Achieve Business Success with These Customer Service Metrics

Most support platforms include all of the necessary reports to steer your team in the right direction. However, they do not always explain why or how.

Whether you're new to customer service or a seasoned veteran, getting a fresh outlook on your own stats, data, and metrics is always worthwhile.

Why? Because, while support is a strong discipline that grows on human connections, elevating good customer service to exceptional requires cold, hard numbers.

That is why this article was created: To help you understand what the KPI (key performance indicator) metrics are measuring and why they are important.

Customer Service Metrics that Matter for Better Customer Service & Support

Let's explore the key customer service metrics that you shouldn't ignore:

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Collect this metric by sending out customer satisfaction surveys that ask customers to rate their recent support experience on a scale of 1 to 5 or to rate it as "good" or "bad." Include open-ended survey questions that prompt customers to provide more details about their interactions to gain more context about CSAT scores.

For example, you could inquire, "How did this experience meet your expectations?" "To learn what your support team is doing well. To identify areas for improvement, you can also say, "Tell us what we can do better."

Customer Effort Score (CES)

Customer Effort Score assesses how simple it is for consumers to resolve issues, complete tasks, or speak with an agent. The score is derived from surveys in which customers rate the ease of their communication on a scale of "very easy" to "very difficult."

Send CES surveys to customers shortly after they make a purchase or interact with a support agent, while the experience is still fresh in their minds.

Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS)

Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS) is a metric that measures customer loyalty and satisfaction. Track this metric by asking buyers on a scale of 1 to 10 how likely they are to recommend your company to someone else.

• Promoters (answers 9–10) are extremely satisfied and happy customers who will most likely suggest you to others.
• Passives (answers 7–8) are pleased but unlikely to recommend your products or services.
• Detractors (respondents with answers 6 and below) are displeased and will not recommend your company to others.

First Reply Time (FRT)

The first reply time, also known as first response time, measures how long it takes an agent to respond to a support request or ticket for the first time. Long wait times could indicate that agents are having trouble keeping up with a high quantity of tickets or that support processes are slow and inefficient.

Check whether the customer service-level agreement (SLA) includes a specific first-response time frame if you provide one. If this is the case, keep track of FRT to ensure you're meeting your SLA obligations.

Ticket Reopens

This customer service metric displays the number of attempts required to resolve a customer's problem. A high number of reopens may indicate that customers have complicated support requests, which may indicate a problem with your product or service.

A high reopen rate may also indicate that agents close tickets before fully resolving customers' issues. Customers in this situation are likely to be dissatisfied with the support they receive and to have additional questions about their problems.

Resolution Time

The amount of time it takes a support agent to solve a problem is referred to as resolution time. Your resolution time is critical—73 percent of customers believe that quick resolutions are perhaps the most essential part of an excellent customer service experience.

Look for trends across distinct customer issue categories and individual agents when monitoring this critical metric. You may discover that some issues are more complicated and require more time to resolve. Alternatively, you may notice that some support agents are slower than others and require additional training.

Agent Touches

This metric counts how many times an agent updates a ticket. A high number of touches implies that support agents are dealing with difficult problems that require a lot of time and effort to resolve. It could also indicate a problem with your product or knowledge gaps.

Tools for Tracking Customer Service Metrics  to Ensure Better Customer Service and Support

Keeping track of every important customer service metric at the same time is nearly impossible. Fortunately, tools exist that automate the tracking process, allowing you to easily collect, process, and optimize customer service performance metrics.

Customer Relationship Management Tool (CRM)

A CRM centralizes all customer data in one location, allowing support agents to quickly access critical information and personalize customer interactions. The tool also collects and analyses customer data automatically, saving support teams time and providing them with critical insights to provide better service.

Managers can also use CRMs like HubSpot to set goals for agents and track team progress. Our software helps you collect, analyze, and use customer service metrics. You can even use advanced reporting and dashboards to create custom views to spot trends and improve customer service.

Survey Tools

Create, distribute, and analyze customer surveys using survey tools. These tools reduce errors that frequently occur during manual survey creation and enable respondents to access surveys from a variety of devices, resulting in a better, easier experience.

Support teams can collect customer feedback via email, social media, and text using an online tool like SurveyMonkey. SurveyMonkey also offers templates, integrates data with apps in your tech stack, and streamlines survey results analysis.

Social Media Monitoring Tools

On social media, these tools track brand mentions, competitor mentions, and keywords associated with your brand. Monitoring mentions across multiple social media channels takes time, so use social media tools to automate the process.

These platforms can also generate reports that highlight trends and capture social sentiment, which can assist you in gauging the mood of online discussions. Hootsuite tracks brand mentions across all social channels to help brands stay ahead of social media conversations. The software also includes a review tracking tool, so you can keep track of customer feedback on review sites and share positive feedback.

Bottom Line

Measuring customer service metrics regularly allows you to keep your finger on the heartbeat of your customer experience—and prevents it from plateauing. Tracking key metrics also provide the right benchmarks for your support team to strive for and ensures you provide excellent customer service.