Please Note: This research is based on industry wide statistics and is based on a 10 person call centre team,
QLM Business Solutions Call Centres operations can scale to whatever requirements you need and can beat these industry standards with our smart solutions.
10 Call Centre Benchmarks
Explore the key benchmarks and metrics for call centres, including average call volume, handling time, abandonment rate, and more, to help enhance your call centre operations and customer service.
Our research indicates that the average 10 person call centre receives 4,400 calls per month, encompassing all answered, missed, blocked, and dropped calls. To delve deeper into this statistic, findings reveal that the average 10 person call centre handles 200 calls daily, 1,000 weekly, and 4,000 monthly, with 48 missed calls monthly. This figure varies significantly based on customer volume and industry. While this benchmark doesn't directly assess call centre support quality, it offers insight into monthly call centre volume and usage.
The next benchmark concerns the call centre first contact resolution rate, indicating the proportion of calls resolved during the initial contact. Globally, the first contact resolution rate stands between 70-75%, suggesting that most agents can resolve customer issues on the first attempt without further follow-up or additional tasks.
However, for unresolved calls, call centre benchmarks indicate an average escalation rate of 10%. Additionally, the average transfer rate is 9.9%, with the typical caller being transferred 2.6 times before issue resolution.
Now, let's examine the average call handling time, or AHT. AHT encompasses the entire duration of a customer call, including talk time, hold times, transfers, and post-call work. The benchmark for AHT in call centres is 6 minutes, with an average call duration of 302 seconds (5 minutes and 2 seconds) and a hold time average of 25.8 seconds.
Further dissecting the AHT benchmark, call centre agents typically spend 31.8 minutes of one activity hour engaging with customers, 5.22 minutes idle, 10.2 minutes on post-call wrap-up, and 15.96 minutes in meetings, training, or breaks. Aimed at 85 to 90% schedule adherence, agents should be available for customer calls or after-call work for 54 minutes per hour.
Like all communication channels, call centres encounter call abandonment. The industry standard for call abandonment rate is 5-8%, measuring the number of callers who disconnect before speaking to an agent. Higher abandonment rates may signal the need for additional agents to reduce call queues, often attributed to long hold times and lack of callback options. Interestingly, if callback options are available, approximately 37% of callers request a callback.
Another critical benchmark is the percentage of blocked calls, which ideally should be kept within 2% for inbound calls. Blocked calls refer to incoming calls receiving a busy tone, suggesting missed sales opportunities due to customer inability to reach the business. It's noteworthy that the first hour is pivotal for sales calls, with response rates decreasing significantly by 11 times from the first to the eighth hour of lead generation.
Regarding call centre efficiency, a contact centre comprising 10 agents across six departments should maintain an occupancy rate between 85% and 95%. Additionally, each call centre agent should resolve an average of 20 calls daily.
Lastly, let's discuss costs. The average cost per inbound call is $5.50, and per outbound call is $6.46, comparable to other channels except self-service, which costs approximately $0.10 per contact. Phone, live chat, and email channels average $8.01 per contact.
Please Note: This research is based on industry wide statistics and is based on a 10 person call centre team,
QLM Business Solutions Call Centres operations can scale to whatever requirements you need and can beat these industry standards with our smart solutions.