Microsoft is introducing a new performance measurement framework designed to give contact centers a holistic view of how their AI agents truly perform in real-world interactions, beyond traditional metrics like handle time or satisfaction scores. The updated approach focuses on understanding, reasoning, and response quality to help businesses benchmark and improve AI agent effectiveness across channels such as voice, text, and visual interactions.

Here’s what you need to know:

Rethinking What “Great” Support Really Means
A 2017 study by Harvard Business Review found that customers don’t want to be pampered — they want fast, low-effort resolution. Two agent profiles stood out: empathizers and controllers — both effective in different contexts.
Smarter AI Through Real-Time Style Adjustment
AI agents can learn from top-performing human agents and adapt their approach in real time based on conversation context — applying the right tone and control level when it matters most.
The Performance Benchmarks That Matter
High-performing AI agents consistently hit 70–75% first-contact resolution, 78–90% customer satisfaction, sub-800ms response latency, and industry-aligned average handle times.
The Core Mechanics of Every Interaction
Whether human or AI, every interaction follows three steps: understand the issue, reason through the solution, and deliver a clear, effective response.
Moving Toward a Unified Performance Score
The future of AI agent evaluation lies in a composite score — one holistic measure that balances resolution, satisfaction, speed, and reasoning quality into a single view of performance.

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