7 Problems Contact Center Analytics Can Solve Right Now

Contact center analytics is the systematic collection and analysis of data related to customer interactions. With this data, businesses can assess the efficiency of their contact center and determine the biggest levers they have to improve.

At the core are analytics dashboards, which transform call detail records (CDRs) and data from other channels into clear insights about customer satisfaction, agent performance, and operational efficiency.

Any decent contact center is going to have built-in analytics, but it’s up to managers to decide what metrics really matter and what the data means in context. With these online analytics tools at your fingertips, you can spot a wide range of problems before they arise and stay one step ahead of your competitors.

1. Low self-service usage

Self-service usage refers to customers using automated systems, such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and chatbots, to resolve issues without needing to interact with an agent. That’s the key. When callers can help themselves, it reduces call volume and frees up agents to handle more complex inquiries.

SEE: Discover why agents and customers alike appreciate IVRs. 

When self-service usage is dropping, you’ll see the opposite — higher call volume and overwhelmed agents.

Contact center analytics can help you identify opportunities to enhance and promote available self-service options. This not only improves operational efficiency but also provides customers with quicker, more convenient solutions, enhancing satisfaction.

For instance, if analytics show a high volume of routine inquiries, such as billing questions or password resets, these can be addressed through automated self-service tools like chatbots or visual IVR.

SEE: Explore call center chatbot examples and visual IVR use cases. 

Moreover, analytics can track how customers interact with self-service options, identifying where users drop off or abandon the process. For example, if many customers begin using a chatbot but do not complete their inquiry, this can highlight areas where the chatbot may not be providing sufficient information or a seamless experience.

By using these insights, businesses can refine their self-service systems — setting up call flows, updating content, and improving usability — and encourage higher usage. This can increase customer satisfaction by offering quicker, more convenient solutions.

2. Low First-Call Resolution (FCR)

Low FCR indicates that customers are calling multiple times to resolve the same issue, which leads to dissatisfaction, inefficiencies, and high call queue times — this creates stress for both agents and customers.

SEE: Learn the top five causes of high call queue times and how to fix them. 

Contact center analytics are a perfect tool for digging into the types of issues that commonly lead to multiple calls, such as billing questions or technical support requests.

Once these recurring issues are identified, I would create targeted resources — like FAQs or specific guides — to help your customers before they even call agents. Publishing such online resources is labor intensive, but it can decrease the complexity of questions agents are forced to answer by educating callers ahead of time.

But you can’t count on every caller to find and use these resources ahead of time. A consistently low FCR may indicate that agents need more training or improved access to resources for handling these types of cases.

Offering specialized training to agents handling these low-FCR inquiries can boost their ability to address complex issues right away. Consider also providing agents with a useful knowledge base that can help them resolve a wider range of customer inquiries on the first try.

Giving agents quick access to relevant information will reduce the need for follow-up calls by enabling faster and more accurate solutions during the initial interaction.

3. High call abandonment rates

Call abandonment often happens when customers experience long wait times, leading to frustration and, ultimately, a poor customer experience. Contact center analytics can help by pinpointing specific times of day or days of the week when abandonment rates spike.

For example, if analytics show a high call abandonment rate during the early afternoon, managers might adjust staffing levels to meet that demand or consider implementing a callback option to reduce customer wait times.

To address high call abandonment rates, start by adjusting staffing schedules based on the peak demand times highlighted in your analytics. This ensures that enough agents are available during the busiest periods, reducing wait times and lowering the chances of customers hanging up.

Additionally, consider trying some new call queue management strategies, such as enabling virtual queueing or offering a callback option, so customers aren’t forced to wait on hold indefinitely.

Real-time dashboard monitoring can further help managers stay informed about current call queues and abandonment trends, allowing them to make immediate adjustments to staffing or prioritize calls as needed.

4. Low customer retention

Managing customer retention is one of the most important responsibilities of a contact center. Supervisors need to be able to surface any threats to retention and resolve them quickly.

