8 Essential Customer Experience Metrics

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The key point of every business are metrics which are used to measure business success. They’re primarily used to help you keep track and compare results and identify weak points in your strategy, essential for providing good customer experience. In this article, we’ll be listing top 10 customer metrics you need to keep an eye on, each one holding unique importance. The best way you can benchmark these is by comparison to a previous period, with a focus on tracking them in a meaningful and systematic way.

🚀 Read Customer Experience Guide: How to Put your Customers First? 🚀

1. Ticket volume

2. Ticket backlog

3. Resolution rate

4. Average reply time

5. Average first response time

6. Customer satisfaction

7. Average handle time

8. First contact resolution rate (FCRR)

BONUS POINTS

Net promoter score (NPS)

Replies per ticket

What are Customer Experience Metrics?

Here are 10 essential customer experience metrics that you will use for measuring your customer experience:

1. Ticket Volume

Tickets refer to user requests for resolving a problem. There are two ways to view this metric. On one hand, more tickets mean your customer service is accessible and always available or view on the situation by receiving too many tickets. However, receiving too many tickets can be bad, because it could mean something is wrong with the product. It may be dysfunctional, confusing for users or even unavailable. The goal is to keep received tickets to a minimum, ensuring everything continues to run smoothly.

2. Ticket Backlog

This metric is all about unresolved customer service requests at a certain time. Too many received tickets may cause disruptions in your customer service if there are not enough employees to handle inquiries. The speed of problem-solving is important, along with resolving problems effectively. It’s important to buy more time for customer service to respond to various users queries, so users get the impression they are always in touch with someone.

3. Resolution Rate

Resolution rate is the percentage of problems customer service resolves from the total numbers of received problems. The higher this percentage might be, the greater is the overall efficiency of the customer support team. If the resolution rate drastically decreases, consider hiring more employees for problem resolving or make a revision of all existing queries. It is important to identify unnecessary problems which do not need to be there.

Photo 1. The resolution rate gets better with every solution provided

4. Average Reply Time

While replying to users, there should be a predefined time in which it’s considered polite to respond. Average reply time can vary, depending on the complexity of problems and the number of active tickets. It’s not professional to leave customers without a response to their problems. Therefore, customer responses and problems should be answered as soon as possible. In this specific metric, the less time it takes, the better.

5. Average First Response Time

Average first response time refers to how long it takes to respond to customers request – basically how long a customer waits before someone responds to his request. No one likes waiting for a response from their providers, therefore average first response time should be minimal. This ensures that customers will receive a response promptly. The expected response time via email is 24 hours, while on social media is around 1 hour.

6. Customer Satisfaction

This well-known business metric requires the most work since every other one seems to be dependant on this one. Almost every business has to focus on the growth of revenue, and customer satisfaction is one of the most proven ways to do just that. There’s a variety of methods to increase customer satisfaction, but the most popular one is allowing customers to leave reviews and fill surveys after a purchase. Usually, reviews are the most relevant way to show how happy customers are with the service they get. The higher the satisfaction score is, the more satisfied customers are with your business.

Related: Happy Customer Guidelines 

Picture 2. Happy customer

7. Average Handle Time

Average handle time shows you how efficient a customer support service is, revealing the average time it takes to resolve a problem. The main goal here is to close customer requests. However, it isn’t the only one. You shouldn’t just try to close a ticket, but to make a customer happy with the result. This metric therefore represents the time it takes to effectively problem solve. The less time it takes, the happier the customer will be.

8. First Contact Resolution Rate (FCRR)

FCRR is a whole new level of customer support, hopefully with better results. Actually, it refers to resolving a problem in a single interaction, no matter which type of media is used. The main objective is to resolve a problem without the need for new requests from the same user. To clarify, if the problem is being solved via phone, it should be done with a single phone call. If it’s via email or other social media, the goal is to solve it in a single response to the user. Meanwhile, live chat problems should be solved in a single chat. This metric is definitely the one which has the potential to deliver maximum customer satisfaction, mainly due to the speed and efficiency of problem-solving.

Bonus +2

9. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is the only metric where users have a role in bringing new customers. This metrics refers to how likely a customer is to recommend your service or product to others. Usually, it’s measured via pop-ups on the site or with surveys between certain time periods. Surveys contain the review and the form where they express why they want to recommend the service/product to someone.

10. Replies Per Ticket

Most customers think that first contact with a customer service representative is significant for their satisfaction. That’s why this metric is useful. Too many replies per customers request could create the impression that the agent isn’t training well enough. Also, too many questions from support can mean that the employee doesn’t understand the problem or the customer is not direct to the right people in customer support.

Improve Your Customer Experience

Choosing the right metrics for customer experience measurement has an enormous impact on a business and its values. Tracking as many metrics as possible, there is more potential towards achieving greater customer satisfaction. Constant monitoring of their performance ensures better overall efficiency. It also makes the collection of insights possible, which can be used to recognize new possibilities. Measuring the right metrics, therefore, is the first step towards achieving great customer experience.