After a voice agent goes live, the volume of data grows quickly: duration, outcome, score, tags and transcript for every call. Putting all of it on a dashboard is easy; producing a report that helps is not.
A report going to a manager should carry not numbers to look at but numbers to decide on.
Five metrics
1. Reach rate. How many people on the list were actually reached? If this is low the problem is not the agent but the list or the calling setup.
2. Resolution rate. How many calls completed without handover to a human? This is the one number showing the agent's real scope. If it is falling, a gap has opened in the knowledge base.
3. Outcome rate. Appointments, quotes, sales — whatever the business defines as an outcome. The other four numbers exist to serve this one.
4. Median time to first contact. How long after a request arrived was the person reached? Use the median.
5. Number of calls ending badly. A count, not a rate. Each of these should be reviewed individually; as a percentage they look small and disappear.
Why counts, not percentages
A common reporting mistake is converting everything to percentages. "Complaint rate: 2%" is reassuring; "34 complaints this week" prompts action. Small but important numbers belong in absolute form.
A number without comparison is not information
A standalone number carries nothing. "420 calls this week" says nothing unless you know last week was 380.
Every metric needs two comparisons beside it: the previous period and the target. A third — the same period last year — is necessary in seasonal businesses.
Report length
One page. A manager who wants detail opens the dashboard anyway; the report should tell them whether they need to.
The only "soft" element worth adding is a one-sentence comment: what changed this week. The numbers say what happened; that sentence says why.
Whose report
A manager's report and a team report are not the same thing. The team wants their own list and today's work. The manager wants trend and deviation. Merging them makes both useless.
Report credibility
The most important property of a report is accuracy, and accuracy comes from definitions. What does "call" count — does it include voicemail? What does "resolved" mean — who marks it?
Those definitions belong in one line at the bottom of the report. A report with vague definitions loses credibility in the first argument and is never used again.
Tomorrow: preparing for seasonal peaks.