Operations: Two industry veterans share their insights on using Benchmarks & Best Practices

One thing you have to do is look at weighted averages. Otherwise, poor performers or superior performers skew the results.

Kislik: That’s really true. Let’s look at, say, labor rates in different parts of the country. Curt, do you have data on that?

Barry: Contact center reps in the Northwest make, on average, $12 to $14 per hour. In the Midwest it’s $7 to $9 per hour. If labor makes up 50 percent of your cost per order, as it does for most catalogers, your costs will be very different depending solely on where you’re located. Looking at cost per call or cost per order without getting behind the data to the labor rates will mislead you.