We, here in this article will talk about how a simple inbound call center evolves into a multi dimensional outsourcing service provider and so does its performance management problem as well. With advanced technology and brightest minds, call centers expand and upgrade themselves to the next level of services and quality. But we need to understand that as call centers, their services and outsourcing trend have changed; their performance management techniques need to be changed as well. To determine the standards and quality of working, we are presenting 18 performance measures in terms of services, quality of work, efficiency and profitability of their services and impact of their support on a business and its growth.
We are analyzing these mentioned performance measures in two aspects of work levels: one for ordinary call center and another contact for multi level support provider contact center.


The most important measures of performance are those associated with service. Some of these measures are the same for both a Outsourced Call Center and contact center, while some will need to change slightly to reflect the new types of transactions.

1. Blocks and Hurdles

Blocks and hurdles are indicated as time when customers are not able to get through the network due to insufficient facilities at work. The busy signal, dropped calls and other situations can be count as such.  These obstruct the speed of performance and have adverse affect on quality of services.  Also, it has negative effect on customer satisfaction.

Solution:  Increase the server capacity.  To estimate how many network facilities to be needed by you so that it does not get overloaded.

2. Abandon Ratio

The dropped calls do impact the retention and revenue generation of call centers. They understand that making your customer wait in queue to receive a call is not going to take you anywhere.   Nonetheless, it cannot be eliminated properly.  There are number of factors that affect this factor such as caller’s patience, the time of call and other alternatives of getting in touch like email or dropping a number to call back.

3. Self-Service 

Now, when market is expanding and customer base of organizations are growing, their partner call centers are adopting new measures to attend them. Most of them are adapting self-service facilities that help customers to choose their operations and help menu by themselves.

In a contact center, the performance can be tracked by observing how many times help menu was accessed and how many times a live agent was called upon?

4. Service Level

Service level consists of determining the most average speed of processing a request. Some of Call Center Outsourcing Services and contact centers measure the response time taken by the customers as well.

5. Maximum Delay in Queue

Another measure of speed is to calculate the longest time a customer was made to wait. This is also referred as worst case.


6. First Resolution Rate 

The first call resolution is called one and done in call centers which is very critical and significant for the performance levels of a call center. The factors contributing in this performance measure are the team that handled the query, time of call and nature of query.

7. Rate of Transfer

The seamless nature of a process of a call center can be determined by the rate of transfer. How much part of the work was handled over or transferred to another team or person, also counts.

8.  Communications Skills

How well versed customer support executives are and how they behave with customer can either bog down your reputation or soar it above the clouds.  This quality measure can be monitored through observance, reviewing the performance and proper reporting channels.

10. Procedures Adherence 

This helps to integrate value and customer satisfaction together. Your agents should be willing to stick to workflow and shifting of process. Also, they should feel obliged to call scripts because they are trademark of your call center and brand awareness tactic for your client.

Efficiency Performance Measures
11. Agent Occupancy

Agent occupancy is the time that an agent takes to attend the customer as compared to the times he is not taking the calls. This is an important measure to check and oversee how your agents are utilizing the working hours.

12. Staff Attrition

It is the time when your staff is not present to handle the flow of calls. It could be due to meeting times, break times or other non productive issues. It is an important measure as you can easily calculate that how many people you will need in a session so that no call would go missed.

13. Efficiency of Schedule

It is about just hitting the mark. Not less and not more, just the right number of people working for you. Understaffing or overstaffing both is extremely dangerous curves for an organization.

14. Adherence to Schedule

This performance measure is a calculation of number of working hours per schedule. It ascertains the productivity of a team and its agents.

15. System Availability

An agent is incapable of doing anything if his system is slow.  The overall performance of an agent can be marred by a slow system.  For instance, IVR is much used and coveted technique of every call center. It eases down the workload of agents by 50 percent, in case IVR is not functioning properly, an agent would have to devote time to understand the nature of the query and answering it accordingly.


16. Rate of Conversion

The success of call center depends on the growth of organization they work for.  How many of leads have been translated into sales, is the measure of their real success and actual performance.

17. Up-Selling and Cross-Selling

How much value has you agents added to your clients. This value added services adds as an advantage along with generated revenue in the kitty of your client.

18. Costing as per one Call

This is a critical and bottom line measure to calculate the efficiency and workload stamina of a call center.   How much effort, facility, money and labor you have put in one call and what you are getting back out of it can be a real eye opener shot for any call center which boasts about success.

