.

Mitel CMO David Silke sits down with Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst of ZK Research, to explore the technologies and practices that will support the emerging hybrid work environments many businesses will adopt…

Watch the 27-minute Video

When it comes to customizing technology for your business or non-profit, we can map out the best mix of cloud, on-premises and hybrid deployments to connect your workforce at the office, in the field and at home.

Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

It’s a New Decade… How to Leverage Smart Workspace & UC Technology in Your Business

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Today, the term “workspace” no longer refers to employees sitting at their desks in cubicles, pecking away at their keyboards from 9 to 5. Workspaces have evolved, and today’s “smart” version allows employees to get their work done from any location, at anytime, using any device.

Millennials now make up more than half of the workforce. That number is expected to hit 75% by 2025. This generation is tech-savvy, demands flexibility and thrives on collaboration. Organizations that let workers choose their own style of work increase retention rates by more than 10%. This means businesses that want to attract and retain top talent have to embrace smart workspaces.

TCI’s unified communications systems enable smart workspaces for your employees and provide a suite of collaboration tools that offer…

  • A single application for voice, video, messaging, audio conferencing and more so employees can easily switch between channels on the fly.
  • A consistent experience across devices.
  • Mobile-first design that supports both iOS and Android.
  • Audio conferencing and web sharing to promote collaboration.
  • Single number reach, making employees accessible on any device.
  • Individual and group chat to keep the lines of communication open.
  • File and screen sharing, which make it easy to keep team members up-to-date on projects.
  • Secure remote access so employees can work from anywhere without having to worry about confidential company information.
  • Multi-region and multi-language support to provide employees around the world with access to the same unified experience.

By keeping your employees connected on-the-go, you’ll also break down silos between departments and locations. In other words, smart workspaces are just as good for the bottom line as they are for employee satisfaction and retention.

Interested in details about smart workspaces and how they can help your team and business excel? Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

 

Managing Multiple Sites? Hundreds of Phones? How Cloud Voice Enables Corporate Communications

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Designed to support small businesses to large enterprises that require customized UC and Collaboration, TCI’s Cloud Voice solution delivers the highest levels of performance, reliability and security through its global, mobile-ready cloud platform.

TCI’s team of certified network engineers will design and deploy a voice solution that keeps your business operating at peak performance – no matter how many locations you may have.

Ideal for Multi-Office Environments

Managing Cloud Voice locations and users is easy. Your local administrators can add and move users from an intuitive, centralized online portal. You can extend feature and call flow control to users or manage their access.

Your users will appreciate having the same communications experience anywhere, anytime, and on any device. Applications and information can be accessed seamlessly from any location because they are delivered from the cloud. Advanced security protection ensures that sensitive data remains safe.

Collaborate Smarter

Users can bring Outlook, Notes, Google, Lync/Skype and other applications into the conversation for true unified communications. TCI also offers robust productivity-enhancing features, including presence-based awareness, instant video communication, visual voicemail, attendant console, and much more.

Maximum Flexibility & Scale

Regardless of company size, you get all the flexibility you need to create your own communications environment without the complexity of managing it yourself. Cloud Voice can easily be scaled up or down instantly, allowing your business to grow and add features at your own pace.

If your legacy phone system is holding back your business, let’s talk about Cloud Voice Service. Contact TCI today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Growing Your Business? Ease Your Onboarding Headaches with UC & Mobile Applications

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Onboarding new employees can be a major headache, especially when you’re hiring at a brisk pace. If the process doesn’t go well, your new employees can take longer to reach their full potential. If they get frustrated, they might even quit.

The key to successful onboarding is making it possible for new employees to ramp up quickly. For that to happen, you need to equip them with robust, intuitive tools and capabilities…

  • Unified Communications – With real-time presence technology, new hires can instantly see which colleagues are available for a call. Immediate, real-time collaboration with group calling and chat allows new hires to get their questions answered in real-time.
  • Mobile communications app – Built on top of UC, new hires can have at their fingertips everything necessary to meet the customer’s needs and the ability to see all their work colleagues on a single screen within the app. Because the app is intuitive, they can quickly master its features with little effort, thereby becoming instantly productive.
  • Platform Integration – Seamless integration with iOS and Android mobile devices keeps employees connected. The ability to answer calls from multiple incoming lines, including your company’s 800 number, means new hires can answer from any location, keeping them accessible wherever they are working.
  • Single User Interface – The Mitel UI has been meticulously designed to offer a single look, feel and operation across ALL hardware and software deployments… Once you learn one, you can use them all.

Need relief from onboarding headaches? TCI solutions boost confidence and job satisfaction. Contact us today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.