Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

The Drawbacks of Third-Party Benchmarking Certain Call-Center Metrics

May 30, 2013

While contact centers today keep track of a lot of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), there is evidence they are not always tracking the right ones. Average handle time (AHT) used to be an important metric in the contact center: it measured how long a call took from start to finish. In recent years, however, many companies have dropped AHT as a yardstick because it does not indicate whether a call was completed successfully (unlike, for example, first-call resolution), and efforts to keep average handle time as short as possible may actually negatively affect call quality.


Another metric that has become more popular in the contact center is call conversion rates (or ratios), a measure of how many general inquiry calls are turned into sales or bookings. The metric is particularly important in the travel industry for hotel reservations.

In order to determine how they are measuring up in conversion ratios, some travel companies are turning to industry benchmarking to see if they fall above or below the rest of the industry when it comes to converting inquiries to sales. Doug Kennedy, writing for Hospitality Net, says this isn’t necessarily wise, because there are a number of factors that affect call conversion rates.

For starters, the percentage of first-time callers may affect conversion ratios. A large advertising push may generate a lot of callers who are in the earliest decision stages. Comparing conversion rates to those from campaigns that targeted repeat customers who have booked previously, for example, is unwise because the numbers will vary wildly.

In addition, conversion rates will also vary greatly depending on whether companies are targeting business travelers or leisure travelers.

“Leisure guests, who are spending their own money, and who tend to expect more from their travel experiences, are likely to call more companies prior to booking than their corporate counterparts,” writes Kennedy. “Business travelers may have more of a commitment to staying at a particular property. Perhaps their company has a special negotiated rate. Or maybe they are attending a meeting or conference which is being held on-site. Therefore, companies serving the leisure and meetings market tend to have lower conversion ratios than those serving the corporate market.”

Kennedy notes that the system use for measuring conversion ratio can also affect the results. While some companies use manual processes to measure, others are using automated processes, and the choice of these methods may affect what gets measured. Instead of using third-party benchmarking, says Kennedy, benchmark against your own personal best conversion rates.

“The best method for benchmarking your call conversion ratios is to compare results with your own internally collected data. After creating a system and using it consistently over a period of time, your hotel or company will begin to establish a baseline and will be able to determine how your current production levels compare with benchmarks.”

There are a number of call center metrics that this wisdom could apply to. Benchmarking, while useful for easily designed metrics, should always be used with consideration and knowledge to ensure that apples are being compared to apples and bananas are being compared with bananas.




Edited by Rory J. Thompson



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