Customer support is the foundation upon which a business builds its reputation. If you are invested in offering exceptional CX, your customers will notice. This will ultimately help you attain brand loyalty, and long-term business success. Therefore, it is important to know what is working and what needs improvement. Here, customer service metrics can help you learn about how you interact with your customers, and what should be the strategy moving forward.
Top 6 Measurable Customer Service Metrics to Establish Brand Trust and Loyalty
There are multiple metrics for customer support that your business can rely on to improve customer relationship. Below are six of the most important ones that you can measure to drive efficiency and productivity.
1. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
This metric reveals how happy your customers are. CSAT is based on a survey that your customers fill out after they interact with your support team. Although the questions on the survey may differ, it usually asks customers to rate their experience on a scale, giving you an idea of how satisfied they are with the service provided. It will also let you know about how well your customer support team is performing and where they need improvement. Moreover, you should check if your business requires a better BPO solution such as customer center service or omnichannel support to ensure you get a higher CSAT score.
How to Measure CSAT
For obtaining the CSAT score, you must calculate the total number of positive responses and divide it by the total number of persons who took the survey. You can then multiply the answer by 100 to reveal your CSAT.
[No. of Positive Responses / No. of Total Responses] X 100 = CSAT (%)
2. First Response Time
Also known as the first reply time, it is the time between when a customer sends a support ticket and when the customer support agent responds to the request. The First response time indicates how long a customer has to wait to receive help, letting you know how efficient your support team is. An IT support company should value this metric the most as they usually receive complicated queries which should ideally be answered urgently.
It is advised to keep and maintain your response times short as no one wants to wait for a longer period of time to get the solution to their problems. One way to do this is to outsource both inbound and outbound contact center support which will allow you to deliver customer satisfaction.
How to Calculate First Response Time
The first response time for one ticket is the number of hours or days between the initial support request initiated by the customer and the first contact from a support representative. Companies usually count this time in business days. Therefore, off-hours and weekends will not affect the average response time.
Sum of First Response Times / Number of Tickets = Average First Response Time
3. Ticket Volume
This indicates the total number of tickets your support team receives during a predefined time frame. Monitoring tickets is important for various reasons. For instance, it can help you plan workload distribution among the members of your support team. You can also determine whether or not you require more team agents.
It is advised to track changes in ticket volume. This will allow you to identify the days of the week as well as the times of the day when your team gets the most support requests. With this information, you can take care of workforce management by planning shifts more efficiently and distributing workload accordingly.
How to Calculate Ticket Volume
For finding ticket volume, simply sum up all the tickets received during a particular time frame.
Sum of All Tickets = Total Ticket Volume
4. Ticket Backlog
Ticket backlog refers to the total number of unattended tickets in your queue at the end of a specific time. For example, if your support agents work from Monday to Friday, you can wait for the last working day of the week to check the ticket backlog. This will let you know the number of customers who will have to wait until Monday to have their issues resolved. If the ticket backlog becomes too overwhelming to manage, you can always consider opting for outsourcing solutions. Doing so would allow you to take care of customer requests much more quickly, resulting in higher trust and loyalty.
How to Calculate Ticket Backlog
You will have to compare the ticket backlog against the total ticket volume to determine the percentage of submitted tickets that are still unanswered. You can do this weekly to see how efficient your support team is.
Sum of Unresolved Tickets = Total Ticket Backlog
5. Customer Retention Rate
Customer loyalty cannot be attained in a single day. It is a continuous effort. However, you can calculate the customer retention rate to know how successful you were in building a strong relationship with your audience. According to Harvard Business Review, attaining new customers is 5 to 25 times more expensive as compared to retaining an existing customer. A loyal customer will trust your business and purchase more from you which will help you improve your sales and profitability. Therefore, it can be said it is one of the key customer support metrics and business owners should pay heed to this.
How to Measure Customer Retention Rate
Calculating the customer retention rate will help you determine how many customers are happy and content with your offerings. This information will also allow you to check remote work on those areas of customer service that require improvement, empowering your business to better cater to the unique needs of your audience.
[Customers Acquired at the end of a Specific Period – Converted Customers] / [Total No. of Customers in the Beginning] x 100
6. Call Abandonment Rate
The call abandonment rate refers to the number of inbound calls made to the contact center or service desk that are abandoned by the customers before they speak to the agent. This is an equally important metric to measure as it shows how efficient a contact center services is. It also lets businesses know how satisfied their customers are.
How to Measure Call Abandonment Rate
The abandon rate is directly related to waiting time. The longer a customer has to wait to get connected to an agent, the higher the percentage of this rate will be. This is because people don’t like waiting for a long duration to get help. They want immediate solutions to their problems.
[No. of inbound calls when customers hang up before their calls are answered / Total no. of inbound calls made by customers] x 100
Conclusion
32% of customers part ways with their favorite brand after just one poor customer experience. This reflects the importance of delivering quality CX. The first step to making your customer experience better is to examine the right customer service metrics and measure them to see your current performance. This will help you get an overview of the type of customer experience you presently offer. You can then calculate the moves that your service team makes and formulate strategies for improvement. This will enhance the overall performance of your business, allowing you to stay ahead of your competition.
Frequently Ask Questions
What customer-related metrics should the customer support management analyze?
Customer retention rate, customer satisfaction, and first response time are some of the customer-related metrics that should be analyzed by the management.
What are the metrics when talking to customer support?
The rate of response and the number of calls answered are a few metrics when talking to customer support.
What are the 4 metrics of customer service?
Customer feedback, service efficiency, employee engagement, and quality, consistency, and compliance are four metrics of customer service.
What is customer support KPI?
Ans: The number of new and resolved tickets, average time resolution, response time by the first reply, and average handling time are some customer support KPIs.