10 Important Call Center KPIs to Monitor for 2025

Immersed in the hectic routine of a call center, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.

The art of customer service isn’t just about handling complaints, it’s also about building customer relationships and turning single transactions into lasting engagements. 

That's where tracking the right call center key performance indicators (KPIs) can guide you through the chaos.

Call center KPIs measure your achievements, expose areas for improvement and drive accountability. Armed with these insights, you can make informed strategic decisions that boost revenue for you and your end clients.

In this article, we shed light on 10 crucial call center KPIs that can serve as a guiding light in the competitive and chaotic call center space.

Why should enterprises track these call center KPIs? 

Modern call centers are under immense stress to answer fast, maintain call quality, and stay efficient, and the situation becomes worse for enterprise call centers. Enterprise call centers are often expansive in operational capacity and hard to manage. Call center KPIs make managing them a tad bit easier. Let’s look at the reasons why enterprises and large businesses need to track call center key performance indicators.  

🤩 Better experiences from yesterday 

For enterprises, customer experience is a direct reflection of their brand’s credibility and values. Their large-scale operations often mean navigating customer interactions that fall at either end of the spectrum — from straightforward queries to convoluted problems. This is where tracking metrics spotlight friction points that otherwise go undocumented. For enterprises, this could open up a window to dramatically improve customer experiences with pre-emptive solutions driven by insights from call center KPIs.  

⛯ Well-oiled operational engine 

In an enterprise setting, inefficiencies cost more than money — they risk brand reputation. They need finely tuned systems to handle the sheer volume and complexity of customer interactions. Call center KPIs reveal inefficiencies, such as staffing mismatches or delays in resolution workflows — that could otherwise be invisible at a smaller scale but could cost them customer goodwill and consequently, their standing in the market 

💯 Data driving strategic decisions 

Enterprise-level decision-making requires precision and foresight. Metrics change subjective debates into objective, actionable insights. Data clarifies whether strategic shifts — like blending new call center technologies or expanding teams — are delivering the intended results. Across multiple teams or regions, metrics enable consistent benchmarks, unifying operations under shared goals. Informed decisions backed by metrics and careful risk assessment also strengthen accountability and create confidence among stakeholders of publicly listed companies. 

🧠 Performance propelled by agent well-being 

Enterprise agents often must juggle many high-pressure customer service scenarios while empathizing with customers throughout. But they can only perform their best when they are well taken care of by the higher-ups. Call center KPIs help leaders identify where agents thrive and where they might need call center training, emotional support or downtimes.  KPIs also highlight workload disparities, helping you ensure fair scheduling across large teams so you can proactively prevent call center burnout. With pertinent tools and training informed by data, agents feel more confident and equipped to succeed, leading to stronger interactions.  

Forrester Consulting study shows Sprinklr Service drives a remarkable 210% ROI with a unified, digital-first approach 

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The 10 key call center KPIs that all businesses should track

Here are the 10 call center KPIs to foster a thriving customer-centric environment:

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score or NPS reveals how strongly a customer feels about your services and functions as a loyalty meter. It is a tool for measuring your customers' loyalty and serves as a barometer for your brand's popularity. 

It simply sums up responses to one crucial question, namely, "How likely are you to recommend a company to a friend or colleague?" The responses are marked on a scale of 0-10.

Let's take a look at how customer responses can be categorized based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS):

• Promoters: These are the real champions of your brand. They give a glowing score of 9-10 and genuinely endorse your brand with enthusiasm and support.
• Passives: Customers in this category give a score of 7-8. They may not be actively promoting your brand, but they're also not speaking negatively about it. They fall somewhere in the middle, with a neutral stance.
• Detractors: Unfortunately, there are customers who score 0-6, indicating they are not satisfied or happy with their experience. These individuals have the potential to impact your brand's image if they resort to public forums to express their negative opinions. That's why it's essential to address their concerns and turn their perception around.

The NPS score is derived from this simple formula:

The resulting figure serves as a clear indicator of customer satisfaction. It may be a number, but it tells a story about customer experience, loyalty and brand perception.

2. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Customer Satisfaction Score measures how satisfied customers are with a product, service or experience. It’s typically calculated by asking customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale, often after an interaction or purchase.  

To compute your CSAT score, you can ask your customers to fill out a survey form, rating their product/support experience on a pre-defined scale. A sample survey question can be "On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied do you think you are with our brand's support?"

Based on the scores, respondents can be classified into different categories such as:

• Very Satisfied: This indicates that the customers had a fantastic experience with your service and they are extremely satisfied. You probably exceeded their expectations and turned them into your enthusiastic brand advocates.  
• Satisfied: Customers in this category had a good experience with your service. They are content and feel that their expectations were met. While they may not be raving fans, they are generally happy with the service you provide.  
• Neutral: These customers had an average experience. They neither feel strongly positive nor negative about your service. It was satisfactory but didn't leave a lasting impression. It's important to note that they may be easily swayed by other options.  
• Unsatisfied: Unfortunately, these customers had a less than satisfactory experience. They expected more and feel let down by your service. Addressing their concerns and finding ways to improve their experience is crucial to retaining these customers. 
• Very unsatisfied: These customers are possibly frustrated with a highly unsatisfactory experience. Their negative feedback can greatly impact your brand's reputation. It's essential to address their concerns promptly and provide effective solutions.

Read More: 19 Proven Tips to Handle Angry Customers

Understanding and addressing customer feedback across these categories can help improve your service and cultivate positive experiences.

To calculate your CSAT score objectively, use this easy formula:

Remember, this number is not just a score but a narrative – a tale of your team's ability to delight customers. Therefore, engage, understand and keep delivering service that brings smiles. 

💡 Pro Tip: There’s ONE solid way to minimize poor CSAT scores — and that’s through AI-powered foresight. Before you even deploy a survey, a conversational analytics tool can scan interactions in real time and accurately predict CSAT by detecting keywords that convey certain sentiments — alerting the agent to take action in case it identifies negative connotations in customer speech.

See how state-of-the-art AI-driven analytics bring all the context, emotional or functional, right to you from every customer conversation.  

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3. First Call Resolution (FCR)

FCR is the percentage of customer issues resolved during the first call. It's the magic moment when a customer sighs with relief, as their problem is solved without follow-up or the need for an escalation. 

The essence of FCR is captured in this formula:

But why does FCR matter? Because it reflects the principle of "doing it right the first time." It prevents the frustration of multiple callbacks or transfers, creating happier customers.

So, keep an eye on FCR. Make it your guiding star.

Curious about improving your FCR? Check this video out👇

4. First Response Time (FRT)

First Response Time (FRT) measures the time it takes for a company to send its initial response to a customer inquiry or issue. 

Imagine stepping into the shoes of a customer, eagerly reaching out for assistance. What would you hope for? A warm welcome, right? Well, that's exactly what the First Response Time (FRT) aims to achieve.

Calculating the FRT involves a simple formula:

Whether it's a live chat support or a phone call, customers expect quick resolutions. While FRT is about speed, it's also about understanding the customer's thirst for instant help and meeting it head-on. Improving customer response times also sets the tone for a hopeful customer journey. So, strive to keep your FRT minimal. 

5. Percentage of Calls Blocked

The Percentage of Calls Blocked represents the proportion of incoming calls that encounter a busy signal, signaling potential issues in handling call volumes. 

Here's how to calculate this metric:

Imagine calling for help and being met with nothing but a busy signal — it’s a moment of pure frustration for your customers and a lost chance for your business to build trust. 

This is why the percentage of calls blocked matters. It’s a measure of missed opportunities to assist and leave a positive impression. 

A high rate here signals trouble. It could mean your call center is understaffed, leaving customers without answers or your call center software isn’t equipped to handle the volume, resulting in dropped connections.  

Read More: How Voice Bots Help You Tackle High Call Volumes 

6. Call Abandonment Rate

The Call Abandonment Rate KPI refers to the number of customers who disconnect before reaching an agent.  

