You don’t need an MBA to know that good customer service is key to running a successful business. Happy customers usually result in repeat business, which often translates into higher sales. Conversely, dissatisfied ones decrease sales, ruin your company’s reputation, and stop your business from getting off the ground.
Hence, many small businesses often outsource their customer support. It does make sense, considering that Filipino customer support are known for their work ethic and hospitality, an often unbeatable combination when it comes to this field.
Plus, the strength of the AU dollar means you can hire a remote customer service team at a better price….while still paying them a livable wage in their country.
But while good customer service is all about people skills, you still need to apply quantitative measures here. You can’t improve what you can’t measure, after all.
So, here are ten customer service key productivity indicators (KPI’s) to gauge how your remote customer service team is doing:
1. First Contact Resolution.
This Measures What?
The best-case scenario in customer service is to resolve the customer’s concerns at the first call. This is what First Contact Resolution (FCR) measures: how many customers resolved their concerns on the first phone call to your support staff.
Generally, the higher this metric is, the more satisfied customers are. Customer support staff with high FCR scores also tend to be great at understanding exactly what the customer needs and pinpointing the right solution on the spot.
What Can I Do About It?
A low FCR could mean that customers bounce between agents. This indicates that the staff are unable to identify the issue and solve the issue properly.
Obviously, you don’t want that. So, you can listen to call recordings and identify why your staff struggle. Then, you can arrange for better or additional training to address the issue, whether it’s communication skills or problem-solving. Live chat scripts can also help your staff perform better.
2. Average Resolution Time.
This Measures What?
This refers to the total time it takes your team to resolve a support ticket. You can measure this in days or online hours. Simply divide the sum of all resolution times by the total number of resolved tickets.
The lower the resolution time, the higher your customer satisfaction levels are. This means your team is able to provide solutions quickly.
What Can I Do About It?
Higher resolution times could point to either a lack of staffing or training. It might take your team longer to resolve tickets if they’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of such. If this is the case, you might want to consider hiring more people.
However, if that’s not the problem, your staff might need better training. Or you could simply hire better skilled and more experienced customer service staff to replace underperforming ones.
3. First Response Time.
This Measures What?
Average first response time (FRT) measures the time between a customer opening up a chat on your website or social media account and an agent responding.
What Can I Do About It?
Obviously, you want someone on your team to respond ASAP whenever a customer messages the page. Good FRT scores mean that your team is enthusiastic about attending to customers. They also imply that your team is prompt at addressing issues.
However, a less than satisfactory FRT score could also mean that you don’t have enough people. If your company website or social media account gets thousands of inquiries a day, you probably need a bigger team.
Lastly, chatbots can improve an FRT score and lessen the need for human intervention too. Just make sure they address common queries and provide helpful solutions.
4. Customer Retention Rate.
This Measures What?
As the name suggests, this metric is all about the number of return customers. It’s important because most of the time, 80% of your business’ profits come from 20% of your customers. And these customers are usually existing ones.
Related read: 5 Useful Tips for Outstanding Customer Service for Small Businesses
It’s also much easier to convert existing customers than new ones. While acquiring the latter is important for your brand image and recognition, retaining the former means you are able to cultivate trust and loyalty in your customer base.
What Can I Do About It?
Customer satisfaction scores and brand image are good indicators of this metric. They can also tell you about what you need to work on if they’re less than satisfactory.
If you find that there are less customers sticking around, have a look at either metric and do a deep dive to identify issues and resolve them.
5. Cost Per Conversation.
This Measures What?
In a nutshell, this is how much it costs you to provide customer service. To calculate this, add up your total support costs and divide that figure by the number of customer issues resolved.
By the way, total support costs typically include salaries for the customer support staff, infrastructure costs, as well as training and management costs.
What Can I Do About It?
If the resulting percentage is unreasonably high, determine the reasons behind it. Did you hire too many people for the number of calls you get each day? Is your staff turnover high, thus resulting in high training costs?