When call centers boast of uninterrupted services we may not realize at the moment that the credit goes to the hard work, sleepless nights and efforts put in by call center agents. The results may be success and growth for your business, but for them they output in stress, weakness and continuous fatigue as human body structure doesn’t allow one to go against the rule of nature that is to work in nights and sleep in day. The habit of working at nights can be adapted and acclimatized to with some practice, however can be really distressed for agents. To be attentive, vigilant and focused on the work it is necessary that agents should take care of their diet and follow a healthy lifestyle. Some of the necessary points are mentioned below:-
1. Sleeping Beauty: – Get enough sleep. Doctors say that sound sleep of six to seven hours have the potential to distress you naturally. Also, it helps you to unwind and recharges you for the work of next night.

2. See while you eat: – Greasy, oily and overcooked food will make you sleepy and inactive. You need balanced diet to keep yourself awake and aware. Skipping meals or overeating is dangerous when your supervisors want your mind on high alert. If you won’t eat, you will feel inactive and your listening and speaking capabilities will suffer. You won’t sound cheerful to the customers.

3. Water Power: – On calls and during the duty, you speak a lot which causes strain on your larynx and throat. To relax them, you are advised to take lots of water and alcohol free fluids.

4. Exercise to Stay Fit: – Call center jobs are sedentary. You should be fit physically too. Being physically fit enhances the confidence of a person and increases the mental stamina as well.

5. Friends Forever: – Be friends with the peer members. Share your happiness and sorrows with the. They could be biggest motivator for you.

6. Sins and Virtues: – Caffeine and nicotine do help you to keep awake during long hours but as it goes, excess of everything is bad.

7. Relax and Reboot: – It is okay to sometimes to not take work seriously. To take some days off and roll a joint with friends at some hill station or near a beach side.

Working is good but joining work after two days of much needed vacation is fun!

Customers form to be the spirit of all business companies to grow and prosper. If you are engaged in selling any service or product then you would obviously want to reach your prospective customers. With the aim to increase the number of customers, most companies seek for the inbound call center help. Mainly, this is done to take best care of the customer management program.

If you’re in business and want to increase sales then you have to let all your potential customers know about your existence. Additionally, if some consumers are already using your service or product, then they might be experiencing some kinds of problem. In order to offer a fair idea of the product and to solve customer queries if any, the importance of an inbound call center service comes into picture.

Services catered by the inbound call centers are greatly recommended if you want to encourage the growth of your organization. It is the essential inbound services that can cut costs without affecting the management and the output adversely.

Often considered as a third-party service provider, the inbound call centers function as an offshore vendor. However, these service providers offer onshore quality job that enhances the base of business conversion. With the assured work at place, quality inbound services offer you the maximum return on the investment.

When will you have inbound call center services?

Each and every aspect of a business service like during, before and after purchase activities are skillfully handled by the third party vendors. If you want to sell a new service or product to your targeted customers, choose inbound services to increase overall sales. Let all your potential customers learn about you. If your existing consumers are using your service or product then they may have queries. In this regard, it will be important to handle after and during purchase services from an experienced team. For both situations, an inbound call center service is given utmost importance.

Services on offer to ensure best customer support

Inbound call centers provide great variety of services including product information, customer inquiries, order taking, complaints handling, technical help desk and more. Together with these, most companies also offer the toll-free hotlines and the online answering services. These services also include remote receptionist and secretary functions.

With the assured work at place, the inbound call centers offer you great return on the investments made.  With the range of the customer care services, an inbound call center also handles call inflow effectively. From phone answering services like suggestions, feedback, complaints to messaging customer services, an inbound call center offer a quality-oriented customer support program. This is how it strengthens customer-company relationship.

Inbound services handle the growing frequency of the customer calls. These contact centers are also found to deploy the Customer Relationship Management Software. The CRM software not only handles the call volumes but it also tracks the output.

With the use of the inbound call center services, you will be in a position to supervise the negative and the positive response. This will also add to the efficiency of the customer care program. With improved complain handling and appropriate communication, you will be able to increase your customer base. On the whole, you will not only make your service or product popular but you will also ensure a competitive edge over the increasing competition.

Teleperformance USA, a Salt Lake City-based call center company, has agreed to pay almost $2 million in back overtime wages to employees in Utah and nine other states.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced the settlement Wednesday following an investigation conducted by its wage and hour division in Salt Lake City. According to settlement provisions, back wages totaling $1,978,147 will be paid to 15,862 workers in the 10 states where Teleperformance agents provided over-the-telephone customer service for clients that include Sprint Communications, Verizon Wireless and Dell Computers.

