As technology advances and consumers rely more and more on the Internet to provide services and products, valuable data becomes more available to companies. It’s easier than ever to know what your customers are looking for and HOW they are looking for it. Data analytics can tell you when viewers come to your site and at which point they leave. It’s fairly simple to determine what your target market is and who is most likely to buy your products or use your services. Gone are the days when simple advertising methods made a business a success. Today, call centers must use call center quality analytics to get actionable insights that improve a user’s experience.
 
Consider the example of Google analytics. You get valuable information about what keywords you should be using for your content and what you can expect from investing in ads. If that data doesn’t transfer into something actionable, then it’s essentially worthless to your company. Numbers on their own aren’t enough unless you have already identified and set goals to see where you want your center to be. Without goals, you are simply looking at a bunch of numbers on a screen.
 
What Are Actionable Insights?
 
Insights are the actual action taken to improve a situation after data has been analyzed and information has been processed. Information and data create a foundation for insights, allowing you to see exactly where your efforts will be most beneficial. The data is a key part of inspiring change in how any business is run, and its influence should drive change and affect major decisions.
 
For example, a company may run an analytics report and find valuable data and information, but unless that data is collected and organized in a way that provides insights to inspire new actions, then it is virtually unusable. Actionable insights are at the very top of the data pyramid, and are vital to improving an advertising campaign.
 
Key Characteristics of Actionable Insight
 
Not all data will provide you with actionable insights. When analyzing your call center quality analytics to determine if there is any actionable data to use, consider the following five attributes of actionable insights.
 
1. Context – Before you can take action on an insight, you must know the background to determine why it’s unique or important to your company. There must first be a benchmark or comparison to put data in the proper context. For example, say your call center normally takes in 1,000 calls a week. One week you may have 1,200 and not think that is an improvement. In this case, say you had just done a large promotion giving customers 20% off a service or product. Put into context, that 1,200 number becomes very low and requires some action to improve it. You must first have the background and supporting details to guarantee that insights provide results and action, not just objections and skepticism.
 
2. Alignment – Insights that are closely tied to strategic initiatives and business goals are most likely to drive action. It’s likely that the data that doesn’t make sense may not be important. Your focus should be mostly on your key performance indicators, as data on these will inspire urgent results. These insights are easily converted into strategic actions because they are directly related to your business levers that you influence, control or are focused on.
 
3. Novelty – Once you start analyzing data, information comes at you from all angles, and after time it becomes familiar. When there is a novel insight, you are more likely to respond to it, giving novelty an advantage when it comes to actionable insights. It’s more exciting to discover a pattern the first time rather than the 5th time, because at that point you likely have a handle on what’s driving the action or behavior. Additionally, human nature makes most people feel numb toward insights that reinforce current beliefs and knowledge rather than challenge them.
 
4. Relevance – One piece of data may be a red light for one person and just extra information for another. For an insight to be relevant, it must be delivered in the right setting at the right time to the right person. Insights that don’t go to the appropriate decision maker are often ignored and don’t get the attention they need to turn into action. If insights come in too late, they aren’t valuable for anyone to act on, and if they are stored in a space that is rarely accessed, they may never get to the appropriate audience to inspire and encourage the change.
 
5. Specificity – It is more likely that complete, specific insights will inspire an action. Insights based on high-level metrics and key performance information may be interesting and highlight anomalies and patterns, but are unable to drive immediate action because there simply isn’t enough detail. Insights must explain why the patterns occurred rather than just what happened. Data doesn’t become actionable until you have the numbers and the driving influence behind them.
 
Turn Data Into Results
 
Now that you have your insights and data into why your company is performing the way it is, and you’ve studied the attributes of actionable insights, it’s time to put them to use in your call center. Used the right way, data gleaned from call center quality analytics can be invaluable to improving customer service, reducing lag time and improving the morale of your call center. Data provides you with a direction to go when you are looking for ways to improve the process or the product you are offering to customers. Putting actions into practice is an important step on the path to better customer service. We have five steps to help you translate data into valuable, actionable insights for successful decision making in a call center.
 

