The base of customer service is to be polite, but politeness can only go to a certain extent. For an agent being polite and connecting with the client might be important. At the end of the day, it is just a conversation but its aim is to help the company. Being a supervisor, you need to focus on meaningful and measurable KPIs. Unless you cannot measure the progress, you cannot evaluate it, and unless you cannot evaluate you cannot manage it.
Most supervisors straight away, focus on measurable KPIs without respecting individual differences. These individual differences are not just limitations from the agent side but also extend to the customer side. A generalized approach will eventually make things difficult for you, and build frustration in the team. You need to focus on effective KPIs that can support the team rather than bringing them under constant scrutiny. Most managers struggle with the situation but the key is in respecting individual differences and then building a holistic approach that will help with the process.
If you are keen on learning via examples, Xfinity customer service is so far one of the best customer services you will come across. The company respects diversity by making all the customers feel included. Owing to the Spanish customers, Comcast Xfinity en Español is a dedicated customer service line catering to native Spanish speakers. Customers can call anytime, as the service is available 24/7. Moreover, to respect diversity, all the bundles and prices are endorsed in Spanish as well.
Understanding Customer Service KPIs
KPIs or key performance indicators are simple benchmarks that can help you to measure the performance of any task. In the case of customer service, managers generally set goals and objectives that are used as benchmarks or references. These KPIs determine how much value each employee is bringing to the company, and how to boost their performance.
Setting KPIs might seem like an easy scale, but this carries risk as well. In the case of customer service, the results are never black and white,instead, they might fall into a grey category most of the time. While setting KPIs for your team, you need to keep the bigger picture in mind. Most people set KPIs based on the quality of the call, and make it more solution-oriented.
However, you will soon notice that solution-oriented calls will take longer time. A customer support manager needs to understand that conversational support with a personalized touch will always win as compared to running behind numbers. This is exactly what you need to translate into your KPIs.
Best Customer Support KPIs to Track
Now that you know the importance of KPIs, it is time to see how you can pay special attention to details while setting KPIs for your team. As a manager, you cannot lose the bigger picture; your focus should be on the metrics that are influencing your customer service. There are so many different metrics however, adding all the metrics might become messy.
The choice of the KPIs should be based on the industry and the services you are offering. Quality, speed, or satisfaction are considered the core, so most of the KPIs measure them either directly or indirectly. Here are some of the most effective KPIs that you need to know as a customer support supervisor:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): The response or the feedback of the customers about the product or the service that is offered by the company.
- Time to Close Conversation: The time it took for the agent to complete a call while ensuring that the quality is maintained and the solution is offered.
- Average Resolution Time: The time consumed by the agent to resolve the issue that was assigned via ticket and the speed of resolving these issues
- First Contact Resolution Rate: The number of customers who were able to get a solution from the first agent after the contact was established.
- Total Conversations: The number of calls attended by each agent and how many conversations were completed
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Scores: The solution-oriented conversation and the response of the customer. It mainly measures the success of the call.
- First Response Time: The speed of the agent for attending the call without any delay
- Subsequent Response Time: The time taken by the agent in responding and resolving the issue right after the issue was registered
- Abandoned Conversations: The rate of leaving the conversations without any conclusion or solution.
- Employee Engagement: The emotional attachment that the agent shows while completing a conversation, staying happy and enthusiastic is a must.
Since most of these, Metrix measure the quality and speed, you have to figure out an easy way to filter out the metrics that suit your business best. Using all these things collectively might make the process messy and worse; it might overlap, consuming a lot of time and effort without any results.
Setting Meaningful Metrix Combination for Setting Holistic KPIs
For meaningful KPIs, your focus needs to be fixed on the business you are running. Your goal should be to come up with the combination that perfectly complements the business and helps your measure the progress.
The goal should be to focus on any Metrix that can help you measure speed, quality, and satisfaction. Most of these things will be covered within the Metrix mentioned above. However, you also need to keep the Metrix as less as possible so there is no overlap. In an ideal situation, just three Metrix will be enough. A simple combination to consider will consist of the Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Scores, Time to Close Conversation, andFirst Contact Resolution Rate. This will cover all the basics including the speed of handling the call without disrupting the quality and quantity.
Wrap Up
Your meaningful KPIs will be different based on the business. However, as a supervisor, it is important to focus on the personalization of the call, which will boost the quality and helps with customer satisfaction. As a manager, your goal should be to keep the number of Metrix as minimum as possible with a more holistic approach while calculating the performance.
