9 Customer Service Metrics to Track Right Now

⏱ Reading Time: 12 minutes

The goal of every business is to constantly improve its profit base, and gain new customers while retaining the old ones. However, most times we find it difficult to measure how our efforts in pursuing these goals have paid off, hence the use of key performance indicators (KPI). Every sector of any business has some set of KPIs or metrics that can help you determine how well the sector is performing in contribution to business growth. Customer service is not excluded from this list. Therefore, there are customer service KPIs designed to help you measure its performance.

🚀Read Customer Service: A Guide for Successful Business Growth 🚀

If you’re not elbow deep in working with metrics, don’t worry, we’ll get you started today. You’ll realize the numerous advantages that lie in quantifying your efforts while maximizing your customer support potentials. Herein, we’ll discuss these customer service KPI examples, their customer service KPI goals. And how to employ them to measure how well your customer service methods have contributed to the growth of your business.

What Are Customer Service KPIs?

Key Performance Indicators are business tools in the form of a measurable value that helps you determine how effective your business goals or objectives are being achieved. With this understanding, we can also deduce Customer Service KPIs to be measurable values you can use to determine the progress of your customer service team in achieving specific business objectives. Using these performance indicators avails you the opportunity to appraise the performance of your customer service department in order to effectively manage them, reduce cost and increase job satisfaction. 

Besides these, knowing the values of these indicators grants you access to some important leading Key Performance Indicators for your business which influences certain factors that determine business growth, for example; sales, customer value, customer retention, etc.

Customer Service Metrics to Track Right Now: KPI Examples

Among the numerous customer service KPIs, we’ve identified a few examples that will make the biggest impact on the success of your team. These KPIs will help you meet customer satisfaction, improve your operational efficiency and business values.

Customer Service Metrics: First Call Resolution (FCR)

Just as the name implies, the first call resolution metric measures the percentage of issues and complaints from customers that were resolved by your customer service team at the first contact. If the customer made contact via webchat or live call, this means that the customer care representative resolved the issue before the customer hung up or ended the chat without the need for any follow-up on the same issue. For email, it also means the matter was resolved in a single response.

To calculate your customer support team’s FCR, divide the number of issues resolved on the first contact by the total number of customer issues eligible for FCR. FCR-eligible issues in this context refer to cases that can only be resolved in one contact (For example, if there was an error in the details provided to the customer support representative, that case is no longer FCR-eligible).

FCR Rate = No. of resolved support issues on the first contact

Total No. of FCR eligible issues

FCR is one of the few metrics that have a direct correlation to customer satisfaction since more customers will be satisfied if their issues are resolved at the first contact.

Customer Service Metrics: Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Finding out the rate of satisfaction among your numerous customers is not an easy task I admit. However, with CSAT score, it is possible to know your customer satisfaction rate. Also referred to as the Happy Customer KPI, CSAT is measured by asking your customers a direct question or mini-survey about how they feel with your product or services. 

In response, customers will be expected to select their answer from a provided set of options which could be stars, smiley faces, etc. showing the level of their satisfaction. To determine your CSAT score, take the average of the responses. However, note that the calculation should be based on the number of respondents who were “very satisfied” or “satisfied” (i.e. the two top levels on the response choice scale).

Picture 1. How to Calculate Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)?

Customer Service Metrics: Customer Retention Rate

Customer retention simply means the ability to get a customer to keep patronizing you over a period of time. Although high-quality products and services can keep the customer coming, one bad experience with the customer service can send a customer away forever. Therefore, the customer retention rate is one customer service KPI you need to keep an eye on when it comes to your customer service team. It measures the percentage of customers that have stayed with your business over a specific period of time.

The customer retention rate can be calculated weekly, monthly or weekly. To do this, get the;

CS = Number of customers at the start period

CN = Number of new customers acquired within the period,

CE = Number of customers at the end of your specified period,

Customer Retention rate =  (CE-CN)CS ×100

Read more about customer retention! 

Customer Service Metrics: SERVQUAL

The goal behind this customer service KPI is to measure how well your service or product meets the expectations of your customers. It’s a multi-dimensional KPI that measures the subjective elements of service quality. This is done by presenting to your customers a survey questionnaire covering the five elements of service quality: RATER.

• Reliability: The ability to accurately and consistently deliver the promised service or product.
• Assurance: The employees’ level of knowledge and courtesy as well as their ability to create confidence and trust
• Tangibles: The physical appearance of your facilities, business environment, equipment, website, and employees.
• Empathy: The care and attention given to each customer individually.
• Responsiveness: The level of willingness among staff to offer help and speedy service to customers.

The first part of the question should highlight the customer’s perception of the service delivered while the second part will dwell on their expectations (what they believe the service should be). Their response should range from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. The difference resulting from comparing the two will indicate how much the service you offer has deviated from your customer’s expectation.

If the customers’ perception of the service provided exceeds their expectations, your service quality is high. On the other hand, the service quality is poor if the expectations are greater than their perception of the delivered service.

Picture 2. RATER Model for Measuring Customer Expectations

Customer Service Metrics: Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score is used to measure the loyalty of customers to a brand or company. With this metric, you can find out the likelihood of your customers referring your business or product to someone else.

The Net Promoter Score is measured with a single question to the customer on an 11-point scale of 0 to 10;

“How likely is it that you would recommend this brand’s product to a colleague or friend?”

They are prompted to respond on the 0 to 10 scale where 0 means “Never”, and 1 to 10 “very likely”. 9 or 10 respondents are considered promoters, 7 or 8 are passives while 0 to 6 are considered detractors. Your NPS is therefore determined by subtracting the percentage of your detractors from that of the promoters. Hence, high positive scores indicate healthy business with good customer relationships, while low negative scores show poor levels of customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Picture 3. The example of Net Promoter Score calculation

Customer Service Metrics: Average Resolution Time (ART)

Simply measured as the average time it takes customer care representatives to resolve customer issues, the Average Resolution Time is one of the top customer service KPIs you must keep your eyes on. Excellent customer services have a direct correlation with the timely resolution of issues. Therefore, the speed of solving customer issues by your customer service team can positively or negatively impact your business by affecting customer retention and loyalty.

Customer Service Metrics: Customer Churn Rate

Customer Churn is one customer service KPI that can tell you the hard truth about your customer loyalty or retention. The Customer Churn Rate metric calculates the percentage of customers that stopped patronizing your business over a given time frame.

You can calculate this by dividing the number of lost customers within the given period by the number of customers you had at the beginning of the given time frame and multiply by 100.

Read: Customer Churn & How to Reduce It?

Customer Service Metrics: Ticket Backlog

This refers to the number of unresolved customer issues within a particular time. They involve customer tickets that have stayed beyond their normal response time due to several reasons. They could be the customer service team’s performance, high ticket volumes or issues that require additional time to get the solutions. 

Proper knowledge of your customer service ticket backlog will help you make decisions that will improve the quality of service rendered by your customer service, for example, you can deduce if you need more hands-on the team or more training to increase their knowledge levels. 

Customer Service Metrics: Resolution Rate

This calculates the percentage of issues resolved by your customer service team with respect to the total number of tickets received. This KPI serves as a measure to determine how efficient and productive individual agents are as well as the entire customer service team.

To calculate this, divide the number of resolved issues by the total number of tickets received and multiply by 100.

Keep Your Customer Service KPIs Trackable

There are many other indicators that can help you to constantly improve the quality of your customer service. However, the answers to how to measure KPI for customer service begins with the examples we’ve listed above. We believe that these metrics will provide you with what you need to monitor your customer service effectively. However, in the end, quality customer service is all about people and not just numbers.