Call centres' response quicker, better this year as demand surges: Study

Ozonetel report analysed 24 million calls made on the company's platform by nearly 61,914 active agents.

Indian call centres are responding faster, connecting faster, and answering and resolving more issues compared to 2020, a study by Ozonetel has found, indicating that the back-office system coped fine with the sudden surge in demand during the coronavirus.

The report analysed a sample set of 24 million calls made on Ozonetel’s CloudAgent platform by nearly 61,914 active agents in 2021. It covers both in-bound and outbound calls made on Ozonetel’s platform across various verticals including Ecommerce- Groceries, Ecommerce D2C, Restaurants, Insurance, Fintech, & Financial services, Banking & Broking, Healthcare and Pharma and Real Estate call centres.

In outbound calling, may calls dial to busy lines, or go unanswered. Average connection rates indicate how many calls are connected to a contact. The average connection rate this year saw a drastic uptick to 47 per cent as compared to 38 per cent in 2020.

When answer rates increase, it generally indicates an agent is reaching out to the right people and the right time. Another reason could be the implementation of appropriate technology by businesses like Truecaller integration, which shows the prospects the reason of calling them even before they pick the call. This ensures higher customer attention and lower rejection/ ignorance of unknown calls.

Average agent-speed of answer or pick-up time is the average time a call centre agent takes to answer inbound calls. The average agent speed of answer in 2021 was at 8 seconds, the same as in 2020.

This includes the duration for which the agent’s phone rings but does not include the time the caller spends in the IVR or waiting in queue.

This year, even during the second wave of the coronavirus, call centres were more prepared and equipped to handle the sudden surge in demand. The stability of the overall average pick up time by the call centre, indicates the consistent availability of agents at all times.

Average talk time indicates the time an agent spends talking to a caller on an average. In 2021, this number is 3.7 minutes, which is nearly the same as of 2020.

‘Wrap Time’ typically affects how fast call center agents can attend to the next call which affects queue wait time and productivity. There has been a decrease in this time, from 45 seconds in 2020 to 41 seconds in 2021.

The decrease in wrap time indicates that agents are able to find an appropriate disposition code to tag the conversation and schedule quick follow ups through calls or SMS.

However, the average wrap time reported in 2019 was 25 seconds. This shows that though there is an improvement from last year, the call centre managers may still need to work on this parameter to go back to the pre-pandemic status.

“Hold Time,” or the average time an agent puts a customer on hold, either to route it to other agent or check on the queries, decreased to 11 seconds as compared to 13 seconds in 2020.

From the customer standpoint, callers had to wait longer. The “Average Time in Queue’ is the amount of time callers have to wait in queue before they are connected to representatives.

This is an important customer experience metric, as the longer customers wait the less satisfied they are likely to be.

Ozonetel’s report found that on an average a caller waited 46 seconds to get connected to a live agent as opposed to 37 seconds in 2020.

This meant that abandonment rates were also higher. The “Abandonment Rate” was, in average, 28 per cent calls disconnected before being routed to an agent in 2021 as compared to 15 per cent in 2020.

This indicates customers have become more impatient and expect faster service than before.

“Given the challenging atmosphere of 2021, brands had to work really hard to ensure client satisfaction. The sectors that are doing well under different parameters, are the ones adapting to technological advancements quickly and creating omnichannel touchpoints. We have been doing this study annually and every year it uncovers many interesting insights and learning for us and our customers,” said Chaitanya Chokkareddy, Chief Innovation Officer, Ozonetel.

Parameter	Winner	Back bencher
Contact Rate	Restaurants (77%)	Real Estate (27%)
Pick Up Time	E-commerce Groceries (2.25 seconds)	Banking & broking (14.5 seconds)
Talk Time	Real estate (2.9 minutes)	Insurance, Fintech, & Financial services (6.5 minutes)
Wrap Time	Restaurants (5.25 seconds)	Insurance, Fintech, & Financial services (96 seconds)

Time in Queue E-commerce Groceries (20 seconds) Banking & broking (125 seconds) Abandonment Rate E-commerce Groceries (8%) Real Estate (47.25%) Hold Time Restaurants (1.5 seconds) E-commerce groceries (29 seconds)