Top strategies for measuring customer support performance the right way

Top strategies for measuring customer support performance the right way

TL: DR

  • Measuring customer support performance is essential to ensuring that your team provides the best possible service.
  • There are a few key metrics that you should focus on if you're wondering how to measure customer support performance, including accessing customer feedback and analyzing your support tickets to look for patterns.
  • We'll cover 6 of the best strategies below

Customer support 101

If you're confused about how to measure customer support performance, we've got you covered.

By tracking the key customer support metrics outlined in this article, you'll be able to get a clear picture of how your customer support team is performing and identify areas where improvements can be made. 

If you're running a business, then you know that customer support is essential. 

Your customers are the lifeblood of your company, and it's crucial to make sure they're happy. One way to do this is by measuring customer support performance. 

While we've already covered the main customer support metrics here, we'll discuss more top-level strategies to measure customer support performance in this blog post. 

So if you're looking for ways to improve your business, read on.

The best strategies for measuring customer support performance

When it comes to how to measure customer support performance, there are a few strategies you can use. In this section, we'll cover some of the most popular methods, including: 

  • Accessing customer feedback
  • Analyzing support tickets to look for patterns
  • Analyzing the rate and escalation of tickets
  • Analyzing your response speed
  • Analyzing your conversion rate
  • Measuring and improving your CSAT

Access customer feedback

One of the most important ways to measure customer support performance is to simply ask your customers how they feel. 

This can be done by creating great customer satisfaction surveys, customer interviews, or even social media monitoring. By doing this, you'll be able to get an accurate pulse on how your customers feel about your support. 

Once you have an idea of how your team is doing, you can start to make changes to improve the customer experience your team is providing.

Analyze your support tickets to look for patterns

If you want to ensure that your support team is functioning properly, it's important to regularly review your support tickets. This will help you identify any patterns or issues that may be occurring, allowing you to immediately start fixing the problem. 

For example, suppose you notice that you consistently have more active tickets than resolved tickets. In that case, it could indicate that your support team is overwhelmed and that it may be time to hire more agents or that there are other serious issues impacting service. 

Reviewing your support tickets on a regular basis will help you ensure that your workflows are efficient and that you're addressing any bottlenecks that may be occurring.

Rate of tickets and escalation of tickets

If you notice that you have an influx of support tickets consistently overwhelming your team, it might be indicative of a bigger problem. 

Perhaps your product is too difficult to use, or maybe there's a design flaw that needs to be addressed.

 In any case, if you constantly have to escalate tickets, it's important to take a step back and analyze the root cause of the problem so that you can address it accordingly.

If you're unsure what may be causing it, use a session replay tool to watch user sessions and see issues in context for quick diagnosis. 

For example, if you see that users are constantly getting stuck on the same page or feature, you can quickly identify what may be causing the issue and make changes to improve the user experience. 

On the other hand, if too many complaints that are level 1 support tickets or relatively uncomplicated to solve are being escalated, you may need to invest more training your team so they can learn how to handle these types of issues.

Response speed 

Did you know that when your service team responds within one minute, it can improve lead conversions by 391%? 

It's clear that a faster response speed can dramatically improve customer satisfaction. However, it's important to note that you don't want to sacrifice quality for speed. 

In other words, if your agents are rushing through tickets and not taking the time to fully understand and resolve the issue, it's going to cause more problems in the long run.

If your response speed was already slow, it might indicate that there is a staffing issue on your team. In that case, you may need to hire more customer support agents to keep up with the demand. 

Alternatively, if your response speed is already fast but has recently plummeted, it may be time to invest in training to ensure that your team is still providing high-quality support. For example, did you recently release any new features but fail to adequately brief your support team on the specifics?

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is a key metric for measuring customer support performance. If your customers are signing up or upgrading after interacting with your support team, then your support agents are doing something right. 

On the other hand, if you notice that people are consistently deleting or deactivating their accounts after interacting with your support team, this could indicate that your support agents are rude, unhelpful, or incompetent and require more training. 

Paying attention to conversion rates can help you ensure that your customers are having positive experiences with your support team and help you identify any problems that need to be addressed.

Improved customer satisfaction

Make sure to measure customer satisfaction on a regular basis to ensure that your team is providing the best possible service. There are a few different ways to measure customer satisfaction, but one of the most common is to calculate your CSAT, or customer satisfaction score, which is simply the percentage of customers who are satisfied with your service.

To calculate your CSAT, you can send out a survey to customers after they interact with your support team and ask them to rate their experience on a scale from 1 to 5, where one is very unsatisfied, and five is very satisfied. To calculate your percentage, add up all of the 4 and 5 responses you receive on the survey and divide that by the total number of responses across all scores. Once you multiply that by 100, you'll arrive at your CSAT percentage.

Depending on your specific industry, you'll have different CSAT benchmarks to aim for

For example, a CSAT score of 77 is typical for software companies, while a CSAT score of 71 is common for social media. Depending on where you fall, you may need to make some changes to improve customer satisfaction.

If your CSAT score is low, it's important to take a closer look at why that may be. Are customers unhappy with the quality of support they're receiving? Are they waiting too long for a response? Is your team not adequately trained on how to use your products? 

Once you identify the root cause of the problem, you can start to make changes to improve customer satisfaction.

Wrapping things up

When it comes to how to measure customer support performance, there are a few key strategies you can use. 

Response speed, conversion rate, and customer satisfaction are all important metrics to pay attention to. 

By keeping an eye on these things, you can ensure that your team is providing the best possible service to your customers and addressing any problems that may arise.

Author

Shifa Rahaman

Content Marketing Manager

Contributor