Key Performance Indicators for telephone befriending

For the long term sustainability of any service it is essential to be monitoring and measuring performance. By establishing some key performance indicators you will be able to ensure you are delivering the best possible service, provide evidence to trustees and funders of the activity being delivered as well as identify opportunities to optimise and improve your service.

Active Matches

When a volunteer is paired to a service user as part of a telephone befriending service this is considered a match, and if you only track one metric then it should be the number of active matches.  It is the simplest metric to track to get an indication as to the scale of your service and also provide a simple basis to set service targets and plan resource requirements.

If this is an externally funded project this is likely the absolute minimum that you would be expected to report.  It is however very simplistic and for larger projects it is likely you will want more detail.

Match Growth Rate

Essentially the difference in the number of matches from one period to the next, e.g. month-on-month expressed as a percentage.  This will enable to you track the growth (or decline) of the service towards your target, as well as acting as an indication of demand for your service.

Number of Interactions

A more accurate measure of output than matches is to measure the number of interactions between matches in a period.  How many calls took place and how did this compare to the previous period.  Ideally you would track and monitor this at both a service level and for individual matches, where a decline in interactions could be indicative of a problem.

Duration of Interactions

More accurate still would be to measure the number of minutes of interactions within a period.  Again, this could be measured and analysed on both an overall service level and on a match-by-match basis.  If you use Together.ly to deliver your service this is included as part of the standard reporting, alternatively you can always collect this manually through surveying your volunteers.

Staff to Match Ratio

How many operational staff are required to maintain your current matches. This is really an indication of the efficiency of your service and through service and process optimisation you will be wanting this number to reduce over time, without negatively impacting the other KPIs.

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