Average Call Duration

What is Average Call Duration?

The Average Call Duration provides real-time data about your agents’ performance regarding time spent on calls. Call duration is measured from the moment the agent picks up the phone to the moment the call ends. Thus, the goal of this KPI is to shorten the average length of calls over time.

If measured daily, this KPI can also bring insight into the clients’ behavior with the company. You might be able to recognize a pattern in your service levels that varies day to day, so this information will allow you to maximize your resources to increase performance all through the week.

Average Call Duration is a relevant metric for your sales team to monitor, as displaying it for your entire department can motivate them to decrease their time.

Why is Average Call Duration important?

From a customer service perspective, Average Call Duration measures the speed and efficiency at which customer queries are addressed. Customers who have problems with your product should have to wait as little as possible to receive help. Speed, therefore, is a vital indicator of customer service quality.

However, it’s not speed alone that matters. Indeed, giving the impression you’re rushing through calls and inadequately addressing your customers’ concerns can be counterproductive. Average Call Duration is all about striking a balance: between getting your customers on the line as quickly as possible, while also addressing their needs in a thorough manner.

Failure to pay attention to Average Call Duration can have serious consequences. At the very worst, it can be perceived as rude–and rudeness from your personnel is one of the most destructive elements working against your company’s success.

Shep Hykes, writing in Forbes, describes results from a 2022 survey which asked 1000 American adults why they would leave a brand. Sixty-eight percent said they would quit over customer service perceived as not only bad, but rude:

How to calculate Average Call Duration

Calculate Average Call Duration by adding the total amount of time spent on the phone by an agent or team within a specified timeframe, then divide by the number of phone calls made within this timeframe.

Best Practices for Average Call Duration

Best practices for Average Call Duration boil down to maximizing efficiency: delivering the best possible assistance for your customers within the most reasonable length of time. This means neither rushing your customers through the call process while failing to address their fundamental concerns, nor spending an inordinate amount of time with one customer at the expense of others.

That said, a shorter Average Call Duration is a good proxy for overall customer service effectiveness. The best ways to reduce your Average Call Duration are to ensure your customers reach a qualified agent, and your product is as problem-free as possible.

Your service team should be large enough to accommodate a significant volume of calls, which will reduce wait times and ensure your customers reach help in a timely manner. And while it should go without saying, your service agents should also possess a high degree of expertise in navigating your product.

However, it’s ultimately ideal to do work on the front end to reduce or outright eliminate any problems or defects in your product before it hits the market. In the end, this is what will best reduce your teams’ Average Call Duration–having fewer customers call in to begin with.

Keep track of this important KPI and reduce your customer service team’s Average Call Duration with Plecto’s dashboards–help us help you, so get in touch today.

Other KPIs similar to Average Call Duration include:

• Lead Response Time
• Duration of Answered Calls
• Duration of All Calls