Convergys, the provider of integrated billing, employee care and customer care services, and BenchmarkPortal, the supplier best practices information for contact centers, announced the availability of a benchmark to measure customer experience.

The Customer Experience Benchmark (CEB) offers a standard to measure and benchmark caller satisfaction for contact centers. The benchmark also provides companies with the data they need to compare their caller satisfaction performance against industry standards and competitors. Developed under the direction of Dr. Jon Anton of the Purdue University Center for Customer-Driven Quality and Dr. Scott Spera of Convergys' Marketing Research Services, the CEB provides a scorecard of caller satisfaction and contact center effectiveness incorporating data taken from live customer surveys after a service transaction is completed. This offering brings together Convergys' expertise in contact center operation and marketing research services with the database of contact center performance metrics that BenchmarkPortal collects and warehouses in conjunction with Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality.

"The Customer Experience Benchmark gives contact center operators the first truly objective benchmark of how satisfied their customers are with the service they receive and how their service stacks up against the competition," said Anton. "The ability to see beyond a center's day-to-day metrics to the impact service interactions have on customer relationships, enables companies to tailor their programs to build loyalty and drive revenue growth."

"The CEB reflects Convergys' ongoing commitment to providing our clients, whether they outsource their contact centers or run them internally, with the most powerful and cost-effective tools to serve their customers," said Jack Freker, president, Customer Management Group, Convergys. "The CEB delivers customer intelligence that companies can use in the near-term to gain and maintain competitive advantage."

To obtain their CEB, participating companies provide a statistically valid sample of customers who have recently contacted their call center. These customers are then interviewed to complete a short survey to determine the percentage of first-call resolution and gauge their satisfaction with getting through to an agent and talking with that agent. The results are reported for individual contact centers and benchmarked against industry competitors by call type, vertical market and overall contact center industry levels. These scores are then synthesized into what BenchmarkPortal calls the Anton Index, a view of how the contact center compares to the competition.