Most ServiceTitanTM clients depend on the software to manage their call centers. The Call Booking Rates reported in their dashboards are used to determine the performance of many call centers and their agents. We even see these numbers quoted confidently by business owners and call center managers.
In ServiceTitan, only leads count; they ignore Excused and No Lead calls. This alone isn’t a problem. The problem is that the umpires of which calls are viable leads are the same call agents using the software and who are often compensated based on this metric.
Is the game still fair?
Let’s say that the MLB is going to make a giant rule change next year. Instead of the umpires making the calls on plays they are going to let the players do it. So when the pitcher has a 0-2 count on the batter and their pitch misses the strike zone, it doesn’t matter. The catcher can call it a strike and the batter would be out. Does that sound like it would improve the game?
How about those Call Booking Rates?
The call center representative’s compensation and bonuses are often impacted by the way they choose to classify a call one way or another. How clean do you expect your data to be once they realize that they can click their way to a higher bonus? The agent doesn’t have to be deceitful, just human. It’s not hard to imagine them thinking that If I spend 8 minutes on a call who doesn’t book, and I classify this as an excused call then I keep my high Call Booking Rate.
If you need more evidence for gaming the metric, almost everyone has a high Call Booking rate, typically 85-90%. We’ve even seen a prominent advisory firm celebrate this metric in their valuations of companies.
So you’re left with the Lake Wobegon effect, where everyone seems to be above average. This isn’t a surprise since people don’t wake up and say to themselves, “aha, it’s Tuesday, I think I’ll give my plumber a call just to chat”. Our analysis tells us that approximately 50-70% of all incoming calls are from Unique Callers. We also regularly observe that in most call centers every agent regularly has a different distribution of what they classify as a No Lead or Excused. If the agents are trained somewhat similarly, then you’d expect a more regular distribution of Excused and No Lead among agents; the Excused callers don’t magically know that Suzie is on shift today
What is a better truth about booking rates?
We prefer to combine Call Booking Rate with a metric we call Raw Booking Rate. It measures the effectiveness of your agent versus the total number of calls they handle. Thus their bookings are measured against an objective number that they cannot game. Together these two metrics are more useful to understand how each agent performs. We are not saying your agents are trying to mislead you with their performance. We are calling for a more objective measurement of performance by the people who are responsible for helping your agents be as effective as they can be. The ServiceTitan Call Booking Rate metric leaves the judgment of calls in their hands. We think the game is more fair with an independent umpire.
So you’ve followed me this far. Are you curious what a typical Raw Booking Rate should be? Please keep in mind that there are some variations based on season and service.
Raw Booking Rate under 13% – needs improvement
Raw Booking Rate 13-16% – fair
Raw Booking Rate 15-18% – reasonable
Raw Booking Rate 18-22% – good
Raw Booking Rate over 22% – very good
P.S. Raw Booking Rate is calculated by dividing the booked calls by the total number of incoming calls.