The formula to calculate this call center KPI is:

When customers abandon a call, more than just a missed call, it’s a missed relationship. Each hang-up represents a time where frustration outweighed their willingness to wait, hinting at deeper operational barriers that need attention. 

It begs many grave questions. How smooth is your customer journey? Are wait times stretching too long? Is customer self-service falling short? Digging into these patterns lets you find the root causes and reimagine the experience. 

💡Pro Tip: Use conversational IVR software to ensure no customer waits too long or hangs up frustrated. Unlike static IVR, it greets your callers with a friendly voice, quickly grasps their needs, and guides them to the right expert — no detours.

Your agents get a complete brief, so they’re ready to dive deep without missing a beat. It can also automatically schedule callbacks to customers they might lose mid-calls.

And if the only way to help a customer better is on a different channel, the cross-channel switch can be seamless with a robust conversational IVR solution.

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7. Average Speed of Answer (ASA)

Average Speed of Answer (ASA) measures the average time it takes for a customer service agent to answer incoming calls or inquiries. As a customer, waiting for a call to be answered can feel like an eternity. Time seems to stretch endlessly, and impatience starts to creep in.  

Here's the formula:

ASA isn't just about holding music; it covers the time spent waiting in queue till the agent picks up the call. Though it excludes the IVR navigation time, it clearly shows the team's efficiency. 

It's similar to First Response Time (FRT), spotlighting the swift addressing of customer calls. However, ASA carries a specific weight. It conveys how quickly your team moves to bring a hopeful resolution to a customer's concern.

8. Average Handle Time (AHT)

Average Handle Time (AHT) measures the average duration of customer interaction, including talk time, hold time and post-interaction tasks.  The calculation is as follows: 

The calculation is as follows:

AHT is a valuable gauge to set performance benchmarks for the entire team and to identify who may need more customer service coaching. 

It's a metric that matters: a low AHT can indicate efficiency, leading to better productivity and happier customers. However, it's essential to balance this speed with quality solutions. After all, the aim is to help customers effectively, not rush them through the process. 

💡 Pro Tip: To lessen average handle time, consider implementing customer service workflows. What are they, you ask? A customer service workflow is a standardized process that guides agents through each customer interaction with precision. Automating and structuring each step, significantly slashes the time agents spend handling issues, enabling them to resolve queries faster and more efficiently.

See how an agent follows a step-by-step process while interacting with a customer reporting an issue with their phone charger using Sprinklr Service Guided Workflows👇

9. Customer Effort Score (CES)

Customer Effort Score is a critical call center KPI that measures how much effort a customer has to put in to get their issue resolved. Originally developed by Gartner, CES is said to be 40% more accurate at predicting customer loyalty as opposed to customer satisfaction, says the consulting firm’s Senior Principal in Advisory Andrew Schumacher. 

The question of getting input can be formed in various ways. Commonly, it’d go something like: How easy was it to solve your problem? 

Users would most likely be asked to rate it on a scale of 1 to 7 or 10, with a higher digit connoting greater ease of resolution. 

The score is then calculated as follows according to the customer responses:

Every extra step that customers have to take to find an answer — a long queue, multiple transfers — signals inefficiency and tests patience. A low-effort experience reassures customers they’re valued, with swift resolutions that respect their time. 

10. Customer Churn Rate (CCR)

Customer Churn Rate reveals the percentage of customers who've stopped using your services within a specific period. Keeping a pulse on the CCR is vital in the call center KPI scorecard. 

Use this formula to calculate the CCR:

A high churn rate often signals something deeper — inefficiencies in managing escalations, misaligned customer expectations or lack of follow-through. It shows that there are pain points that are going unaddressed causing people to leave. Doubling down into these patterns can then help you create sharp strategies of combat, which could be preemptive outreach or exclusive support tailored to at-risk segments. That is how, instead of reacting to churn, you take control, building stickiness before issues escalate. 

👉 Need a more exhaustive list of metrics? Check out the top customer service metrics to track. 

