Call Center Management: Best Practices and Key KPIs for 2025
Running a call center comes with the constant pressure of managing agent performance, meeting service levels, controlling costs, and delivering consistent customer satisfaction. Effective call center management is therefore crucial to ensuring seamless service and optimal efficiency.
This guide outlines essential tactics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you run successful call center operations in 2025. You’ll discover practical solutions for common challenges—such as high agent turnover, quality inconsistencies, and technology integration—with clear steps to measure and enhance your contact center's performance.
What are call center operations?
Call center operations encompass the daily activities and processes necessary to manage customer interactions effectively. This includes handling customer calls (both inbound and outbound), handling customer inquiries via email and chat, and managing all communication channels ( including social media and messaging) to create a seamless omnichannel experience.
Operations involve deploying the right call center technology, such as automatic call distribution (ACD) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, to manage call flows and maintain high levels of customer service. Essentially, call center operations focus on the execution of day-to-day tasks that ensure the call center meets its performance targets and delivers a satisfactory customer experience.
What is call center management, and why is it important?
Call center management involves overseeing the strategic and administrative aspects of a call center to ensure that it aligns with broader business goals.
Effective management is crucial because it directly influences the call center’s efficiency and effectiveness. It plays a pivotal role in setting service standards, training call center supervisors and agents, implementing technology solutions, and analyzing performance metrics to guide future strategies.
By ensuring robust call center management, you can enhance customer loyalty, meet or exceed customer expectations, optimize operational costs, and improve overall service delivery. This strategic oversight is essential for maintaining the organization’s competitiveness and profitability in a customer-driven marketplace.
7 best practices for efficient call center operations
To run a high-performing call center, you need clear strategies that enhance efficiency, improve customer service, and support agent productivity. Here are seven best practices for achieving operational success:
1. Hire the right people
Your call center’s success is largely dependent on the quality of its staff. Start by defining the ideal candidate profile. Consider factors such as necessary skills, experience, and alignment with the company’s culture and values.
Next, create a robust recruitment strategy that incorporates diverse sourcing methods and rigorous selection processes. Once you have a pool of qualified candidates, assess them using behavioral interviews and role-specific assessments to ensure that they have the necessary communication skills and problem-solving abilities.
2. Optimize onboarding for agent success
Creating a comprehensive onboarding program is crucial for new agent success. A structured 30-60-90 day plan gradually increases responsibilities, allowing agents to build confidence at each stage.
In the initial phase, the agents focus on product knowledge through interactive sessions and digital resources. By the second week, their focus shifts to supervised technical support and customer calls, and by the fourth week, new agents will take full responsibility for phone calls. Throughout this process, experienced agents will mentor new hires, providing daily feedback and using specific examples from live calls to illustrate best practices and common pitfalls.
3. Enhance continuous training and development
Ongoing training keeps a call center team performing at its best by making sure agents stay up-to-date on products, customer service protocols, and new technologies. Regular sessions reinforce key skills, while trainers use real call recordings to showcase effective tactics and identify areas for improvement.
Incorporating call coaching into training programs gives managers the opportunity to guide agents in real time, helping them refine communication skills and perform better during live interactions.
Additionally, call recordings of top performers handling challenging situations offer valuable insights, and interactive role-play scenarios and group problem-solving exercises keep training engaging and practical.
4. Streamline operations with CRM integration
Integrating call center software with CRM systems can optimize your operations by giving your agents immediate access to customer histories and previous interactions. This integration reduces the time that call center agents spend switching between applications and enables real-time updates to customer records during calls.
5. Adjust scheduling to meet fluctuating demands
Managers can adjust staffing levels based on historical data and predictive analytics to handle fluctuations in call volume. Flexible scheduling options, such as split shifts, part-time schedules, and a reserve pool of agents, ensure coverage during peak periods and maintain agent satisfaction.
By closely monitoring the number of calls throughout different times of the day and year, predictive analytics can help you accurately adjust staffing levels to effectively manage peak periods without overburdening call center staff.
6. Implement systematic quality assurance processes
A systematic quality assurance process relies heavily on call monitoring to evaluate agents’ interactions and maintain adherence to the highest service standards. The process includes:
- Detailed scorecards: Measure key aspects, such as problem resolution effectiveness, compliance adherence, and overall customer experience.
