Call Center Metrics and Useful Terminology.

Some of the basic day-to-day terminologies used in a Call Center/BPO environment to

maintain the metrics as per the client requirement on controlling the Operational
Efficiency are:

 Average Handle Time (AHT): The average time it would take for a call
center executive to handle a call. It’s the sum of Average Talk Time and
Average After-Call Work for a specified time period.
OR
 Average Handle Time (AHT): A summary of the time it takes an Agent
to handle a phone call from the time they actually connect with the
customer to the time they complete any tasks associated with the call
after the customer hangs up.

Example:
 For the Marsh call center process, the client target is >5
minutes of an AHT, which an agent would have to maintain.
Calculation

The universal formula to calculate AHT –

The average ACD {Automatic Call Distribution}
talk time + Average Hold Time + ACW {After Call
work}.

 Automatic Call Distributor (ACD). The specialized telephone system

used in incoming call centers. It is a programmable device that
automatically answers calls, queues calls, distributes calls to agents, plays
delay announcements to callers and provides real-time and historical
reports on these activities. May be a stand-alone system, or ACD capability
built into a CO, network or PBX.

 Availability: This term is primarily used to calculate/assess the CSR’s

availability for production during log in hours. {When not actually on a call,
but waiting to receive a call}
Example:
 For the Marsh call center processes, in the month of July
2004, on the AGS side, the average available time the CSR’s
had on hand was 57%; and GUL had an average available
time of 60%.
Calculation

To calculate the available percentage –

(Total Available time /total staffed time)*100
 Adherence To Schedule. {Schedule Adherence} A general term that
refers to how well agents adheres to their schedules.
Example: Can include
 a) How much time they were available to take calls during
their shifts, including the time spent handling calls and the
 time spent waiting for calls to arrive (also called
Availability), and
 b) When they were available to take calls (also called
Compliance or Adherence).

 Service Level Agreement: The actual measurement of services

rendered by the vendor as per the agreement between the vendor and the
client. To measure the quality of service as per the client’s requirement,
the agreement would highlight various areas to be assessed.
OR
 Service Level Agreement. Performance objectives reached by
consensus between the user and the provider of a service, or between an
outsourcer and an organization. A service level agreement specifies a
variety of performance standards that may or may not include “service
level”

 Service Level: A requirement for the speed by which a phone Agent

answers an incoming call. As an example: Service Level of 100% in two (2)
minutes. – The Agent must answer 100% of all incoming calls within two
(2) minutes from the time the customer’s call is placed into the call queue.
OR
 Service Level. Also called Telephone Service Factor, or TSF. The
percentage of incoming calls that are answered within a specified
threshold: "X% of calls answered in Y seconds."
Example:
 As per the SLA, the service level that we need to maintain
here at Daksh would be to answer 90% of all calls coming in,
within 60 seconds.
Calculation
Service Level Calculation –
{(Total Answered calls within threshold + Total
Abandoned calls within threshold) / (Total
Answered calls + Total Abandoned calls)}* 100

 Average Speed of Answer (ASA): The average time it would take for
the available CSR’s to answer all the dialed in / calls waiting in the IVR. Is
also called The Average Delay: The average delay of all calls.
Example:
 All the dialed in calls in the ACD need to be answered within
the first 20 seconds as per the SLA.
Calculation
Average Speed of Answer –
It is total Delay divided by total number of calls.
Time begins to be measured once the customer
call is placed in the call queue and stops when
the Agent accepts the call.

 Abandoned Call: A call in which the call originator {caller} disconnects

or cancels the call after a connection has been made, but before the call is
established {answered}.
 After Call Work (ACW): Also called Wrap-up and Post Call Processing
(PCP). Work that is necessitated by and immediately follows an inbound
transaction. Often includes entering data, filling out forms and making
outbound calls necessary to complete the transaction. The agent is
unavailable to receive another inbound call while in this mode.
OR
 After Call Work (ACW): The span of time after an Agent has completed
a customer contact and the time they finish any off-phone work associated
with that contact. This span of time is captured by the call management
system {Avaya}.

 Auxiliary Work State (AUX): An agent work state that is typically not
associated with handling telephone calls. When agents are in an auxiliary
mode, they will not receive inbound calls.

 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE). A term used in scheduling and budgeting,

whereby the number of scheduled hours is divided by the hours in a full
workweek. The hours of several part time agents may add up to one FTE

 Monitoring. Also called Position Monitoring or Service Observing. The

process of listening to agents' telephone calls for the purpose of
maintaining quality.
Monitoring can be:
A) Silent, where agents don't know when they are being monitored.
B) Side by side, where the person monitoring sits next to the agent and
observes calls
C) Record and review, where calls are recorded and then later played
back and assessed.

 Occupancy. Also referred to as agent utilization. The percentage of

time agents handles calls versus wait for calls to arrive.

Calculation:
For a half-hour, the calculation is: (call volume x
average handling time in seconds) / (number of
agents x 1800 seconds).

 Screen Monitoring. A system capability that enables a supervisor or

manager to remotely monitor the activity on agents' computer terminals.