Role of call center technology in tracking call center KPIs 

Technology has come a long way since call centers came into existence. Today, you can find unified customer service software that helps you analyze raw interaction data into actionable insights to lead data-backed customer service strategies. An enterprise-ready call center software would typically include: 

1. Conversational analytics solution 

Conversational analytics tools turn hours of calls into practical insights. It’s really just a tool that helps you analyze your customer conversations in real-time and retrospectively — maybe you see repeated mentions of "waiting too long" or "unclear instructions" pop up in the data. Over time, it’s about the patterns: unresolved or overlooked complaints, confusion over policies or even gaps in agent training. These tools also measure sentiments in real-time, alerting managers so they can step in before issues spiral, by features like barge-in.

Check out how call barge-ins work in a Unified Supervisor Console.

Powering it all up with generative AI 

When Sprinklr’s Conversational Analytics joins forces with Sprinklr AI+, the result is a powerhouse of insight and action. They work together to unravel trends hidden in endless queries, connecting dots across variables and time. The surface root causes, show you exactly what’s driving issues. Then, they go further, delivering sharp, targeted actions to solve problems before they spiral. 

Check out how Sprinklr worked its magic when customers started reporting many delivery delays over a period of three weeks. 

Experience Sprinklr with a free personalized demo. 

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 2. Call routing systems

Call routing systems act like traffic directors, ensuring every customer ends up in the right place. For example, returning customers with unresolved issues are directed straight to an agent familiar with their case. VIP clients are routed to experienced representatives, ensuring they are well-attended. At an enterprise level, intelligent routing simplifies complexity — matching calls by language, region or issue type. This avoids unnecessary transfers, accelerates resolutions and keeps both customers and agents on track for faster resolutions.  

3. Quality management systems (QMS) 

Managing hundreds — or even thousands — of agents and ensuring quality in customer service is no small task. That’s a typical day for a large-scale call center for an enterprise.  A robust quality management tool can review calls systematically, flagging trends like unresolved problems or missed follow-ups. For enterprises, this consistency is invaluable across global teams.   

Beyond evaluating individual agent performance, a QMS uncovers sentiment, intent and CSAT trends across all interactions. For instance, a case analytics interface might instantly highlight why a team’s CSAT is dipping, showing shifts in customer mood or recurring unresolved issues. Supervisors get a complete picture — what’s working, where agents need support and which processes require an overhaul — all without drowning in manual reviews. Check out how Sprinklr AI detects and surfaces quality KPI dips in live calls 👇  

4. Customer feedback tools 

Customer feedback tools turn every interaction into a learning opportunity. Post-call surveys can reveal recurring frustrations, like long hold times or agents lacking the right information. For enterprise-scale operations, AI-enhanced tools go further — scanning written feedback to find trends.  

For example, repeated phrases like "misunderstood my request" might signal a training gap. This data is your customers speaking directly to you, helping leaders prioritize where to focus: be it smoother processes, better resources for agents or more intuitive self-service options. 

With Sprinklr’s Surveys, gathering customer feedback from all your call center interactions is a breeze. Leverage Generative AI and verticalized models for feedback insights that are fully automated, coupled with clear explanations of customer trends and themes. Drive higher response rates with interactive engaging conversational surveys that adapt dynamically to surface deeper insights. 

Let one of our experts show you how Sprinklr Surveys verbalize your customers’ feelings in numbers.  

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Make insights from your call center KPIs a company-wide cheat code. 

To truly understand and improve your customer service, you need more than data — you need clarity.  

That’s where call center KPIs come in.  

When assessed through a strong call, nay, contact center analytics tool that covers metrics from each customer touchpoint a contact is made, there’s simply no guesswork needed.  

Now you know what’s working and what’s not.  

Why are customers waiting too long? What’s causing repeat calls? Where are agents getting stuck? Sprinklr’s Contact Center Reporting answers these questions and more, giving you a clear picture of your operation. 

From call queues to boardrooms, get insights that spark action with Sprinklr. 

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