Data down to the decimal.

It’s what many of us expect when we drive a car. Modern dashboard displays provide all kinds of real-time information: digital gauges that indicate our speed, remaining fuel, tire pressure and much more — not to mention GPS capabilities that continuously show our progress toward the destination. As we speed along, we know precisely where we are, how fast we’re moving and what obstacles (and coffee shops) lie ahead.

At their best, contact center dashboards can operate in a similar manner — offering a real-time view into data to improve reporting and KPI tracking. Contact center agents and managers can use this data to adjust in the moment to improve the customer experience.

But many companies today lack such real-time insights to rapidly uncover customer needs or monitor performance across channels and make improvements, according to “The State of Customer Experience,” a global research report from Genesys.

And this lack of insight comes at a high cost.

Eighty-six percent of consumers say a company is only as good as its service and a third have switched brands in the past year over a negative interaction. Customer experience (CX) leaders cite keeping pace with customer expectations as the greatest challenge they face today, according to the Genesys report.

We’re going to explore the subject of contact center dashboards, including how they can help companies improve CX — and customer satisfaction and loyalty — by learning and adapting in real time. We’ll examine the different types of dashboards, their benefits for the business and consumer, and some best practices for implementing them.

The Role of Dashboards in Contact Centers

Contact centers need to empower agents, managers and supervisors with the right data. This involves using customer analytics to enable personalized interactions, as well as performance dashboards to understand how well individual agents and teams are performing according to the relevant metrics.

Common contact center dashboards display metrics like agent status, number of calls waiting in queue and longest interaction. Their power comes from visualizing team performance in consistent, intuitive and actionable ways. And this can be especially valuable when you have hybrid or remote teams.

With an all-in-one cloud contact center solution, you gain customizable dashboards and views that give users a snapshot of what they need to know. They can easily build and save custom views and save time and effort by toggling between tabs. And they can work in dedicated analytics workspaces.

Managers and supervisors can quickly create custom performance dashboards to share with their teams — no matter where they’re working.

Benefits of Contact Center Dashboards

Contact center dashboards can help you improve your business by providing full visibility into all your operations. You can export data from third-party tools and bring in data from a CRM system like Salesforce.

Enhance decision-making with real-time data

Incomplete data leads to incorrect decisions. But when you can access all your data within an all-in-one cloud platform, you can see exactly what’s going on in your contact center. Real-time alerts and live streaming data allow you to monitor events across queues, so you can easily adjust queue activity and more.

Giving agents access to performance metrics in real time empowers them to make decisions that improve individual and team performance. For example, if an agent knows there are several callers waiting in a queue, or few agents on queue at a certain time, that agent might wait to take their break. This reduces the time callers wait to speak with an agent. In addition, you can open an overtime request for an agent group when there’s an unexpected spike in traffic. All of this is seamless with an all-in-one customer experience that features built-in automation and task routing.

Boost agent performance

Your employees have great expectations of their own. They want to know they’re appreciated. High-performing contact center employees value having a sense of autonomy and personal responsibility. They have an appetite for instruction — hungering for new skills and advancement opportunities, according to the Genesys report “Human values: The operating system for a high-performing contact center.”

Dashboards can help boost agent performance by giving them immediate feedback on how well they’re meeting KPIs. With gamification capabilities built into your CX platform, agents can engage in friendly competition as they strive to move to the top of the leaderboard. And managers can monitor the performance of individual agents and drill down to identify opportunities for improvement.

Improve the customer experience

Dashboards on your queues, interactions, employee activity and performance across your voice and digital interactions can provide you with operational insights that you can act on immediately. And you can better understand what’s happening by drilling down into metrics and KPIs to perform root cause analysis and track down individual interactions.

Better insights help you achieve strategic goals, drive better customer experiences and increase customer satisfaction.

Types of Contact Center Dashboards

Some dashboards focus on real-time data, while others track historical data. Let’s explore the different types of dashboards that can help your organization deliver superior experiences.

Real-time dashboards

Real-time dashboards enable you to monitor your operations for queue activity, topic trends, agent skills and more. With a leading solution, you can define real-time alerts based on the queue, user, conversation and presence-based metrics. And you can even create multi-conditional alerts to identify more complex scenarios.

Historical dashboards

Historical dashboards enable you to preserve historical context across the customer journey. Generate reports that empower you to track and analyze service levels, call times, resolution rates, customer satisfaction and other important key performance indicators.

Agent performance dashboards

With real-time dashboards and up-to-the-second analytics, you’re empowered to manage your contact center across multiple teams and channels. Customizable dashboards help you meet your unique business needs and empower you to respond in the moment.

Best Practices for Designing and Implementing Dashboards

Every dashboard you create serves a purpose and answers key questions. It should be easy to understand, so select visual formats such as charts and graphs that convey the information at a glance.

Focus on the goal you’re trying to achieve and determine the specific areas where you can see potential improvement.

Also consider the audience. For example, a contact center agent will likely want to see data regarding their performance; a personalized dashboard can help them see their progress toward their individual goals. A manager, meanwhile, will likely want a dashboard that provides information about their team as well as the performance of individual agents.

Common Metrics Tracked in Contact Center Dashboards

Metrics allow you to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of your contact center operations.

Keep your customers in mind as you choose the key metrics to focus on. Speed is what consumers value the most in a customer service interaction (55%), followed by a first-interaction resolution (51%), according to “The State of Customer Experience” research.

Here are some common metrics that are tracked in contact centers:

Abandonment rate

The percentage of calls that aren’t completed because the caller hangs up before an agent answers the call

Average handle time (AHT)

The amount of time an agent is occupied on an incoming call

Average hold time

Average hold time is the average length of time a customer is put on hold before interacting with a customer service agent. It’s typically calculated using a large volume of data over a specific period of time.

Call time

Call time, also known as “talk time,” is the amount of time an agent spends on a call with a customer. It’s a key performance metric to measure agent productivity and efficiency.

Customer effort score (CES)

A measurement focused on service interactions in contact center environments. It provides a way to measure how customer-centric channels and touchpoints are in their design and management, and how they promote ease of use, simplicity and effortless interaction.

First-contact resolution (FCR)

FCR is the ability to address the customer’s need the first time they call or connect with an agent — eliminating the need for the customer to follow up with a second interaction. Also referred to as “first-call resolution.”

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Designed to use customer feedback to fuel profitable growth in your business, NPS is a macro metric based on a single question. Genesys helps organizations move beyond it with a progressive, people-centric methodology that provides a competitive advantage born from empathy.

Drive Better Decisions Fueled by All the Right Data

Keep in mind that many companies find it difficult to measure CX in a way that improves business outcomes. Lagging indicators like NPS surveys still have a place when it comes to measuring CX — but leading companies are focusing on signals that take place earlier and throughout the customer journey. For example, predictive engagement senses a customer’s intent and directs them to the right content or employee.

Discover how Genesys can help you improve your business by gaining full visibility into all your operations.

Be confident you’re monitoring the right metrics so you deliver the experience your customers expect. Read this ebook “Measure what matters: Contact center efficiency” to learn more.