For modern day companies, customer service is no longer just a support function; it has a direct impact on several key organizational KPIs and is often the difference between an average company and an industry leader.
In this post, let’s zoom in to other important organizational and operational level customer service metrics that you should closely monitor.
First Response Time (FRT)
The rate of your team’s first response on average shows you indirectly how irritated your customers get. The longer the wait, the worst the impression on customers. You need to set an appropriate timeframe for first responses and make sure your team can cover it. It is of utmost importance that the clients are acknowledged and they don’t feel neglected.
How to handle this:
Answer these questions:
- Is the response rate too long because of the time zone differences and lack of support operators?
- Are there any internal problems that prevent notifications from getting to your operators?
- Is it time to consider changing the customer support system to make it more snappy?
Solution: Agree on response times with your team, hire more help if necessary, better cover areas that generate tickets, work relentlessly on communication ways and strategies to ensure great customer support.
Customer Satisfaction
When customers answer surveys, make sure they give a good rating. It is extremely important for your business how this number looks.
When your clients’ satisfaction is low find out why, what problems occur more and whether you should engage them more regarding your product?!
Solution: change your system of getting feedback, get in touch directly to feel more personal, give them a chance to express concerns beside your fixed questions, list the most frequent issues and prioritize them.
Handle Time
How long do your support operators spend on one ticket? Taking too long may discourage clients from asking for help again or from doing business altogether.
How fast is your team responding, how often do they find a solution for the problem, how often is the first solution offered the one that solves the issue, is your team asking the right questions?
Solution: Balance your peak point during releases and updates so that your team isn’t overwhelmed with requests. Build a healthy company culture where communication is valued and people are confidents in exchanging info.
FCRR (First Contact Resolution Rate)
How often are tickets resolved in a single contact? Now this shouts satisfaction. If a customer can get their problem fixed in one, simple call or e-mail or live chat, then your business is on a roll.
A low FCRR may suggest poor communication inside the company, unclear guidelines or uncertainty connected to ways of handling customers.
- What kind of problems occur most often: complex and demanding ones or simple fixes?
- What products are the most sensitive and prone to problems?
- What product gives your support team a hard time when dealing with issues?
Solution: Prioritize complex problems and see how you can simplify their solutions, make sure your team is up to date and in perfect understanding of the procedures.
NPS (Net Promoter Score)
This is gold and it shows you to which extend are your customers likely to put on a good word for you with others. You know how valuable word-of-mouth promotion is so you’d better take care of this metric. A low NPS score means unhappy customers.
Investigate which customers seem to be the least satisfied, whether there is a specific problem that keeps coming up and creates dissatisfaction or your support team is not engaging enough in matters concerning your product?
Solution: Find out creative ways of getting more honest feedback from users, engage them on social media or your website through comment sections or discussion boards to see what makes them unhappy, prioritize the most common issues and design a system to take care of them.
Number of Replies per Ticket
Customer satisfaction is the highest when a first reply solves their problem. The more replies, the more the satisfaction decreases as it is taking longer. And too many replies can also be an indicator of poor customer support skills on your team’s side.
Find out what questions your team asks and improve that if the case and how often an issue is being passed on to different team members.
Solution: Prioritize issues by number of replies needed and find ways to decrease this number. Always communicate with your team to make sure they are asking the right questions.
Finally, work with scenarios for your numbers and see how actions lead to results and how to change the weaker links.
Current situation – Problem – Doing this leads to that, but we expect this… Mapping out your problems and solutions can help greatly.
Next, you need to work on communication, always make it better, more engaging and efficient. Don’t dismiss claims that may seem unworthy of attention because they might stumble back and make a mess.
All in all, you have a lot to keep an eye on and the work gets no easier with time. But your business can!