Customer Service KPIs – The Last Guide You’ll Ever Need

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 Bother with Customer Service 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 by 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 coaching and 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 metrics to track

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 gauge the customer’s loyalty to the brand. The metric measures willingness to recommend the company’s products or services to others and is an excellent 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 the 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.

First Contact Resolution

First Contact Resolution or FCR refers to the percentage of issues resolved by your team on the first interaction with the customer. FCR is a key contact center KPI because your ability to track and improve it over time will lead to reduced operational costs, improved 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 Handle Time

The average handle 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 handle 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 on your service desk at a given time period. Measuring the volume of active tickets will give you insights into relation contact center performance and operational efficiency. A spike in ticket volume can indicate potential problems with the 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 the end of a period
• y = number of new customers acquired during a period
• z = number of customers at the beginning of a period