In Utah, Teleperformance has a call center in Lindon and had one in Clearfield.

Labor Department spokesman Rich Kulchewski said the overtime violations stemmed from employees not being compensated for breaks that were less than 30 minutes and for time spent waiting for work areas to become available, even through their shifts already had started.

A few cases, he added, involved workers improperly classified as salaried employees exempt from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The act requires employers to pay time-and-a-half to workers who exceed 40 hours in a single week. It also sets the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour.

Kulchewski said Teleperformance USA "cooperated fully and worked quickly and effectively to resolve all issues identified."

Do you know what needs to be ensured to run your business efficiently? Don’t just get into details of answering phones. Using call center services help to keep yourself connected to your prospects. This allows 24/7 freedom at work, with increased emphasis on the other essential aspects of your growing business. However, a contact center is not all about answering calls. Watch out for the 5 great reasons to use call center services.

Bi-lingual customer service: Call center services help you communicate easily with the callers who may speak other languages other than English. Our bi-lingual customer services include all forms of traditional answering service applications and bi-lingual chat services.

Dedicated Customer Service: Call center services ensure all calls to be recorded during peak and off-peak periods to support customers in offering a variety of services.

Answering Services: The general call answering services help to assist business during afterhours as well as during business hours. Call center companies also offer call screening and offer employee wake-up calls and log-in services.

Outbound Call Handling: A call center follows-up leads, sets appointments and places follow-up survey calls to maintain quality assistance.

Staying Connected: Today’s call center services include email and chat support. These are services that ensure instant response to the emails and supervision of the customer inquiries and website forms. Companies offer documented tracking system and real-time notification of message delivery and its confirmation.

The American Red Cross call center in Minot has been busy this month, helping handle calls from people affected by severe weather in the South.


The center operated by volunteers was activated in response to flooding in Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, along with tornadoes in Kentucky and Oklahoma. Two local volunteers also have gone to Tennessee to help out.

The call center run by the Mid-Dakota Chapter of the American Red Cross is one of several around the country that handle calls during disasters. In recent years the Minot center has helped out during Hurricane Katrina, Southern California wildfires and the Haiti earthquake.

Indian call center organizations have developed as a potential outsourcing hub in all over the world. As more companies understand the growing importance of stressing on their core competencies, they are slowly turning to the Indian offshore call center service providers. This is one strategy that has helped companies to boost up the brands by targeting the customers.

The Indian call center organizations provide a wide variety of services that meet the diverse customer requirements. Whether you look for offshore customer inquiry calls or you are seeking for the technical desk support, the Indian call center organizations can offer you the best solution which takes good care of your individual needs.

With the main focus on specialized customer service, the Indian call center service providers have emerged as a front-runner in this competitive global outsourcing scene. Today, Indian firms are chosen for their extensive knowledge and experience of working with different customers evolving from different industrial sectors. Most corporate giants in the Europe, United States, Japan and the United Kingdom are leveraging on the proven expertise of the Indian service providers to minimize costs without even compromising on their quality standards.

Offshore call center outsourcing to the Indian firms brings about a range of benefits. Some of the most common advantages that companies offer are as follows.

Massive English –speaking manpower:

India includes a huge talent pool. The country has the largest pool of English speaking population that can offer first-time and speedy resolution for the customer calls.

Time zone advantages:

The difference in the time zones between Indian and the other countries like the United Kingdom and the United States makes India a viable option for most organizations looking to offer customers the 24/7 customer support and the help desk services.

Useful communication networks:

Due to privatization and the reduction in tariffs of the basic Internet services, cellular and telecom, India benefits from infrastructural advantages. It’s on the global companies to take full advantage out of it.

Favorable Government Policies:

Indian government policies offer favorable environment that have supported the growth of the ITES industry. Some positive steps taken by the call center firms are found to underline a commitment to offer quality service. These include:

Advanced resource allocation:

Leveraging upon the expertise of the Indian offshore call centers will help an organization to shift focus from the transactional activities and reporting. This will ensure the value-added business analysis.

Better access to the leading practices:

The Indian offshore call center service providers include the capability to offer a range of the offshore call center services as they offer exposure to work with the clients in several industries. They can offer companies the access to expert knowledge base.

Access to the leading practices:

The Indian offshore call center service providers include the capability to offer a variety of offshore call center services as they offer exposure to work with clients coming from diverse industries. They can offer companies the access to a dedicated knowledge base.

The quality and pace of Call Center Operations are dominated and threatened by two visible hindrances which are agent turnover and agent productivity. The reasons for such challenges in a call center are poor handling of the resources and lack of skills for specific job positions.

