In the 21st century, instead of guesswork, managers rely on cold and hard data to make business decisions. In the same way 👏 many corporations aim to make their businesses more profitable by using data, analytics, and metrics. And if it’s for customer service, companies need to do it in a scientific way.
So, getting actionable insights from your customer service metrics can help you constantly monitor your performance. The best thing these days is that you can track tens or perhaps even hundreds of metrics, which means you never run out of data. 😍
How do you choose which metrics are most important for your business, considering many metrics that provide a great deal of data?
For this reason, we’ve compiled an article listing the top 14 customer service metrics you need to monitor. Let’s have a look.🎉
🔑 KEY HIGHLIGHTS!
- A customer service metric is a quantitative measure that is used to assess the performance, efficiency, and effectiveness of a company’s customer service activities.
- Customer service metrics can be segregated into quantitative and qualitative metrics.
- Businesses should track key metrics like first reply time, average ticked handling time, CSAT, CLV, CES, NPS, FCR, customer churn, and retention rate.
- Customer service metrics help organizations understand their performance and effectiveness.
What Is Customer Service Metrics?
Customer service metrics are quantifiable measures or key performance indicators (KPIs) used to track the performance, efficiency, and effectiveness of the customer support team. In simple words, customer service metrics allow you to measure consumer satisfaction as well as reflect staff efficiency.
These metrics can help organizations gain insight into their agents’ performance and determine their ability to meet customer needs.
To evaluate the success of your customer service strategy, it is essential to track the metrics you use to measure customer service. In a sense, this is similar to monitoring your business’s vital signs. By using such data, you can improve your business’s overall profitability and customer loyalty.
What Are The Types Of Customer Service Metrics?
There are usually two types of metrics to consider when evaluating customer service. It includes quantitative and qualitative.
1. Quantitative Metric
A quantitative metric, also called operational data (O-data), is based on hard data. This category provides information such as the average time taken by a support agent to respond to a customer, resolve a customer’s complaints, and gain new customers.
O-data encompasses a wide array of quantifiable factors. This includes things like production output, sales revenue, customer acquisition rates, inventory levels, and more. These metrics are typically derived from operational systems and processes, such as sales databases, production logs, and financial records.
2. Qualitative Metric
A qualitative metric, also known as experience data (X-data) or customer satisfaction data, shows the data’s context. In addition to customer satisfaction, these figures provide insight into how happy your customers are.
But it also points out gaps between how you think things are going and how things are actually going. Qualitative metrics focus on the qualitative aspects of interactions, such as the sentiment, emotions, and perceptions of customers. Typically, these metrics involve gathering feedback using methods such as customer surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews.
Why are Customer Service Metrics essential?
Having an accurate understanding of customer service metrics gives organizations a better overview of their performance and effectiveness as well as their quality of customer service.
Using these metrics, businesses can identify which campaigns are successful and which are not. For example, if new customers consistently receive positive feedback about the quality of service an organization is providing. Then, it is clear that the organization is on the right track with its support operations and may want to pursue the best practices.
In addition, if the business receives negative comments on social media, this could indicate issues with its products, processes, or self-service offerings related to customer service.
These performance indicators/metrics cover aspects like: 👇
- How do our customers really feel about us?
- What are we doing to make it easy for our customers to engage with us?
- What is the level of customer resonance with our brand’s, product’s, or service’s key messages?
- Is the support team providing top-notch service?
14 Customer Service Metrics To Measure
Leaders who continuously track their key performance indicators (KPIs) gain a deeper understanding of their company’s strengths and weaknesses.
Also, with any data-driven approach, companies are likely to improve their customer service strategies, improve operating efficiency, and ultimately foster stronger client relationships. So, for more information, let’s look at the Top 14 Customer Service Metrics to Measure.
1. First Contact Resolution Rate
Rather than being shuffled around from one agent to another, customers prefer their concerns to be addressed at the first point of contact. When a single contact with the customer can resolve a case, it is called the first-contact resolution rate.
Customer service metrics such as contact resolution rate (CRR) and first-contact resolution rate (FCR) measure the percentage of customer issues that are resolved after the first contact. The support team does not need to be contacted again for further assistance.
In terms of operational metrics, a high first-call resolution rate often correlates with customer effort – customers will be less likely to contact your company twice.
🔥 Here’s how to measure it:
First call resolution rate = (Number of issues resolved on first contact) / (Total number of customer queries).
In general, FCR rates should range between 60% and 80%. Typically, 70% is considered a good FCR rate.
The key to achieving a high FCR is continuously improving the customer experience and making all decisions with the client in mind from the beginning. An organization’s customer resolution rate is directly related to its level of customer satisfaction and, ultimately, its success.
