What Your Average Call Duration Says About Your Team
Data makes the world go round, but without proper context, it can only tell a small part of the story.
At a call center, for example, the average time that agents spend on calls tells you very little about the success of those calls. If the calls are super short, it could be because callers are getting frustrated and hanging up just as much as it could be because their issues are getting resolved in record time. On the other hand, if calls are taking a really long time, it could be because the average call complexity is high enough to justify it, or simply because the process is highly inefficient.
In any case, the industry standard of 4-6 minutes can be a useful starting point for making comparisons, but it shouldn’t necessarily be your North Star. If your agents spend more than that on each call, it doesn’t mean you are losing out on customers or sales. In fact, poor call handling and low-quality customer service are more likely to be the culprit for lost customers.