According to research, 96% of consumers say customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand. The vital role of customer care in business success is what propels organizations around the world to track KPIs and other metrics in order to measure agent performance and determine customer service quality.
Why should I bother with customer support KPIs?
Only a couple of decades ago customer service departments were practically nonexistent. Recent developments in digital and communication technologies have led to the rise of a customer-centric and hyper-competitive marketplace in which great customer service is perceived as a competitive advantage.
Exceptional customer service is perceived as a competitive advantage.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are specific measurements applicable to customer care environments designed to enable you to track the success of your operations in relation to achieving predefined goals and objectives such as:
- Improving customer service performance
- Boosting the customer experience
- Reducing support costs
- Increasing customer engagement
- Designing effective internal processes
- Creating better products and services
- Pinpointing training needs
- Identifying areas for improvement
When it comes to assessing your customer support, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the number of KPIs available. The metrics you end up choosing will ultimately depend on the industry you’re in, the needs of your business, and the results you are aiming for.
8 customer service KPIs to track
- Customer Satisfaction
- Net Promoter Score
- Customer Effort Score
- First Contact Resolution
- Average Resolution time
- Number of Active Issues
- Ticket / Issue Volume
- Customer Retention
Customer Satisfaction
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is widely used and very well-established. CSAT is measured by interaction type making it very well suited for tracking satisfaction with the support received. High CSAT scores demonstrate that the customer’s experience with the service you provided met or exceeded expectations.
Net Promoter Score
The Net Promoter Score or NPS is used to gauge the customer’s loyalty to the brand. The metric measures willingness to recommend the company’s products or services to others and is a great indicator of future growth. While both CSAT and NPS are popular customer experience metrics, Customer Satisfaction aims at capturing how the customer feels about your company but Net Promoter Score measures their intention to refer you to someone else.
Customer Effort Score
The Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how much effort the customer had to put forth to get an issue resolved. The CES is a single-item metric and enables companies to track the ease of customer interactions.
The Customer Effort Score can be perfectly combined with the NPS or CSAT to deliver an overall outlook of how your customers perceive their experience with your support.
For a complete guide on how to calculate and analyze the CES click here.
First Contact Resolution
First Contact Resolution or FCR refers to the percentage of issues that are resolved by your team on the first interaction with the customer. First contact resolution is a key contact center KPI because your ability to track it and improve it overtime will lead to reduced operational costs, improved customer satisfaction and customer experience, increased up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, and higher levels of employee satisfaction.
Read this article to learn how to measure First Contact Resolution.
Average Resolution Time
The average resolution time refers to the average time it takes to resolve a customer request or issue. To measure it, divide the sum of all times to resolution over a selected time period by the number of issues resolved in the same time period. Your average resolution time matters because the quicker you’re able to find a solution to customer issues, the happier your customers will be and as a result more satisfied with their experience with your service desk.
The average resolution time reflects your team’s efficiency and ability to deliver qualitative support.
Issue / Ticket Volume
This metric refers to the total number of active issues in your service desk at a given time period. Measuring the volume of active tickets will give you insights in relation contact center performance and operational efficiency. A spike in ticket volume can indicate potential problems with latest releases or your user interface. Additionally, an overwhelming amount of tickets could be a sign that you need to provide your agents with additional training or update your support articles to facilitate self-service.
Customer Retention
Customer retention is a company’s ability to retain customers over a period of time. Customer retention matters because according to research, customers will switch to a competitor due to poor customer support. To measure customer retention rates, follow this formula:
Customer retention = (( x – y) / z) * 100, where
- x = number of customers at end of period
- y = number of new customers acquired during period
- z = number customers at beginning of period
Related: How to achieve growth with customer retention management