- Regular feedback: Deliver constructive coaching to agents based on specific call evaluations.
- Recognition of top performers: Highlight and reward agents who demonstrate exceptional service quality.
These evaluations pinpoint training needs and track process improvements over time, ensuring continuous service quality improvements.
Related: Download our free call center agent performance scorecard templates for customer service and sales.
7. Empower customers with effective self-service options
Developing efficient self-service options is crucial for empowering customers to handle routine inquiries independently. An interactive voice response (IVR) system with clear, concise menu options, a well-maintained FAQ section, and a knowledge base on your website reduces overall call volume. These options also allow agents to focus on more complex issues.
Teams should regularly update and test these systems to ensure that they effectively meet customers’ needs while continuously monitoring containment rates (the percentage of customer inquiries the self-service system resolves without agent assistance) to measure self-service effectiveness.
KPIs and metrics for effective call center management
Tracking KPIs is essential for assessing overall call center performance and identifying areas for improvement. Here are some metrics that are essential for effective call center management:
- First call resolution (FCR): Tracks the ability to resolve customer issues during the first interaction
- Average handle time: Monitors the average duration of customer interactions, aiming for a balance between efficiency and quality service
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT): Measures the overall satisfaction of a customer in regards to their interactions with a company
- Agent utilization: Assesses the percentage of time that agents spend handling incoming calls versus idle time to optimize workforce management
- Net promoter score (NPS): Evaluates customer loyalty and the likelihood that they’ll recommend your service
- Call abandonment rate: Monitors how often customers hang up before reaching an agent
- Hold time: Tracks the average time customers spend waiting on hold
- Quality assurance scores: Reviews call quality against set benchmarks to maintain high service levels
- Schedule adherence: Ensures that agents adhere to their scheduled times to maintain operational efficiency
By tracking these KPIs, call centers can more effectively understand their operations, identify areas for improvement, and set new benchmarks in customer service excellence.
Related: For a more detailed exploration of call center metrics and analytics, check out our in-depth guide on call center analytics.
Common challenges in call center management
Despite their best efforts to optimize operations, call centers face several challenges that can impact efficiency, service quality, and agent performance. Here are some of the most common obstacles:
- High agent turnover and training costs: Frequent hiring cycles strain resources, reduce team productivity, and create knowledge gaps when experienced agents leave. Training new hires then pulls senior staff away from their primary responsibilities, making it harder to maintain service levels.
- Quality consistency across locations: Remote and on-site teams encounter different challenges in maintaining service standards. Without strong monitoring tools and processes, customer experience can vary between agents, shifts, and locations, leading to inconsistencies in service quality.
- Peak volume management: Sudden spikes in call volume result in long wait times and frustrated customers. Limited staff flexibility also makes it difficult to adjust coverage quickly, and sustained high demand increases agent burnout and reduces overall efficiency.
- Technology integration: Agents lose valuable time switching between multiple systems, and this can increase handling times and the likelihood of errors. Poor integration between platforms also creates data gaps and prevents a complete view of customer interactions, making it harder to provide seamless support.
Training and development: Balancing comprehensive training with call volume demands poses a constant challenge. Updating training materials and measuring effectiveness requires ongoing effort, and insufficient training leaves agents unprepared to handle complex customer interactions.
Should you use AI and automation for call center operations?
AI and automation play a growing role in modern call centers by improving efficiency, enhancing customer service, and reducing operational costs. According to Gartner, conversational AI is expected to cut contact center agent labor costs by $80 billion in 2026. This research also predicts that automated systems will handle 10% of agent interactions by 2026, a sharp increase from about 1.6% today. These trends show how AI is transforming call center operations.
AI and automation might help you by:
- Automatically handling common customer queries, including account status checks and basic troubleshooting.
- Assisting agents in real time by providing instant access to customer histories, suggested responses, and compliance reminders.
- Empowering managers with AI-driven analytics to track call patterns, agent performance, and customer satisfaction for better decision-making.
