Shifting from an e-mail inbox to a devoted assist desk can really feel like an enormous step, nevertheless it’s solely half the battle.
After you have applied the instrument, the suitable metrics allow you to know how the assistance desk performs and the way your crew is assembly your prospects’ wants.
Let us take a look at 19 actionable assist desk metrics that you simply may select to measure.
It is a chapter in our Final Information to Setting Up a Assist Desk System. Once you’re prepared, try the opposite chapters:
1. E-mail conversations
This metric counts the entire conversations created inside your assist desk. E-mail conversations are a superb metric for understanding how a lot quantity your crew is coping with.
Whereas this metric is helpful general, it is particularly telling while you phase the info. Many corporations select to phase instances in just a few alternative ways: over particular intervals, by the person who dealt with them, and even by points associated to a selected tag. Listed below are just a few examples:
Time-frame: Taking a look at metrics by the lens of timeframe helps you determine occasions when your prospects are most energetic and helps you set higher staffing ranges to match demand.
Tags or subjects: When you use tags or customized fields to label conversations, you’ll be able to shortly spot adjustments in quantity that may point out an issue in your product or the effectiveness of an enchancment. For instance, has that new redesign lowered questions on easy methods to replace a password?
Location: This metric helps you shortly perceive the place you’ve got probably the most prospects needing assist so you’ll be able to help them appropriately or maybe take into account including choices like localization or help in different time zones.
What you be taught by segmenting this generally unwieldy metric will be worthwhile for modifying your help technique.
2. Quantity by way of channel
One other subset of ticket quantity is quantity by way of particular channels, which is useful in telling you the place your requests are primarily coming by. For example, do you’ve got extra conversations coming by chat or e-mail? Telephone or social media?
Understanding which channels your prospects use most steadily helps you know the way to employees and even offers you some route on how you could change your help technique transferring ahead.
For instance, if tons of conversations are coming by your stay chat widget, you could have to spend a while working in your data base.
It is also good to know what kinds of conversations your crew is having over every channel. When you’re having easy conversations over e-mail that might simply be deflected by way of chat, discovering a method to shift them over frees up your e-mail crew to work on extra worthwhile conversations.
In essence, understanding your channel quantity will assist you prioritize.
3. Emails created
A assist desk will usually monitor whether or not an e-mail got here in from a buyer or whether or not a person created it throughout the assist desk. Any e-mail conversations that customers create inside your assist desk rely towards this metric.
The metric of emails created will be useful to know whether or not numerous your e-mail quantity is inner or exterior. It will possibly additionally level to troubles inside your processes or patterns with particular buyer varieties.
For example, it’s good to know if enterprise prospects usually have to have separate emails despatched to different account members or in case your crew is creating particular person conversations after they may simply be reassigning or escalating tickets.
4. Open versus resolved conversations
Understanding what number of tickets you’ve got open versus what number of conversations have been closed generally is a good test on the heartbeat of your help crew. Past understanding what you’ve got open proper now, you too can determine your developments week over week.
Are your opened and solved numbers remaining the identical? When you discover that your solved numbers begin to dwindle, particularly compared to the variety of open tickets, you could want so as to add employees or improve your crew’s effectivity.
On the flip facet, if you happen to see a sudden spike in conversations, it might imply a disruption in service or an issue in your product that wants your consideration.
5. Conversations per agent
It’s crucial to determine what number of conversations every of your brokers presently deal with and their most capability. Discovering this stability and staffing to attain it implies that your prospects will get environment friendly, useful responses whereas your crew stays productive and free from burnout.
When you use ticket task guidelines or any automation, this metric will be useful as a barometer. You understand how many tickets every crew member can deal with and what number of must be robotically assigned per day.
It may also be useful throughout the onboarding interval to know precisely what number of tickets a totally onboarded crew member ought to be capable of deal with.
6. Messages obtained
Relatively than “conversations,” this refers back to the precise variety of messages prospects ship to your crew (messages being the person emails despatched backwards and forwards between your crew and the client). For each message in a thread, this assist desk metric will go up.
Whereas it may be useful as a stand-alone metric, it is extra helpful compared with the general dialog quantity.
For example, if you happen to discover that your messages obtained are considerably increased than your general conversations metrics, it might recommend that your help reps should not resolving conversations as effectively as they might and prospects are required to e-mail again for extra data.
This, in tandem along with your resolved on first reply metric (extra on this beneath), is a good way to know the character of conversations that your crew is having and the way you may enhance them.
These metrics will be much more deeply segmented utilizing information across the tags utilized to exchanges. For example, you could discover that conversations about billing embrace many extra messages obtained than these about account closure.
7. Replies despatched
Replies despatched, like messages obtained, rely a degree of knowledge down from the general dialog metrics. This metric contains any responses from customers inside your assist desk to prospects, together with new dialog e-mail threads.
As with messages obtained, this metric will be useful to match in opposition to your general “dialog” metric.
