Key Metrics and Performance Indicators for Measuring Customer Support Success
It’s important to understand the numbers behind your customer service performance. Seeing metrics like ticket volume can show you if there are trends such as a spike in certain problem categories or product issues.
Measuring first response time can help you find out how quickly your team replies to customer requests. This operational metric can help you determine if you need to hire more support agents or provide better self-help resources.
Customer Effort Score
The Customer Effort Score (CES) is one of the most important customer support metrics for your company to keep an eye on. This metric allows you to pinpoint the areas where your customers are struggling and provide them with more information and guidance.
To calculate the CES, your team will need to survey your customers on how easy or difficult they find it to solve a specific issue. Typically, the customer will answer a series of questions using a scale of happy, neutral and unhappy emoticons to describe their experience.
This metric is often used in conjunction with a Net Promoter Score survey, as it can tell you how much effort your customers are putting into working with your team. It is crucial to monitor your CES and work to improve it over time. This will help you reduce your customers’ overall interaction and communication costs. A low-effort experience can also increase customer retention and loyalty.
Customer Satisfaction Score
Customer satisfaction is one of the most important metrics for measuring customer support success. It measures how happy your customers are with the service they receive from your team and reflects their perception of the company. A high CSAT score increases customer loyalty and fosters word-of-mouth.
First response time, also known as FRT, tracks how long it takes an agent to respond to a customer ticket or request. High wait times can indicate that agents are struggling to keep up with a large volume of requests or that your support processes need to be improved.
Average resolution time is a measure of how quickly and effectively your agents are able to resolve customer issues. It’s critical to monitor this metric because it helps you identify any issues that may prevent your team from being able to provide timely solutions. You can improve your ATR by reducing ticket backlogs, improving agent training or implementing a chat bot to handle routine inquiries.
First Contact Resolution Rate
First contact resolution rate (FCR) is a measure of how many support issues are solved during the initial interaction. This metric is more closely tied to customer service than to customer success, but it plays an important role in determining the overall quality of your support experience.
FCR is calculated by dividing the number of tickets resolved in the first interaction by the total number of tickets received for that period. It’s important to note that the term “resolved” is very loosely defined—a ticket may be considered resolved if it was never reopened or if a customer did not call back.
It’s often best to pair FCR with other metrics like Average First Response Time to get a full picture of your support performance. For example, if your agents have a high FCR but low Average First Response Time, it’s likely that they are struggling to resolve complex support issues quickly. This can indicate that training is needed.
Average First Response Time
First response time is the length of time between when a customer sends an email or chats with your support team and when they receive their first reply. A quick initial response is an important way to establish that your team is working on the issue and to give customers peace of mind that their problem will be addressed soon.
A high FRT might signal that you need to improve your support processes or hire additional agents to keep up with demand. If you have a service level agreement (SLA) in place, be sure to consistently track FRT so that you are meeting your commitments.
Measuring these customer service metrics is an essential part of providing great support to your customers. Detailed analysis can help you identify strengths that deserve your attention and areas where you need to improve. In turn, that will lead to a better customer experience and ultimately increased revenue for your business.