You can then come up with key strategies to address the real issue.
6. Customer Effort Score.
This Measures What?
How easy was it for your customer to get in touch with you? Did they find it easy to arrive at a solution with your staff’s assistance?
Granted, this metric is slightly more qualitative since you get it by asking your customer to rate their experience (e.g., on a scale of “very easy” to “very difficult”) at the end of the call. On the other hand, it’s important because it also indicates customer satisfaction.
What Can I Do About It?
An undesirable customer effort score means that your customers find it hard to either get in touch or to solve a problem. You need to identify what the issue actually is, and then look deeper into what’s causing it.
Are they having difficulty reaching you through certain channels like instant messaging or email? Do your agents take too long to respond? Or does it look like your staff need further training and scripts to arrive at a solution in good time?
7. Net Promoter Score (NPS).
This Measures What?
It answers a key question you should be posing your customers. “How likely are you to recommend this brand to others?” The gauge usually runs from 1 (Not Likely) to 10 (Highly Likely).
You can then categorize your customer responses into three categories:
- Detractors (0-6) – Unhappy customers that are more likely to spread negative word of mouth feedback
- Passives (7-8) – Satisfied customers that are still vulnerable to competitive offers and deals
- Promoters (9-10) – Loyal customers who will keep buying from you and referring your products and services to others
What Can I Do About It?
Though it’s not strictly a customer service metric, NPS is also often tied to your business growth. The more loyal customers you have, the faster your business will be able to expand.
Thus, you can train your staff to get more info about your customers’ NPS. You can prepare a script to prompt the customers for the reasons behind their ratings and then analyse the data afterwards.
8. Average Conversion Rate.
This Measures What?
This refers to the number of customers that are able to successfully complete their actions on your website. The higher this number is, the more effective your campaigns tend to be.
Good customer service is crucial here. Promptly answering customer inquiries can mean the difference between a sale and a bounce.
What Can I Do About It?
Analyse the data and see what helps customers complete their actions on your website, as well as what stops them from doing so. Are your communication channels easy to find and access? Do your staff respond quickly enough?
You can then use the data to engage your customers more effectively to improve this metric.
9. Abandoned Call Rates.
This Measures What?
Long wait times are one reason why customers abandon their calls. When they do, they’re more likely to go over to your competitor. It’s also extremely difficult to get them back once that happens.
Basically, abandoned call rates measure how often this occurs.
What Can I Do About It?
If this number is low, your company is in good shape. Otherwise, check call recordings to see what’s holding your agents up.
Again, it could also indicate a lack of staff. Thus, you should always check if you have enough hands on deck to deal with the daily volume of calls.
10. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).
This Measures What?
This is perhaps the ultimate metric for your remote customer service team’s performance. Because what’s the point of scoring high on all the other metrics if customers are left unsatisfied, right?
Examples of CSAT questions are:
- On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with ________?
- Were you satisfied with our product or service?
- How would you rate your satisfaction with our product or service?
To get your net CSAT, divide the number of satisfied customers with the total number of customers surveyed. Multiply the result by 100 to get the percentage.
What Can I Do About It?
The higher the CSAT score, the better your customer satisfaction levels are. Gather both qualitative and quantitative feedback on this front. They’ll tell you which areas are functioning well, and which gaps need improvement.
If you’re still in the process of building your remote customer service team, here are some tips that can help.
Or you could simply give us a call. Remote Staff has more than a decade of experience in recruiting and onboarding top Filipino remote talent. Our rich talent pool has helped many Australian small businesses grow by providing them with the best customer service staff out there.
Click here to ring us up or here to schedule a callback today.
Serena has been working remotely and writing content for the better part of the last decade. To date, she's written for Pepper.ph and Mabuhay Magazine, among others, and has churned out more than a thousand articles on everything from The Basics of Stock Market Investing to How to Make Milk Tea-Flavored Taho at home. Hermits, aspiring hermits, and non-hermits with interesting project propositions may email her at serena.estrella10@gmail.com.
