A number of factors must be taken into consideration when calculating the contact or call center ROI. There are variances in how the call center is set up, such as where it is located, whether it is in house or outsourced, what the level of response is, whether the customer is able to speak to a live source or is simply referred to another location within the company.

As companies become larger and larger, it is unfortunate that the contact people who are in the customer service business often know less and less about what is actually going on with the business.

The simple method of calculating the effectiveness at a customer service call center is to count the number of calls and time per call. Some call centers even pressure workers to limit the time spent on calls to 30 seconds or less, and an average call time of two minutes may be grounds for disciplinary reports.

In fact, the length of time spent on a call is probably the WORST measurement of the effectiveness of the call center. Another method of calculation for the effectiveness of the call center is based on determining the level of customer satisfaction with the call itself and the experience and relating that level of satisfaction to the average sales value per customer.

In order to use this approach, several pieces of information are required. First the customers must be surveyed about the results of their interaction with the call center personnel and this must occur fairly quickly following the contact. Second, the average sales cost per customer must be known.

On a ten point scale, the customer's satisfaction level at 9 or 10 is assumed to be satisfied while a score of 3 or less means the customer was very dissatisfied. For the same of example, if 60 percent of the customers are satisfied with the service and 5 percent are not, and those figures are multiplied by the average sales rate. The net of those figures is divided by the cost to operate the call center during the period in questions. A figure larger than 1 would indicate that there is a positive return on the investment in the call center, while a result of less than one would mean that it's costing more to operate the call center than is being collected in added sales.

If the call center is not increasing the investment made in the staff, equipment and training, then the decision must be made to increase the level of training, focus more on customer satisfaction with the call and the results, or deal with the underlying problem. Often, just changing the orientation of the call center to measure customer satisfaction and having the numbers to support that decision is enough to turn around the entire experience which the customer has with the call center.

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