Reporting Systems for Contact Centers in the Age of Remote Work

Managing a remote contact center is challenging. From ensuring proper staff scheduling to monitoring agent performance and providing the right training and feedback, there are a lot of moving parts to oversee. But an effective contact center reporting system can address this complexity.

Custom reports and real-time analytics give managers and supervisors the visibility they need to make smart decisions and maintain a streamlined contact center, even with a team of remote agents.

In this article, we’ll look at what a solid reporting system for contact centers should have in the age of remote work.

What Is Contact Center Reporting?

Contact center reporting is the process of gathering and analyzing data so managers can spot trends, measure performance, and easily access information needed to make decisions about staffing, training, and processes.

A reporting system is a tool that collects data and generates actionable insights related to the contact center. With a remote contact center, the reporting system is built into a cloud-based contact center software platform.

Why a Robust Reporting System Is Essential for Remote Contact Centers

All contact centers need a reporting system. However, in the post-pandemic era, detailed reporting is even more critical.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

Contact Centers Are More Focused on Customer Experience

According to Deloitte’s 2021 Global Contact Center Survey, as companies look beyond the pandemic, they’re focusing on improving customer experience (CX). It’s through great CX that companies can stand out and stay competitive. And the contact center is the foundation for great CX.

The survey found that 75 percent of contact center leaders expect to be in the cloud by the end of 2022, revealing how huge the shift is to the remote contact center. Nearly 80 percent are investing in AI capabilities to improve the contact center experience, and 36 percent say that despite new channels for communication, many customers continue to use the most familiar channels, especially phone calls, making a well-run contact center an essential asset.

A good reporting system lets contact center managers see how effective agents are at delivering great CX, no matter where those agents are located.

Remote Teams Need Specific Support to Stay Engaged

Because agents aren’t working together in an office, they can’t converse together in person to problem-solve, offer tips, and ask for help. They also have to know how to work with different technologies to do their job effectively, such as IVR, omni-channel routing, and digital evaluation tools.

With detailed reports, managers can see which agents are struggling and where they need help. Contact center managers can then make sure remote agents have the right equipment, support, and skills to thrive as customer service agents.

5 Things a Remote Contact Center Reporting System Should Have

Generally, contact center reporting systems offer a window into key metrics that help managers track performance and understand peak volume. But for a remote team, it’s important to have a modern reporting system that lets you see real-time information and detailed analytics on customer experience. That way, you can make changes and offer support quickly to address emerging problems and improve the workflow for your agents.

Here are five things you should look for in a reporting system when you’re managing a remote contact center:

1. Full Visibility into Key Metrics

Your reporting system should let you measure key performance indicators over different time intervals. With this type of granular insight, it’s easier to identify trends and patterns. Some of the KPIs your reporting system should have are:

• First response time
• Average handle time
• Average hold time
• Average speed of answer
• Average abandon rate
• First call resolution
• Transfer rate
• Percentage of blocked calls
• Average after-call work time
• Cost per call
• Net promotor score

2. Real-Time Dashboards

Seeing KPIs change over time is essential to monitoring performance, but with a remote contact center, you also need to see things unfold as they happen. With a modern cloud-based contact center solution, your software tracks performance and displays real-time metrics.

Your dashboard will show you how busy your contact center is, how many callers are waiting in the queue, and how effective your agents are at handling each interaction – all at a glance.

3. Ability to Create Custom Reports

Every contact center is different. Depending on average call volume, customers’ channel preferences, the size of the contact center team, and other specifics, managers will focus on certain types of information. For example, a larger contact center might want in-depth reports on talk time intervals and daily transfers, whereas a smaller center might be more focused on weekly department reports.

Ideally, your software has reporting options that you can customize to your needs as they evolve.

4. Ready-to-Use Reports for Essential Information

In addition to custom reports, there should be pre-set reports for standard information such as inbound and outbound billing reports, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly agent performance, and detailed serviced, abandoned, and missed call reports.

5. Easy-to-Access Interaction Analytics

With on-site contact centers, there was no efficient way to monitor interaction quality. All that has changed with cloud solutions and remote contact centers. Artificial intelligence simplifies the process by evaluating every transcription, determining conversation sentiment, and organizing conversations by sentiment, keywords, and agents for easy searching.

Take Your Remote Contact Center to the Next Level with Next-Gen Reporting

Reporting isn’t just a tool to evaluate contact center activity. It’s the key to running a high-performance contact center.

But you need the right reporting system to easily access actionable information.

Intermedia Contact Center is a cloud-based contact center solution purpose-built for hybrid and remote teams. It comes with everything you need to improve CX and keep your remote teams engaged. Find out more about how it can help your contact center offer wherever, whenever customer engagement.