Suppose you see this quantity develop considerably increased than your general dialog metric. In that case, it might imply that your buyer help reps are sending responses with out all the required data and have to observe up afterward to make clear. It will possibly additionally recommend that they should loop in additional contacts on the e-mail dialog.
To discern extra of what will be the trigger behind the spike in replies despatched, check out your tags. It’s possible you’ll discover that for enterprise conversations or bug stories, the responses despatched are considerably increased than these round routine data requests.
Sure kinds of conversations require rather more follow-up than others.
8. Response time
Response time tracks the typical period of time a buyer waits for a response out of your crew. This contains each first response time and subsequent response occasions.
In lots of assist desks, response time solely counts if/when a crew member replies to the client; if there aren’t any replies to a dialog, your assist desk most likely will not monitor response time. Equally, assigning and updating tags or including notes to the dialog mustn’t have an effect on your response time metric.
Response time is a superb main indicator of buyer loyalty and well being and can provide you a deeper understanding of how your crew is performing within the queue.
As response occasions begin to lag, buyer happiness and loyalty dwindles. It might additionally imply that your crew is having issue sustaining efficiency and could also be slower responding general.
The longer your response time is, the extra at-risk your buyer and worker satisfaction turns into. In any case, even if you happen to’re nonetheless wanting into why a bug is going on, acknowledging that you’re wanting will be significant.
9. First response time
In contrast to response time, first response time refers simply to the period of time a buyer waits for the primary reply out of your crew.
First response time is a superb metric to make use of and monitor month over month to see your crew’s habits. For example, did your crew rock and maintain the response occasions down, or did a difficulty trigger issues that wrought havoc in your inbox?
Say you discover that your first response time goes method up, however you’ll be able to’t employees or make any adjustments to regulate it straight away. It might be a good suggestion to assign particular crew members to ship precise, human responses that handle expectations to your prospects.
Many corporations ship an automated “receipt” response to prospects submitting tickets, however a human reaching out can go a great distance — nobody likes to be saved ready.
Taking a look at tags to find out the kinds of conversations the place this occurs most is a good way to prioritize the work.
10. Resolved
The resolved metric tracks the variety of conversations your crew has resolved in a selected interval. In most assist desks, a dialog is simply marked as resolved if it has at the least one person reply and has been marked as closed.
You may solely resolve an trade as soon as. If a buyer replies to a dialog that has been closed, it is not going to be labeled “resolved” once more till it has been closed by a person inside your assist desk.
When you discover that your conversations are going up however your variety of resolved tickets goes down, that is an indicator that you could have extra advanced tickets coming by. For example, a bug report takes extra time to resolve than an easily-answered query about billing.
11. Decision time
Decision time, like response time, is a wonderful method to perceive how your crew is performing general. It consists of the period of time it takes from a dialog’s creation to when your crew resolves it.
Amongst different causes, decision time will begin to go up in case your crew turns into overburdened. It will possibly additionally start to point buyer unhappiness.
Conversations with lengthy decision occasions might indicate that your crew does not give sufficient data with every reply. It might additionally recommend that the discussions are rising extra advanced, inflicting your crew to take longer to reply.
To dive deeper into what’s inflicting an uptick in decision time, it may be useful to take a look at your tags or the content material of the messages your crew is sending.
On the flip facet, a low decision time may signify that your crew offers complete solutions on the primary attempt. That is nice!
12. Resolved on first reply
The variety of tickets your crew resolves on the primary reply is a superb assist desk metric to correlate with buyer happiness scores. You may calculate this metric by measuring the share of conversations resolved after only a single reply, reasonably than those that want a number of responses.
Normally, the less interactions a buyer must must get their problem resolved, the happier they are going to be. Nonetheless, your variety of tickets resolved on the primary reply will be an indicator of some issues past the efficiency of your help crew.
For example, it might imply that extra advanced tickets or bugs are coming by to your inbox than regular, requiring extra backwards and forwards than easy queries. It will possibly additionally point out a shift within the kinds of prospects reaching out to your help crew.
Attempt to consider the foundation reason behind any adjustments in these metrics, and at all times assume constructive intent.
13. Deal with time
Deal with time is the period of time it takes from when a assist desk person opens the dialog to learn it to after they press the “ship” button with a reply.
There are tons of the way to interpret deal with time. Some corporations learn it as customers writing lengthy replies, whereas others interpret it as an absence of sources or data on the a part of the help rep.
Sadly, there are not any definitive methods to interpret this assist desk metric, and its trigger usually differs on a ticket-by-ticket foundation.
That stated, if you happen to discover you could correlate a excessive deal with time with damaging buyer satisfaction scores, you could wish to make shifts in your help technique to handle it. You can begin to drive down this metric by creating extra saved replies and even including to your inner data base.
Evaluate the tags which have the very best response occasions and see what you are able to do to extend inner data round them.
Strive to not use deal with time as a stand-alone metric. It may be deceptive when used by itself, although understanding the developments round it’s nonetheless important for assessing your assist desk’s well being.