The realm of call center operation is a specialized management field with its own hypothesis assessments and terminology. A complete and well- bred understanding of these tools is necessary to satisfy customers and to accomplish organizational objectives.

Selection criterions and performance screening tools can be vital tools to reroute the performance map of a call center on the track of success. These tools directly correlate to productivity, performance and agent retention within the organization.

 These measure the performance on the basis of candidate data such as:

1) What is their hidden potential?
2) What they have accomplished?
3) What are their professional plans for future?

According to their present capabilities and natural abilities, assessments and responsibilities are designed for every job applicant. For instance, a Call Center Outsource agent should be quick and extrovert while for a back office job in contact centers, an applicant should be sincere and meticulous. This unique assessment can predict the future capabilities of an applicant and can decide if the candidate willing to a long term commitment with the organization.

The assessments tools track the previous experiences, professional behavior, education or training, and work culture stimulation and project accomplishments. Resumes are screened out on the scores of education, work relevancy and experience. On the time of personal interview, the call centers management can add behavior-oriented interview questions to have an idea that how the applicant has handled a specific situation in the past and to analyze his skills. If a candidate wants to switch over to another job profile, this behavior questions based on past experience could be useful to determine his interests, preferences and other aspirations. These assessments tools can also decide whether the candidate is job fit or not. This helps the BPO industry to cut down the attrition rate and increase the level of performance by enhancing the job satisfaction.

Management of offshore call center should take a realistic trip down their premises and provide accurate job preview to the candidates so that they could decide about the offer carefully. The administration of contact centers should apply these assessment tips accurately otherwise badly crafted and poorly executed inappropriate application of assessments can draw negative impact on work atmosphere and results.

Moreover, a call center should emphasis on Can do and Will like to do along with technical and cognitive abilities.

An inbound call center deals with calls made by the consumer to obtain information, report an issue, or request for technical assistance. For inbound services, the subscriber or vendor typically provides a toll free number (800 or 888) prefix so the caller does not get charged in his/her calls. These types of services are crucial to most major businesses, such as utility companies and mail-order catalog firms, but entail a great deal of maintenance and cost for the business.

Call Centers India’s professionals undergo an intensive training program to provide world class customer support in the inbound framework. Some of the services CCI professionals successfully accomplish are:

Customer Services: An integral part of a company’s value proposition, these involve activities that enhance your customer’s level of satisfaction, with the aim of going beyond their expectations in fulfilling the customers’ technical and non-technical issues.

Order-taking: Order taking call center services let you maximize your resources by allowing customers to call a number to speak to a live person and ask questions. Our agents are well trained for handling such calls, taking orders and can additionally even up-sell or cross-sell in the process.

Sales and up-sells: Our agents are trained to market and sell additional products and services with higher value levels than those currently being purchased or subscribed to by the customer.

Expect the unexpected. We've heard it so many times but in today's competitive climate they're words to live by. Keep your business on point by call center outsourcing to get live operators. Examples of the unexpected could present with a surge in business or an unfortunate emergency. Good or not so good, live operators are the experts that you want in your corner.

You're juggling projects, deadlines, quotas and new hires. It's a maze of multi-tasking. Call center operators combine their telephone experience with their people skills to help you manage it all. When there's too much noise and clutter to effectively focus on important matters you have only to send your business calls forward to a call center operator service that gives the space you need at a moment's notice. With increased focus you achieve a task well done.

With the time you save by routing telephone calls to a call center operator service you are able to more easily manage pressing project deadlines. When an urgent situation arises you can't afford to drop the ball. You've spent months preparing for this meeting, and don’t want sudden problems demanding immediate attention.

Outsourcing to an inbound call center with live operators allows you to continue with your planned schedule of production meetings. The services of business call center operators strives to lend a sense of ease and manageability to your jam-packed agenda.

Outsourcing to live operators at a business call center is the equivalent of having an insurance policy for events that could spell disaster for you, your client, your company. In any case, something that is within your control to minimize. With a small investment, one that pays for itself the first time you avert an unwanted occurrence, call center operators become 24/7 members of your remote team of business call handlers. Strictly supervised call center operators, also available for bi-lingual callers, add to the value of your company's account package. To ensure uninterrupted service the call center operator system you seek should have a back up system as well as a back up generator to protect your data against any loss.

Don't let surprises stop you in your tracks. Using call center operators extends the practical experience and good business sense that brought you to your current success. Call center operators support and further your ongoing business endeavors promising professional stature and delivery.