2. First Reply Time
It measures how long a support agent takes to respond to a customer request or ticket. The First Reply Time (FRT) is often found on a customer service report. Data like this can indicate how efficient your agents and processes are.
A higher FRT indicates a long wait time, which may require hiring assistance to keep up with the high ticket volume or updating your processes.
A good idea to improve FRT is to have automated responses that show feedback has been logged and will be handled quickly and efficiently. For those responses, you can use benchmarks/options like chat and messaging for instant communication.
🔥 Here’s how to measure it:
First reply time = Total first reply time / Total number of resolved tickets in a given period.
3. Average Ticket Handling Time
AHT measures the amount of time an agent spends working on one case. It indicates that the shorter the time, the more efficient your team is. To improve customer service, agents should not focus solely on operational metrics. Instead, they should focus on providing great customer service.
🔥 Here’s how you can measure it:
Average Ticket Handling Time = Total Handling Time / Number of Tickets
If you have the data, you can compare it with last year’s to see if there have been any changes over time.
A Tip: Customer service agents will naturally get caught up on longer calls from time to time. Make sure you don’t ignore them. Explore the matter and find out what it was about, as this could indicate underlying issues that can be improved or optimized in the experience.
4. Tickets Solved
Ticket solved refers to how many tickets have been resolved and closed within a specified period of time. For example, many customer service teams set a daily target for their agents of solving tickets. With this index, they measure how well their agents and teams are performing.
🔥 Here’s How you can measure it:
Tickets Solved per Hour = Tickets Solved / Total Hours Worked
5. Ticket Reopen
Tickets reopened are a measure of how often a support agent reopened the same ticket. You can use this metric to measure how many attempts it takes to resolve customer complaints. When a large number of requests need to be reopened, it might mean that your product or service isn’t meeting your customers’ expectations.
With it, you can keep track of the number of times your support agents have to contact the customer on the same ticket to prevent the ticket from reopening.
🔥 You can measure it by using the following formula:
Ticket Reopen Rate = (Number of tickets reopened / Total number of resolved tickets) * 100
Note: It is possible for an agent to have a high reopening rate if they close tickets before they have fully resolved a customer’s issue. To prevent reopening tickets in the future, it is important to realize that high reopening rates can indicate that either your processes or customer experience are inadequate.
6. Average Resolution Time
This customer service metric measures support reps’ efficiency. Average resolution time is the time it takes a customer service representative to resolve a ticket. When a resolution has been sought, the time metric ceases to run. Days or business hours are usually used to measure it.
🔥 This is how you can measure it:
Average resolution time = (Total time taken to resolve tickets during the selected time period)/ (The number of tickets resolved in the selected time period)
Your customer service will suffer if your average resolution time is too long. It reflected in this stat: 90% of consumers worldwide consider issue resolution as their most crucial customer service concern.
Recommendation: You can significantly decrease Average Resolution Time by utilizing Interactive Voice Response (IVR) for your business. Customers won’t have to wait more than a moment for their calls to be resolved. This results in a higher conversion rate and happier customers as more queries are resolved in less time.
7. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Generally, customer satisfaction (CSAT) refers to how well a company’s customer experience meets consumers’ expectations. It is commonly collected through customer surveys that rank their support experience on a 1 through 5 scale. In fact, 70% of the customer’s journey is based on how the customer feels they are being treated, i.e., CSAT.
To get info on your CSAT, you can conduct a survey that includes open-ended questions that encourage customers to describe their experience.
👉 Here are some examples of questions you can ask:
- Can you tell me how this experience met your expectations?
- Can we do anything differently next time?
- Do you feel satisfied with the service we provide today?
🔥 To calculate the satisfaction percentage, you can use this formula:
CSAT = (Number of Positive Responses / Total Responses) x 100
👀 For instance, if you sent out 100 surveys and 40 of them were 4s and 20 were 5s, then you have a 60% customer satisfaction score.
8. Customer Effort Score (CES)
A Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easily a business can resolve issues, complete tasks, ship products, speak to an agent, or navigate its customer portal. It is calculated as a survey and is typically used to measure the ease of customer interaction by asking them to rate it from “very easy” to “very difficult.”
👀 For instance, if you ask, “On a scale of 1-7, how much effort was involved in answering a customer question?” You would take the average number to summarise the data into one value.
Once you have the results, evaluate your customer support and make improvements where necessary. With great service, you can lower customer effort, if your CES results are below expectations then you should prioritize your CX.
9. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score is a metric used in customer experience programs to measure customer satisfaction. The metric is often considered the gold standard for evaluating customer experience. It basically calculates the likelihood of word of mouth spreading your brand.
In the NPS survey, a single question is asked and scored from 0 to 100, where greater scores indicate greater satisfaction. A customer’s score is categorized into three types:
- Promoters (score 9 or 10);
- Passives (score 8 or 9); and
- Detractors (grades 0-6).
