Top KPIs in the Customer Service Industry

Top KPIs in the Customer Service Industry
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Key performance metrics (KPIs) provide a means to quantify and measure the performance of various business processes. The performance of customer service efforts of an organization can also be measured and improved by implementing these metrics. It is pointless to emphasize the importance of KPIs in the customer service industry any further, so let’s just move straight on to take a look at some of the standard KPIs that are progressively being used in this field.

We’ve divided this list of key performance indicators into three categories – the first list discusses KPIs which can be used for phone, chat and email support, the second list contains KPIs which are meant specifically for call support, and the last list has performance measurement metrics for email support. All the KPIs mentioned in the voice support section can be modified and used for online chat support, as well.

Common KPIs for Customer Support

#1 - First Contact Resolution Rate

This metric measures the percentage of customer requests and complaints that are resolved during, or after, their first contact with the customer service department.

#2 - CSR Quality Ratings

This customer service KPI tracks the competence of the representatives in terms of their ability to provide the right solution to the customer’s request and their customer relation skills.

#3 - Overdue Service Requests

This is a measure of the number of customer requests that are not completed within the maximum time specified for completing a particular service request.

#4 - Average Wait Time

For phone and online chat support, this metric is calculated as the average of the waiting time till a representative is available to take a call. For email support, the average wait time is the average time gap between the receipt of the customer’s mail by the system and the representative actually reading the mail.

#5 - Customer Satisfaction

This KPI calculates the percentage of satisfied customers from the total number of customer requests received.

#6 - Issues Resolved

It measures the percentage of requests that were successfully resolved out of the total requests received.

#7 - Service Representative Occupancy Time

This KPI is used to monitor the total time that a customer service representative spends on mailing, chatting or attending calls. Alternatively, average customer service representative idle time can also be used to gauge their occupancy.

#8 - Same Day Resolution

The percentage of customer requests that are fully resolved on the same working day.

#9 - Complaint Escalation Rate

This counts the number of customer requests that could not be successfully addressed by the customer service representatives, and were thus escalated to higher levels by the customer.

#10 - Average Request Processing Time

This is the average processing time for completely resolving the customer’s issue from the time of receiving the request.

KPIs for Voice Based Customer Support

#11 - Average Call Length

The average amount of time a customer service representative spends over one call.

#12 - Abandoned Calls

This metric measures the percentage of customer calls that remain unanswered in the queue, or get disconnected before they land up with a customer service representative.

# 13 - On Hold Time During Calls

This is calculated as the average of the time a customer is kept on hold during a call.

#14 - Call Arrival Rate

This is an average of the volume calls received, expressed on an hourly or daily basis.

#15 - Agent Availability Rate

It measures the percentage of calls for which a service representative was readily available and thus the call did not have to wait in the queue before being answered.

KPIs for Email Based Customer Support

#16 - Email Volume

This KPI measures the volume of customer email requests received on an hourly or daily basis.

#17 - Customer Emails Not Replied

This metric is a percentage of customer emails that have not been replied to by day end.

#18 - Response Delivered in Specified Time

Percentage of email requests that were sent a response within the maximum time specified for responding.

#19 - Same Day Response

The metric measures the percentage of email requests that were sent a reply on the same working day.

#20 - Average Length of Response Mail

The average length of response mail can be measured by taking averages of either the number of words or the number of lines, contained in the reply mails.

This list discusses only the most popular twenty KPIs used in the customer service industry. Besides using these you can identify your own key performance indicators based on your unique customer service processes.

References & Credits:

  1. https://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Web-Exclusives/Viewpoints/Customer-Satisfaction-Your-Most-Important-KPI-41868.aspx
  2. https://www.dashboardzone.com/customer-support-kpi-service-request-resolution-and-closure-performance
  3. https://managementhelp.org/blogs/customer-service/2010/04/14/my-top-5-customer-service-metrics/
  4. https://www.call-center-metrics.com/identifying-key-customer-service-kpi.htm

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Image by – Sidharth Thakur