AI success story
Many companies have successfully leveraged AI to improve call center operations. For example, Intercom, a customer service software company, strategically shifted to AI-driven support after the emergence of OpenAI's ChatGPT. In 2023, the company launched its AI customer service agent, Fin, and it now handles up to 86% of customer inquiries with human-quality responses.
Fin has also helped Intercom reduce response times from 30 minutes to just seconds. By integrating AI into its workflows, Intercom has improved its efficiency, enhanced its customer experience, and scaled its global support in over 45 languages.
While Intercom’s success highlights AI’s potential, businesses must weigh AI’s benefits and challenges before adopting AI-driven solutions. Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons of AI in call center operations:
Pros
- AI lowers operational costs by automating routine queries.
- It provides 24/7 customer support for basic inquiries.
- Businesses ensure consistent service across all interactions.
- AI delivers real-time data analysis and insights.
- It speeds up response times for common issues.
Cons
- Implementing AI requires a high initial investment.
- Integrating AI with existing systems can be complex.
- Some customers prefer human agents over AI interactions.
- AI needs regular maintenance and updates.
- It struggles with complex or highly personalized issues.
The key to success lies in strategic implementation. Begin with processes that follow clear rules and repetitive patterns, and then integrate automation where it enhances, rather than replaces, human interactions. Finally, track performance metrics and customer feedback to refine and optimize AI-driven solutions over time.
Choosing the right call center software: Key features
Your choice of call center software directly impacts agent productivity, CSAT, and operational costs. To maximize efficiency, you need a solution that goes beyond basic call handling. Modern platforms like AVOXI integrate essential call management features with advanced tools for monitoring and optimization, ensuring seamless operations.
Here are some essential features that your call center software should include:
- Advanced call routing: It should direct customers to the right agent based on skills, availability, and customer needs. For example, AVOXI’s automatic call distribution system intelligently routes calls using customizable rules, which improves FCR rates.
- Call queuing: The system should manage high call volumes by placing callers in a virtual queue until an agent becomes available. AVOXI’s call queuing system reduces wait times, improves customer experience, and ensures fair call distribution among agents.
- Global voice coverage: Your software should provide reliable voice connectivity worldwide. With numbers available in over 150 countries, AVOXI helps companies establish a local presence in key markets.
- Performance analytics: It should track key metrics in real time and provide insights through an intuitive dashboard. The system should monitor agent performances, call volumes, and CSAT scores to support data-driven decision-making.
- CRM integration: The platform should seamlessly connect with existing customer management tools. AVOXI integrates with major CRM platforms, which gives agents instant access to customer data and interaction histories.
- Quality monitoring tools: The software should record calls, evaluate agent performance, and provide targeted coaching. AVOXI’s built-in quality management features help call centers maintain consistent service standards.
- User-friendly interface: The system should have an intuitive design to simplify navigation. AVOXI’s centralized platform allows managers to oversee users, adjust call routing, and access reports without requiring technical expertise.
Transform your call center operations today
Running an efficient call center demands strategic planning, the right tools, and constant optimization. Success comes from balancing people, processes, and technology and having them all work together to deliver exceptional customer service.
Start by evaluating your current operations and identifying your biggest pain points, whether that's high turnover, inconsistent quality, or technology gaps. Then, tackle improvements one step at a time, measuring results as you go.
Choosing the right call center software improves call centers’ efficiency, enhances agent performance, and ensures a seamless customer experience. AVOXI offers a scalable solution with advanced features to support your business needs.
Contact us today to see how AVOXI can elevate your call center. Our team will analyze your needs and create a custom solution that grows with your business.
FAQs
How do call centers operate?
Call centers manage incoming and outgoing calls for businesses. They use technologies like IVR, ACD, and CRM software to route calls to the appropriate agents.
Agents then assist customers with inquiries, issues, and support, ensuring efficient and effective communication. They also make outbound calls for sales, marketing, and follow-ups.
What does a call center operator do?
A call center operator handles incoming and outgoing calls, answers inquiries, provides information, resolves issues, and offers support. They may also make sales, follow-up, or marketing calls.
Additionally, using tools like CRM software, they ensure efficient and effective customer interactions. Their main goal is to make sure customers are satisfied.