• Study the trends – The first step is to accumulate and collect the data to determine what is happening in your call center. Analyzing data consistently shows trends that determine which data is valuable to improving your processes. If the trend you notice is not leading toward achieving your goals or objectives or sending your call center in the right direction, then you have insight into where the action should be focused. If the trends are in your favor, then you have information about what you are doing right. Trends also give information about how you compare to other companies in your industry. The secret is defining what you hope to achieve with any data you collect.
• Discover the why – Once you have your trend analysis, the next step is to study it and determine exactly why that trend is happening. For example, if your data analysis shows a drop in sales, that information is not enough to provide an actionable insight. Once you have the numbers, you must next look into WHY the sales are dropping in order to get to an actionable insight. Come up with strategies to change the problem after you understand why the trends are moving the way they are.
• Build a solid foundation and framework – Once you have the information about your trends and why they are falling the way they are, it’s time to build a structure to pinpoint your next actions. Use tables, graphs and charts to evaluate certain what-if situations to determine which action is best. Before you change a strategy, you must first know what the likely reaction will be from your customers. Creating a framework will provide insight into how trends will affect your contact center’s future. Your framework should be an insight compilation that shows what will happen if you implement any of the changes you are thinking of making.
• Make the Changes – Now that you have your data, you understand it and you’ve determined which action will work best, it’s time to start making your changes. You have a solid framework in place and you know how you think the change will influence the trends, but you won’t know until you actually implement the changes.
• Stay constant – Data interpretation and analysis aren’t a onetime process. Your data is constantly changing, and should be analyzed to give you essential information about how to improve your call center. Data provides information about trends and allows you to dig out why customers react the way they do. It also allows you to design your framework and implement changes that can be monitored and measured to improve your processes.

 
These simple five steps highlight how a simple data analysis can do more than tell you WHAT your business is doing. It can also tell you WHY it is doing it and HOW you can improve it. In call centers today, data analysis is particularly important to improve customer service and ensure that your agents are doing their best job. With agent satisfaction comes happier customers and lower turnover rates for your call center.
 
Where Can Actionable Insights Improve Call Centers?
 
Call centers are focused on keeping customers happy, answering questions and resolving disputes, and maintaining efficiency at all times. Taking actual relevant data, examining it and turning it into an action that drives an improved trend can be a valuable process in many areas where call centers are typically looking to improve.

• Agent lag time
• Increased number of calls taken
• Decreased turnover rates
• Faster resolutions for customers that are frustrated
• Faster connections between your agents and the customer
 
As a call center, you can’t afford to ignore the reality of data and how it can be used to inspire action and change within your company. Put in the right place with the right person at the right time, data analysis can mean the difference between fighting to meet your numbers and running a thriving call center with good morale. Ultimately, data is important to improve the customer service experience and to increase customer satisfaction with any product or service. The only requirement is that decision makers understand how to analyze the data and turn it into information that can create actions that can be measured to determine if they are successful.
The customer service world in a call center is constantly evolving. Data should be analyzed regularly, and if something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to throw it out and try something new. Revisit numbers and actionable insights regularly to look for efficient ways to improve the customer service experience.
 
The Bottom Line
 
At the end of the day, your goal is to run a thriving, productive, successful call center, and there are many tools out there to help you do just that. Data analytics and actionable insights aren’t the only pieces of the puzzle, but they are vital to the future of your call center. Your callers drive your business, and the relationship you have with your customers keeps your center going. Although customer service is important, it’s not the only force behind your decisions making. So how can actionable insights actually improve the bottom line and make your company money even as customer experiences are improved?
 
Contact center reporting can provide insights into how to boost revenue and reduce costs, something all call centers have on their list of goals. Take the example of using data to identify ways to increase First Call Resolution. These actions will lower your call volume, ensuring that customers don’t have to call back two or three times because their problems was solved the first time they call. This lower volume means you don’t need as many agents on the floor, which saves money in wages and personnel costs. Also consider decreasing Average Handle Time. Using data to find actionable insights gives you greater return on investment on any costs incurred by the call center, increasing customer loyalty and reducing your cost per call. The key influences on your call center’s bottom line are costs, call time and customer loyalty, all of which can be improved with actionable insights.
 
Call center reporting isn’t something that should be done just for the sake of doing it. Done correctly, data can be the driving force in most decision making, giving insight into the best ways to boost your bottom line and engage your customers.