Brand differentiation is vital in today’s marketplace. To be successful, businesses need to find ways to set themselves apart from the competition. Customer service is often cited as one of the most important differentiators between brands.

Customer service and support KPIs are essential for tracking the effectiveness of customer service initiatives. By carefully monitoring these KPIs, businesses can identify areas where they need to make changes and improve their customer service offerings.

Further Read: Ultimate Guide on KPIs – Incl. List of 200 KPIs for Businesses

What are Customer Service & Support KPIs?

Customer service and support KPIs are important metrics that help organizations measure the effectiveness of their customer service and support operations. Some of the most common KPIs include customer satisfaction rates, call deflection rates, and customer support response times. These metrics can help organizations identify areas where they need to improve their customer service and support operations and measure the impact of any changes made.

Why is it essential to track Customer Service & Support KPIs?

There are many reasons why it is essential to track KPIs around customer service. Some of the most important ones are that it can help organizations measure the effectiveness of their customer service and support operations, identify areas where they need to improve and measure the impact of any changes made. Additionally, tracking customer service and support KPIs can help organizations improve customer satisfaction rates, reduce call deflection rates, and reduce response times. Furthermore, monitoring customer service and support KPIs can help organizations better understand how much they spend on customer service and support operations and get a better idea of what customers think about their products and services.

Overview of the most critical Customer Service & Support KPIs

• Customer Churn
• Top Agents
• Service Level
• MRR Growth Rate
• Number of Issues (By Type)
• First Response Time (FRT)
• First Contact Resolution Rate
• Average Response Time
• Average Resolution Time
• Most Active Support Agents
• Cost Per Conversation
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Positive Customer Reviews
• Customer Effort Score
• Customer Retention Rate
• Support Costs / Revenue Ratio
• Knowledge Base Articles
• Employee Engagement

Explanation of 19 important Customer Service & Support KPIs

Customer Churn

Customer churn is a key KPI for every company, especially software and tech companies. It is the percentage of customers who discontinue using a product or service. Several factors, including dissatisfaction with the product or service, lack of features or functionality, or high prices, can cause churn.

Organizations track customer churn to measure the health of their business and determine whether they are losing customers at a rate that is causing them to lose money. If customer churn is high, it may indicate that the company needs to make changes to its product or pricing to keep customers.

Top Agents

By monitoring the performance of the top agents, businesses can identify areas where they need to make changes and improve their customer service and support operations. Additionally, tracking the performance of the top agents can help organizations improve customer satisfaction rates, reduce call deflection rates, and reduce response times.

Service Level

Many factors can affect service levels, such as the number of contacts, the average response time, and the first contact resolution rate. Businesses need to track these factors to identify areas where they need to improve their customer service and support operations. Additionally, measuring the service level can help organizations improve customer satisfaction rates, reduce call deflection rates, and reduce response times.

Number of Issues (By Type)

The number of issues by type can give an organization insight into where most problems occur. For example, if most of the issues are related to billing, then the organization might need to focus on making changes to its billing process. Additionally, tracking the number of issues by type can help organizations improve customer satisfaction rates, reduce call deflection rates, and reduce response times.

First Response Time (FRT)

First response time (FRT) is the amount of time it takes for a company to respond to a customer’s inquiry. It is an important KPI because it can help organizations identify areas where they need to improve their customer service and support operations.

First Contact Resolution Rate

First Contact Resolution Rate contact resolution rate (FCR) is the percentage of inquiries that are resolved on the first contact with a customer. It is an important KPI because it can help organizations identify areas where they need to improve their customer service and support operations.

Average Response Time

The Average Response Time is the amount of time it takes for a company to respond to a customer’s inquiry after the initial contact has been made. Companies should strive to decrease the number as much as possible as it correlates very high correlation with customer satisfaction.

Average Resolution Time

The average resolution time is the time it takes for a company to resolve a customer’s inquiry. It is an essential KPI because it can help organizations identify areas where they need to improve their customer service and support operations. By resolving inquiries quickly, businesses can improve customer satisfaction rates, reduce call deflection rates, and reduce response times.

Most Active Support Agents

The most active support agents are the employees who receive the most customer inquiries. Tracking the number of inquiries each agent receives and where potential bottlenecks in the support pipelines are.

Cost Per Conversation

The cost per conversation metric is the average cost of resolving a customer inquiry. This metric can help organizations identify areas where they need to improve their customer service and support operations. This metric might also help to highlight problems with products or services; if customers often complain about an issue, this can create a lot of costs, and maybe service/product improvement is necessary.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is a metric used to measure customer satisfaction. It is calculated by asking customers to rate their satisfaction with a service on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very unsatisfied and 10 being very satisfied. The average of all the ratings is then calculated, and this number is used to represent the customer satisfaction score. There are a few ways to collect data for the CSAT metric. One way is to ask customers to rate their satisfaction after interacting with a support agent. Another way is to rate customers’ satisfaction before interacting with a support agent.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric used to gauge the loyalty of a company’s customer base. It is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Detractors are customers rated the company’s product or service six or lower on a scale of 0-10, and promoters rated the company’s product or service nine or 10 on a scale of 0-10. NPS can measure customer loyalty at different points in time and compare customer loyalty between other products and services. NPS is also used to track changes in customer loyalty over time.

Positive Customer Reviews

Positive customer reviews are a good and simple measure of success of customer service. This can be determined by the number of five-star ratings a company receives, the time it takes to receive them, and how often they are given.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

The customer effort score (CES) is a metric used to measure how much effort a customer has to put to get their issue resolved. It is calculated by subtracting the number of easy issues from the number of difficult issues. Easy issues are those that are resolved with one or two interactions, and difficult issues are those that require more than three interactions. CES can help companies understand which areas of their customer service need improvement.

Customer Retention Rate

Customer retention rate is a metric used to measure how likely customers are to keep doing business with a company. It is calculated by dividing the number of customers who remained customers during a given period by the total number of customers at the beginning of that period. Customer retention rate can help companies understand which areas of their customer service need improvement.

Support Costs / Revenue Ratio

This number shows how much the company is spending to solve customer problems. It can help the company understand if it is spending too much or too little to fix customer issues. This number can also be compared to how much other companies are spending in this area.

Knowledge Base Articles

Organizations rely on knowledge base articles as a key part of their customer service and support operations. A high number of quality knowledge base articles can help reduce the cost of resolving customer inquiries. Poor-quality knowledge base articles can lead to an increase in the price of resolving customer inquiries. Therefore, organizations need to manage the quality of their knowledge base articles.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is a key metric for customer service and support operations. A high level of employee engagement can lead to better customer service and a lower cost of resolving customer inquiries. There are a few ways to measure employee engagement. One way is to ask employees to rate their engagement on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very unengaged and 10 being very engaged. Another way is to track the number of employees actively helping customers or who have volunteered to help customers in the past month.