Key Performance Indicators
Turning call center data into actionable insights that improve efficiency, customer satisfaction, and business performance.
What Are Call Center KPIs?
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable values used to evaluate how effectively a call center, team, or individual is achieving business objectives.
They provide a 360-degree view of customer interactions by combining telephony data, operational metrics, and performance analytics.
Why KPIs Matter
KPIs help organizations improve agent performance, reduce costs, optimize customer experience, and make confident, data-driven decisions.
They also enable benchmarking against industry standards and tracking progress toward strategic goals.
How Call Center KPIs Shape Data-Driven Decisions
The first step to making data-driven decisions in the call center is to develop a comprehensive understanding of what a call center KPI is, as well as how they are used in the call center.
There are many KPI goals for a call center. Some of these KPIs are captured in the phone system, others require additional systems or processes to collect data, and others require that you marry up the data from multiple systems to give you a holistic picture. They typically assess the performance of the agent, team, department and/or the call center as a whole. They can be used to determine trends and make data-driven decisions that will increase efficiency, optimize customer satisfaction, increase revenue and reduce costs. They can also be used in benchmarking efforts to measure progress towards goals and to compare the call center’s performance with an industry standard. Taken together, call center KPIs are metrics that provide information about how a call center is performing and can be used as a foundation to make strategic decisions that will help to drive results.
Anyone working in a call center knows how critical they are to a successful organization. However, many companies don’t know how to determine which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) they need to focus on. We have created this list to help call center professionals identify where to focus to maximize the value of their data.
KPI Coverage Areas
Agent-Level Metrics
Individual productivity, quality, adherence, and efficiency.
Team & Department Metrics
Workload balance, collaboration, service consistency, and outcomes.
Contact Center Metrics
Overall performance, scalability, service levels, and customer satisfaction.
Business Impact Metrics
Revenue growth, cost reduction, retention, and ROI.
Common KPI Terminology
A reference list of widely used call center and CX performance terms.
- ACD — Automatic Call Distributor
- ACW — After Call Work
- AHT — Average Handle Time
- ANI — Automatic Number Identification
- API — Application Program Interface
- ASA — Average Speed of Answer
- ASP — Application Service Provider
- ASR — Automatic Speech Recognition
- ATA — Average Time of Abandonment
- BPO — Business Process Outsourcing
- BC/DR — Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery
- BCP — Business Continuity Planning
- BI — Business Intelligence
- BIC — Best-in-Class
- CC — Call Center
- CCR — Customer Controlled Routing
- CDR — Call Detail Recording
- CED — Caller Entered Digits
- CEM — Customer Experience Management
- CIS — Customer Information System
- CLI — Calling Line Identity
- CMS — Call Management System
- CRM — Customer Relationship Management
- CSR — Customer Service Representative
- CTI — Computer Telephony Integration
- DID — Direct Inward Dialing
- DNIS — Dialed Number Identification Service
- DSL — Digital Subscriber Line
- EAI — Enterprise Application Integration
- ERMS — Email Response Management System
- ERP — Enterprise Resource Planning
- EWT — Expected Wait Time
- FCR — First Call Resolution
- FCRR — First Call Resolution Rate
- FTE — Full Time Equivalent
- GOS — Grade of Service
- INS — Intelligent Network Service
- ISDN — Integrated Services Digital Network
- ISP — Internet Service Provider
- IVR — Interactive Voice Response
- IXC — Interexchange Carrier
- KM — Knowledge Management
- KPI — Key Performance Indicator
- LOA — Least Occupied Agent
- LAN — Local Area Network
- MIA — Most Idle Agent
- MMR — Multimedia Routing
- NSP — Network Service Provider
- OAM — Operations, Administration and Maintenance
- OJT — On the Job Training
- OPA — Off Phone Activity
- OSI — Open System Interconnector
- PABX — Private Automatic Branch Exchange
- PBX — Private Branch Exchange
- PCP — Post Call Processing
- PDA — Personal Digital Assistant
- PSTN — Public Switched Telephone Network
- QA — Quality Assurance
- QM — Quality Monitoring
- QoS — Quality of Service
- RFI — Request for Information
- RFP — Request for Proposal
- RNA — Ring No Answer
- ROI — Return on Investment
- SaaS — Software as a Service
- SA — Speech Analytics
- SBR — Skill-Based Routing
- SFA — Salesforce Automation
- SIP — Session Initiation Protocol
- SL — Service Level
- SLA — Service Level Agreement
- TAPI — Telephony Applications Programming Interface
- TCO — Total Cost of Ownership
- TTS — Text to Speech
- UC — Unified Communications
- UCD — Uniform Call Distributor
- VoIP — Voice Over Internet Protocol
- VPN — Virtual Private Network
- VRU — Voice Response Unit
- WAN — Wide Area Network
- WFM — Workforce Management
- WFO — Workforce Optimization
- KB — Knowledge Base
Powering Operational Excellence with Data-Driven CX
Let’s build a KPI program that improves customer experience, reduces cost, and increases performance.