🔥 How to measure it:
NPS = (Percentage of Promoters) – (Percentage of Detractors).
Pro Tip: Aim to have as many promoters as possible. As a result, you will have a better understanding of loyalty after using this method.
👀 For instance, Your NPS score would be 70-10 = 60 if 10% of respondents are detractors, 20% are passives, and 70% are promoters. This is good.
10. Customer Churn
When a customer stops using your product or stops doing business with you, it is called customer churn, which is exactly the opposite of customer retention. In several ways, customer churn hinders long-term business growth.
Although there are no single indicators to measure it, it is, no matter what, a major concern. Once a customer leaves, getting them back is hard, and that customer might even tell others about you. Aside from that, taking care of it, you’ll have fewer customers looking for your competition.
🔥 Here, you can calculate it:
Churn Rate = (Total Number of Customers at the Beginning of the Period) /(Number of Customers Lost) ×100
💡 Remember: A declining CSAT and lower Net Promoter Score could lead to higher churn rates.
11. Customer Retention Rate
Losing customers is the worst thing that can happen. For that businesses need to make sure that they don’t lose sight of their old & new customers. Likewise, the goal for businesses is to increase customer retention by retaining as many customers as possible. And when looking into customer service metrics, the retention of customers is a key factor.
Whenever you lose customers due to poor service, you give them away to your competitors. Not to mention the fact that many researches have shown that customer retention is directly related to profit per customer. As the retention rate increases by 5%, profits increase by (25-95%)%. That’s a lot, isn’t it?
Measuring the Customer Retention rate is easy. All you need to know is the following:
N= The number of new customers in a given period
S= Number of customers at the start of that period
E= Number of customers at the end of that period
🔥 The format of the full formula looks like this:
CRR = ((E-N) / S) X 100
💡 Remember: You can monitor and improve your retention over time by tracking this. The reality, however, is that your business must reach an 80-85 percent retention rate and maintain a focus on providing valuable customer service.
12. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The customer lifetime value measures the amount of revenue you can expect to earn from a single customer over the course of their relationship with you.
Having a CLV that’s higher than the average initial purchase means your customers come back for more. That’s a sign of a great brand relationship.
Several data points about customer behavior are needed to measure CLV, and here’s how you can do it.
CLV = Average purchase value x Average purchase frequency x Average customer lifespan.
13. Social Media Metrics
Even though customers share their frustrations and compliments on social media, not many brands embrace and respond to both. As a result, consumers suffer from a frustrating, one-way experience.
Using this metric, you can also understand the feedback a customer is providing you, so you can respond accordingly.
Keeping track of social media experience metrics allows you not only to respond to customers when necessary but also to gain a deeper understanding of what feedback customers are providing and how your company can improve.
The following are some of the indicators to look for in this regard: 👇
- Timeline of brand mentions
- Posts about the negative
- Account or technical questions
- Other support materials that could answer questions
🔥 How to measure it: Utilize the above criteria each month to understand its overall trend directions as well as the variation from month to month.
14. Self-Service Score
Self-service scores provide insight into how your customer-facing content is performing and indicate when it needs to be improved. In this metric, you can see how many customers can find answers independently without contacting your support team directly.
🔥 You can measure self-service score in the following way:
Self-Service Score = (Successful Self-Service Resolutions / Total Support Inquiries) x 100
💡 Here’s an example that should make it to understand: if 50 consumers visited your help center last week and 10 of them opened support tickets, your self-service score would be 5:1, meaning that for every 5 help center visitors, 1 client opens a support ticket.
Conclusion
Measure your customer service metrics to determine the status of your customer service operations. By using and tracking these metrics, businesses can improve customer service, enhance customer satisfaction, cultivate long-term customer relationships, and achieve sustainable success.
While this guide has provided a brief overview of what’s possible, much more can be done only if you know what outputs these metrics give and how to use that data. Also, by prioritizing efficiency and eliminating the negative small details, these metrics point out that you, as a business owner, can drive revenue growth and establish yourself as an industry leader.
FAQs
What is Customer Metrics?
Customer Metrics or Customer service metrics are quantifiable measures used to assess the performance and effectiveness of your customer support operations.
How do you calculate customer service experience?
Measuring customer service experience includes several key metrics:
- Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Customer Effort Score (CES)
Which are the critical client service metrics you should monitor daily?
In addition to monitoring specific metrics daily, you should also consider the following crucial metrics:
- First Contact Resolution Rate
- Average Resolution Time
- Average Response Time
- Ticket Volume
How do you measure customer service productivity?
Customer service productivity is measured by looking at metrics that reflect efficiency and effectiveness. This includes self-service usage, resolution rate, and number of tickets resolved per agent.
