Measuring your CS performance is important because it shows you what you’re doing well, and where there’s room for improvement. As satisfied customers are the foundation of any business, these insights can give you that vital competitive edge over your competitors.

Here are 12 sure-fire metrics for evaluating how your customer service is measuring up:

1.   Average Reply/Resolution Time

One of the greatest irritants for customers is having to wait around. Conversely, customers are happiest when their problems are quickly and efficiently sorted out.

To calculate your average resolution time, divide the total duration time with the total Number of customer interactions. This gives you a benchmark number you can work towards improving.

Start by identifying your busiest times and making sure you have sufficient staff on duty.

2.   Replies per Resolution

Pinpoint the number of replies required per resolution before a query is fully resolved. (Most CS software will allow you to pull reports on this metric.)

If anything skews this critical metric, find out immediately why it is happening. Brainstorm with your team, and also ensure your agents make sure they get a complete picture before they reply to a customer. Agents should also be able to liaise seamlessly with a manager or other team member if they need to.

3.   First Response Time

Today’s sophisticated customers expect an immediate response from businesses. You can establish how rapid your response time is by calculating the average time that has elapsed between the moment a customer first reaches out, and how quickly one of your customer service agents interacts with them.

4.   First Contact Resolution rate

In theory, most basic customer service questions can be resolved with one simple answer – in practice though, this is rarely the case. Support agents often need more information, which may necessitate further questions and answers.

Improving first contact resolution wherever possible is a great way to boost customer satisfaction, and the productivity of your team. Having a database of canned responses for frequently asked questions, or creating a chatbot to pick up queries are good options.

5.   Abandonment rates

Consumers will abandon an interaction if they have to wait a frustrating amount of time for customer support. Ideally, you should strive towards a 0% abandonment Rate, or getting as close to it as you can. To calculate this metric, divide the total number of abandoned customer interactions by the total overall number of interactions.

6.   Customer Satisfaction Score, or CSAT

CSAT measures how your customers feel immediately after an interaction with one of your customer service agents. You can send out a Likert scale survey to establish your customer’s satisfaction level on a scale from 1 – 5.  A CSAT score of 80% is considered excellent.

7.   Customer Effort Score, or CES

Establishing a Customer Effort Score is one of the newer customer service metrics. It measures the amount of effort your customers feel they had to expend during the interaction. The more effort it costs them, the higher their frustration levels are likely to be, and the less likely they are to stay loyal to your brand.

8.   Customer Retention Rate, or CRR

Your customer Retention Rate shows you what percentage of your clients you’re managing to hold onto.

To compute customer retention rate, you need to first subtract the number of new customers from your total number of customers for a specific period. Then you divide the number of retained customers with the total number of customers from the start of the specific period.

If you get a figure close to 1, it will indicate a high retention rate, meaning positive CX.

9.   Net Promoter Score, or NPS

A Net Promoter Score is useful for measuring the effectiveness of your customer service and gauging levels of customer satisfaction – all with just one question.

Usually this is worded along the lines of, ‘How likely are you to recommend our brand?’ A high response rate will indicate high levels of customer satisfaction with your brand and CX.

You can then also categorise the responses into detractors, passives, and promoters to get a clearer picture of your NPS. For example, if your youngest customers give the lowest scores, this may mean they find your current CS contact channels outdated.

10. Overall Resolution Rate

Subtract the number of unresolved customer inquiries from the total number of inquiries. Then divide this figure by the total number of inquiries. The lower the number of unresolved customer inquiries, the better your customer support agents have performed.

11. Volume by Channel

It is important that you track exactly where your customers are getting in touch. You should then prioritise these channels and commit staff resources to them.

Monitoring this metric also allows you to spot helpful trends (like the volume of live chat enquiries increasing and phone calls decreasing) which can assist in your training strategy.

In conclusion

These metrics give you a valuable numerical starting point for improving your customer service. To get the most from them, you need to keep measuring them – especially after you’ve made a tweak or adjustment to your CS strategy.

Not sure where to begin?

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Don’t despair! Digital Customer Care Company can assist you not just with additional support staff, but also with proactive CS transformation and reputation management.