Contact center analytics can improve customer loyalty by identifying issues that might drive customers away and by facilitating proactive service enhancements. Analyzing key metrics such as repeat call rates, resolution time, and escalation frequency, managers can pinpoint and address recurring issues that negatively impact customer experience.

For instance, if repeat call rates are high, it may signal that customers aren’t receiving adequate solutions on the first call, which can erode loyalty over time.

By analyzing interactions across various channels, you can identify where most of your customers are heading first. Choose one channel to begin with and focus your efforts on creating a supportive problem-solving process for the thorniest issues. Then, if possible, apply what you’ve learned to improve your other channels as well.

5. Low customer satisfaction

It’s far easier to keep a satisfied customer than to win back an unhappy one, so fixing any gaps in quality service is essential to overall success.

Call center analytics provide the tools you need to measure customer service satisfaction (CSAT), which can help contact centers course correct before unhappy customers lead to a higher churn rate.

First, the basic reporting can cue you into potential issues. A high Average Handle Time (AHT) or low FCR can indicate that agents are struggling to resolve issues efficiently, leading to customer frustration. Similarly, an increase in call abandonment rate can suggest that customers are dissatisfied with long wait times, a common source of low CSAT scores.

Many analytics solutions also come with real-time customer survey builders, as well as features to gauge the success of your efforts. This can be key in understanding where things are going wrong.

If you run a survey, try to set it up so you can identify where customers are encountering problems the most across all of your channels. See if there are any patterns to the kinds of issues they experience and the channels where they can’t seem to find resolutions.

Keep in mind that although you can manually review data such as post-service surveys, predictive analytics can also help you discover opportunities to optimize customer service and further personalize the buying journey.

6. High rates of agent burnout

Contact center analytics can help prevent agent burnout by identifying patterns of high call volumes and extended handling times that strain agents. By monitoring these metrics, managers can make timely adjustments in staffing and workload distribution, helping maintain a balanced and sustainable environment for agents.

A typical contact center will see an annual attrition rate of 30-40 percent. If you can get that number down, that means managers can spend less time hiring, less time training up new agents, and more time on improving operations.

Call center burnout has always been a big reason why good employees leave — they get overwhelmed by the volume of calls, fed up with bad customer attitudes, or tired of being relentlessly monitored.

SEE: Understand the leading causes of call center burnout and how to avoid them. 

In contact centers, where employees are responsible for more channels, the potential for burnout is even higher. A single agent may have several ongoing chats while they talk to a customer on the phone.

Key analytics that aid in spotting burnout risks include metrics on call volume per agent, average handling time, and occupancy rate. High levels of sustained call volume and long handling times can indicate excessive strain, while occupancy rate shows how much time agents spend actively engaged with customers versus available time for breaks.

When analytics reveal signs of stress, managers should adjust scheduling, increase staffing during peak times, or rotate complex cases among agents to distribute workload evenly.

Regular check-ins with agents and offering short breaks or micro-breaks during high-demand periods can also mitigate burnout. With data-driven insights, managers can proactively support agents, helping maintain both productivity and morale.

You can also use predictive analytics to help ensure proper staffing during high-volume time blocks. This can seriously affect the agent and customer experience during those otherwise stressful times.

The alternative is overwhelming people, to the point where agents actively avoid calls and force their supervisor to become a babysitter.

SEE: Learn how to detect call center avoidance early. 

7. Maintaining service quality with remote staff

There are plenty of great reasons to run a virtual contact center as opposed to paying for a commercial lease and narrowing your hiring pool to candidates within driving distance.

However, remote working environments can make it challenging to ensure consistent performance across all agents. Analytics must play an important role in contact center quality assurance.

Metrics such as Average Handle Time (AHT), hold time, and transfer rate are also useful success indicators — but keep in mind that an individual agent’s approach isn’t the only variable contributing to these numbers.

Consider supplementing the standard analytics with call center quality monitoring tools, which can give you deeper insights into the nature of agent conversations. When used well, these tools can flag a conversation when sentiments are growing heated, alerting managers to problems as they occur.

Some tools come with keyword-enabled assist features that can enable you to create pop-up messages with solutions to common problems, supporting agents in offering the best possible customer service.