Caution, KPI in support, or a personal story with a happy ending

Coffee is good, right? Hot coffee is better. Boiling coffee, someone? I bet most of you will pass.  And here is a surprising comparison – the same principles apply to KPI. They can rise nicely until some point but later can cause more problems than benefits. 

I had two very different experiences with the same bank. One time, just after the working hours, I called for a thing that needed a long procedure of code verification. In the middle of that, the consultant got angry because I mixed a number. After that, I remember not calling support for a long period after. Another time, after previous experience almost faded from my memory, I remember turning for help again. That time I can assure you that I was a mess. A dog was barking to my other ear, a computer got stuck, I had to open the door because someone forgot the keys and kept ringing. The agent patiently waited through all this, asking from time to time if I was still there. I cannot describe the feeling of gratitude. We both knew that time is money, but she also knew that I needed help. 

If readers forgive for personal memories, I believe the situation illustrates that sometimes KPI, meant to measure agents’ performance or key problems can interfere with the actual goal of the customer support, that is, customer satisfaction. With more customer-focused contact centers, companies should review key metrics they use to indicate the progress. To do so, customer experience should be viewed as a context of such amount of customers per agent per day or number of problem resolution.

But sometimes it may seem that KPI is measuring customer satisfaction when in reality, it is not a case. More on that in the following article.

Instead of chasing numbers, companies can invest in better call routing, omnichannel experience, and automatic information sharing. It will automatically improve some scores such as first call resolution or waiting time. If you are interested in new ways to organize your contact center, more information can be found here. 

KPI can be a great measure if analyzed with caution. As psychologists, the leaders in customer relationships like to say, context is everything!