Efficiency vs Effectiveness: Using Quadrant Map Data Visualization to Measure Agent Performance

4 Quadrants of Efficiency and Effectiveness

Evaluating your call center agent’s performance needs to be an ongoing endeavor. By measuring agent performance for efficiency and effectiveness using a quadrant map for data visualization, call center managers and supervisors can determine the success of agents doing things right and the right things. Of course, where an agent ends up on a quad map depends on wheather you compare them to their team, call center, or industry. So let’s look at the matrix for the four quadrants:

1. High effectiveness and high efficiency.

This quad box is the holy grail for a call center agent demonstrating tremendous value to the company because they effectively and efficiently handle customer calls. When agents deliver efficiency and effectiveness, they maximize their value to the company by lowering cost-per-call, reducing operating costs, enhancing brand reputation, and helping retain customers. The goal of call centers should be to have as many agents in this quadrant as possible. It is essential to recognize these peak agent performers; otherwise, they might lose their motivation to maintain their high performance. It is common for world-class customer service performing call centers to have 75% or more agents in this quad box. However, in most cases, 25% to 50% of agents are in this quad box.

2. High effectiveness and low efficiency.

This quad box is where a call center agent is within reach for maximizing their value to the company by delivering on their effectiveness KPIs performance. But the agent needs to improve efficiency KPIs performance. Furthermore, the agent efficiency issues negatively impact cost-per-call and operating costs, but on the other hand, they have contributed positively in a meaningful way to delivering high CX. Therefore, it could be argued that agents add more value when they deliver on effectiveness KPIs than It is common for customer-centric call centers to have a high percentage of agents in this quad box. Inefficient agents can be attributed to training, coaching, motivation, and software application issues. Also, agents in this quad box can be due to handling more complex calls. In most cases, 25% to 50% of agents are in this quad box.

3. High efficiency and low effectiveness

This quad box is where a call center agent is also within reach to maximize their value but needs to improve effectiveness versus efficiency KPIs. When agents deliver high efficiency, there are offering value immediately. However, many call centers emphasize agent efficiency KPIs because of the short-term cost-per-call and operating cost savings. In addition, many call centers value cost savings more than delivering effectiveness KPIs such as FCR, Csat, QA, NPS, and complaint calls. Therefore, it is not uncommon for call centers to have more agents in this quad box than any other quad box. Agents that are ineffective for KPIs (e.g., Csat, FCR, QA) can also be attributed to training, coaching, motivation, and software application issues. In addition, a high concentration of agents in this quad box might indicate that the call center management team is more focused on meeting the company’s financial needs versus the customer’s needs. In most cases, 25% to 50% of agents are in this quad box.

4. Low efficiency and low effectiveness

Yikes, this is the worst quad box for an agent because they have low efficiency and effectiveness. When agents land in this quad box, they tend to have low employee engagement, quiet quitting, and focus on their needs versus the company and customer needs. It is not uncommon for call centers not to know who their worst-performing agents are for the combination of efficiency and effectiveness KPIs. When agents are in this quad box, they need to be put on a personal improvement plan to improve their efficiency and effectiveness deficiencies. Agents in this quad box need to be terminated if they do not improve at an acceptable level. Typically a call center has 10% or less of agents in this quad box.

How To Use the Quadrant Map for Measuring and Improving Agent Performance?

Efficiency and effectiveness KPIs can both have a substantial impact on the call center's performance. For example, when optimizing for effectiveness, focus on improving targeted customer service opportunities (e.g., call types, repeat call reason), and for optimizing efficiency, focus on scale volume opportunities (e.g., policies, procedures, process, technology).

Most call centers have limited resources to improve customer service, call handling, and cost; therefore, they can be torn over whether to focus on efficiency or effective KPIs improvement opportunities. To understand the effectiveness and efficiency improvement opportunities at a supervisor team level, plot agents in the quad map for an efficiency KPI (e.g., average handle time) and an effectiveness KPI (e.g., Csat score).

AHT and Csat are the most common KPIs used for quadrant map data visualization. The below quad map is a typical illustration of a scatterplot of agents for a supervisors' team. The decision that a supervisor will need to make is which opportunities they want to address. For example, does the supervisor want to have action strategies for each quadrant box (i.e., company, balance, customer & self) focused opportunities, or do they want to address a specific quad box (e.g., self-focused) opportunity?

If possible, addressing each quadrant box with specific action plans is the ideal approach. However, if this approach is not viable, use your call center goals as a guide to determine how you want to action the quad map insights. For example, if improving operating costs is the call center’s primary goal, you can target self and customer-focused agents when developing an action plan for efficiency KPI (e.g., AHT) improvement opportunities. On the other hand, if improving CX is the primary goal, you can target self and company-focused agents when developing an action plan for effective KPI (e.g., Csat) improvement opportunities.