You make two excellent points. First, the way in which the contact center measures its performance must be meaningful in terms that matter to the entire enterprise. Unfortunately, the company and the contact center typically take very different approaches to such measures, producing a situation in which they are speaking to each other in different languages. The contact center will typically measure "operational" data: calls, e-mails, response times, abandon rates, resolution rates, etc. Meanwhile the enterprise cares about "financial" performance: revenues, profit margin, stock price, ROI/ROE, etc. It is incumbant upon us as call center professionals to learn to speak their language.

The second point is equally critical. Too often we base our metrics and measures on "industry standards" or "best practices" that have little or nothing to do with the core mission and business of our companies. Start out with "What is it WE need to accomplish and why" and then construct your performance measures and reporting systems around the answer. "Hey, look what they're doing!" is not a good way to design your success criteria.