14. Tag tallies
Most assist desk software program may have the choice so as to add tags to conversations. Tags assist your crew determine specific subjects or kinds of questions that generate extra (or fewer) tickets than others.
When a help crew is seeking to enhance or change technique, top-of-the-line issues they’ll do is first perceive the distribution of tickets. For instance, they’ll see which channel they arrive from, which space of the product they’re associated to, and whether or not they come from present prospects or from prospects.
You too can use tags to trace different metrics, like what number of conversations your crew is escalating, whether or not they’re associated to particular bugs or new options, and even which a part of your website the dialog got here by.
Understanding your most steadily and least steadily used tags offers your crew a route by which to shift your consideration to issues like including new employees, providing a brand new channel, or writing new documentation. It might additionally present the place your present efforts are performing exceptionally effectively.
15. Backlogs
Whereas it may be nice to know what’s taking place with the tickets you might be actively engaged on, some groups can also have a backlog of tickets they’re working by.
Realizing the standing of your backlog, or even when a backlog is beginning to construct up, is important. In any case, if you’re receiving extra tickets than your crew can deal with in every week, it is time to perceive why that’s and the way you may be capable of change it.
For example, it might be that it is advisable rent further help crew members, or maybe you simply had a big product push that required extra of your crew briefly.
By figuring out a backlog, you’ll be able to determine methods to empower your crew and get them out from below it. You too can use information to determine future potential backlogs and employees accordingly.
For example, if you know the way many tickets every help crew member can deal with and you understand that you simply often see a 20% improve in tickets over the vacation season, you’ll be able to calculate whether or not you’ll simply be at most capability or if you happen to’ll want to rent to cowl the inbox.
16. Buyer survey responses
On the finish of a dialog with a buyer, your crew might provide them the chance to fee the interplay. Sometimes, these are within the type of surveys that measure buyer satisfaction (CSAT), Buyer Effort Rating (CES), or Internet Promoter Rating (NPS).
CSAT and CES are often used after help interactions. In distinction, your product or advertising and marketing crew historically makes use of NPS to know the client’s relationship particularly along with your product.
These scores can sometimes be associated on to the interplay along with your help rep, however they’re simply as usually related to how the client perceives your product.
So whereas the person scores on conversations won’t be probably the most significant, a median of scores throughout your crew or a rating over a selected interval will be very useful for understanding how the shifts in your help technique have affected your prospects.
Regulate adjustments in your team-wide satisfaction charges. This shift signifies the success (or in any other case) of enhancements within the services and buyer help itself.
17. Buyer contact fee
Buyer contact fee will be an important assist desk metric to know how your help is scaling. It measures the share of your energetic prospects asking you for assist over a selected interval.
The thought right here is that the metric ought to lower over time as you develop a help technique. When you discover that the quantity is rising, it might imply that you must spend some power bettering self-service, engaged on bug fixes, creating new weblog posts, and even pushing for product redesigns.
This quantity ought to both keep regular or lower. A trending development signifies that one thing must be improved or adjusted.
18. Utilization fee
Probably the greatest issues that you are able to do to your crew is make sure that each single crew member is performing at their full potential. Meaning giving them sufficient time to work on private improvement and development, contribute within the queue, and attain another duties on their plate.
This helps maintain your crew engaged and motivated and saves them from teetering over the brink of burnout.
Also called occupancy fee, this assist desk metric helps you perceive how a lot time your help reps are utilizing. You may calculate the period of time your crew reported as being on calls or performing particular duties, then divide it by the entire time on the clock. From there, multiply it by 100. There’s your utilization fee.
Realizing this quantity offers you a view into the share of time your crew spends on support-centric duties and the place else their time is likely to be going. It additionally helps you notice and proper points shortly, both by coaching, staffing, or redistributing hours.
19. Agent satisfaction
Whereas we do not usually discuss this metric, it might be an important one in all all. Agent satisfaction is the measurement of how glad your workers are of their day-to-day work. It is simply as vital as buyer satisfaction, as a result of with out pleased workers, you most likely will not have glad prospects.
Help reps who’re overworked and underappreciated will not carry out at their highest degree and undoubtedly will not be geared up to offer a superb expertise to your prospects. Who needs to be form after they’re feeling crummy?
Observe agent satisfaction usually, simply as you’ll with common NPS. Many corporations select to do that quarterly after which observe up in common one-on-ones. As with buyer satisfaction, this may be measured by way of survey.
Measure higher so you’ll be able to handle higher
Selecting the correct assist desk metrics to your crew can successfully propel your help technique towards a profitable future. Not each metric is appropriate for each crew, so work to know the place you might be in your journey.
When you’re simply getting began, metrics like backlogs or utilization charges won’t be useful for you. Conversely, if you happen to’re engaged on a multi-tiered, omnichannel help technique, metrics like deal with time won’t be that telling to your particular wants.
Measuring the metrics that make sense to your crew offers you the very best instruments to handle and strategize transferring ahead.