The contact centre has dropped away as the predominant point of customer interaction for many businesses, but it remains an area of frustration for many. In a recent Ovum study 32 percent of respondents said automated self-service and voice recognition systems were the most challenging aspects of customer service. Repeated often enough it can be a big trigger for customer churn.

Daniel Hong, lead analyst for customer interaction at Ovum, wrote about the issue in his paper “Using task completion rates to understand customer service experiences”. His argument is that companies are focusing too much on technical measures — like call completion rates — which will do nothing to measure customer satisfaction.

So, if your call centre is killing your business if could be because you are tracking the wrong metrics. In fact, if your metrics are way off the mark you might not even know the damage that is being done.

First published on CBS News