Service level is a critical metric for contact center workforce management (WFM).
If it spirals out of control, the contact center comes under increasing pressure, customers wait longer in the queue, and agents bear the brunt.
Yet, first things first, let's start with the basics and a standard service level definition.
What Is a Service Level, and How Can I Calculate It?
Service level is the percentage of inbound calls the contact center answers within a predefined speed-to-answer threshold. The operation calculates it across a specific period.
Contact centers will target a service level across each channel, staff to this, and measure the metric in real-time to see if it is meeting this target.
Traditionally, contact centers aim to answer 80 percent of inbound phone calls in 20 seconds. This is their service level.
To see if they are meeting this target, contact centers can use the following formula:
Service Level = (Number of calls answered within the threshold ÷ the total number of inbound calls) x 100
Contact centers can use data from their ACD system to measure this. Yet, nowadays, reporting tools will automatically run the calculation in real-time.
For those smaller operations building spreadsheets to calculate service level, however, it's good to know how this formula works. So, here is an example of how it works.
Let's say a contact center aims to answer 80 percent of customer calls in 20 seconds and reports on this every hour. It receives 200 inbound calls in an hour. Agents answer 150 calls in 20 seconds, while the rest take longer.
The contact center would calculate its service level like so:
(150 ÷ 200) x 100 = 75 percent
As a result, the contact center fell short of its 80 percent goal. As such, it was a little understaffed - on the phone channel - across this period.
How Does Service Level Impact CX?
A low service level shows that many customers wait longer than the contact center intends.
These long wait times irritate customers and increase abandon rates, likely resulting in lost business.
On the other hand, when contact centers meet their service levels, it improves each customer's perception of the service experience and business as a whole.
Salesforce research supports this. It finds that 91 percent of customers getting good service are more likely to make a purchase, underscoring the criticality of this KPI.
CX-focused companies often work on this metric to improve their customer experience. For example, Body Shop achieved a 96 percent service level, with a 14-second speed of answer threshold.