21/10/2017 14 Key Performance Indicators to Measure Customer Service

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Mar 5, 2015 by Amanda Stillwagon In Management 17

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How do you know if your customer service is living up to customer expectations?

The answer is in KPIs, or key performance indicators.

There are plenty of different KPIs you can use to measure customer service and the
success of your business’s customer service strategy. Different ones will make
more sense for different types of businesses. Below is a list of different KPIs your
business might consider using to measure customer service.

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One way to measure customer service is to track changes in customer satisfaction

over time. If, for example, satisfaction has gone down over the last couple of years,
then you’ll know a change is likely in order. But if it’s improving, or if you’ve already
achieved high levels of customer satisfaction and they’re staying constant, then
you’ll know you’re on the right track.

Customer Retention

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21/10/2017 14 Key Performance Indicators to Measure Customer Service

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Promoter Score, or rate of people who would recommend your business to others,
can be a good indication of where your customer service stands and another way
to measure customer service. POLL

Conversion Rate What’s Your #1 Reason to Attend

Business Conferences?
After someone from your customer service team interacts with a customer, how To learn new things and/or
likely are they to make a purchase or take some other kind of action? If your hone skills
customer service is good, this number should be fairly high.
To keep up to date on industry
developments
Compared to Competitors To meet peers and industry
insiders
Even customers who like your brand might not choose you over your competitors
for every single interaction or purchase. So while general satisfaction and customer To speak or exhibit at events
retention are good metrics to measure service, it’s still important to see how your To discover new products and
company stacks up against competitors. services
To hear a celebrity or famous
Average Resolution Time person speak
It’s a trip out of the office - fun
Part of providing great customer service is resolving issues in a timely manner. If or interesting
you can respond to customers and get them answers quickly, they’re more likely to
To combine it with a family
be pleased with the experience. So, if you’re able to keep that resolution time vacation
relatively low, that could be an indication of good customer service and yet another
My boss urges me to go
way to measure customer service.
To get cool SWAG
Active Issues Some other reason

Vote
If you are able to resolve most issues fairly quickly, then you shouldn’t have too
many issues to deal with at any one time. And if you do, then it could indicate that View Results / See All Polls
your customers have a higher-than-usual volume of complaints.

Resolved Issues
You can also look at all of the issues that your customer service team has resolved
to get an idea of your customer service. No matter how great your company, there
are bound to be issues and complaints. But if you’re able to solve them quickly and
in a way that makes your customers happy, that’s an indication of good service.

Employee Productivity
Different types of businesses use different methods to measure employee
productivity. But it’s an important factor when it comes to customer service. If you
want customer issues to be resolved in a timely manner, employees need to do
their jobs effectively.

Employee Retention/Employee Turnover

When your employees are happy, they tend to stick around. And when you are able
to keep employees around for long periods of time, they’re more likely to feel
comfortable and empowered in their jobs. This means they’re also likely to provide
service that lives up to your standards.

Brand Attributes
MARKETING MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY FINANCE ADVICE RESOURCES

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21/10/2017 14 Key Performance Indicators to Measure Customer Service

How do customers view your company overall? What words would they use to
describe your brand? And how do their opinions line up with your expectations? By
obtaining this sort of feedback from customers, you can measure customer
service and get a pretty good indication of where you stand in your customers’
eyes. And you’ll know what qualities you might need to work on to get
customers to see your brand in that particular light.

Complaint Escalation Rate

No matter how great your service is, you’re going to get complaints at some point.
But if you reach a point where you’re receiving an unusually large number of
complaints, or your complaints have been steadily increasing without overall
customer growth, there could be a problem. Keep an eye on how those numbers
change over time. This could also tie in to the number of resolved issues, if you’re
tracking that, as well.

Cash Flow
Cash flow can be a great performance indicator for many different business
factors. Customer service is such an important factor that it can have a really big
impact on your bottom line. If your service is bad, it could drive customers away,
decrease referrals and cause potential customers not to complete purchases. But if
it’s good, customers are likely to come back, tell their friends and have a big impact
on your company’s overall profits.

Customer Service Photo via Shutterstock

More in: QuestionPro

17 Comments ▼

AMANDA STILLWAGON

As Chief Marketer for Small Business Trends, Amanda oversees online marketing,
email marketing and social media marketing for the Small Business Trends group of
sites.
Staff

17 Reactions

Aira Bongco
March 6, 2015 at 12:44 am

Really nice way to measure customer service. However, I wonder how you are going to
measure all of these factors on an everyday basis. It’s hard when you’re actually doing the
work.
Reply

Muhammad Haris Zohaib

April 8, 2015 at 1:26 pm

Trust me its not as difficult as it might appear to keep a track of most of the factors
listed above by the author. From exception reports to hourly auto-generated MIS
reports, there are countless tools to go with.
Reply

Lesley Ireland
July 3, 2015 at 2:28 am

Hi please can you explain what an MIS report is?

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21/10/2017 14 Key Performance Indicators to Measure Customer Service

Muhammad Haris Zohaib

December 5, 2015 at 8:06 pm

Hi Lesley,

First off, so sorry for replying so late.

Management information system, or MIS, broadly refers to a computer-based

system that provides managers with the tools to organize, evaluate and
efficiently manage departments within an organization. MIS reports are simply
customized reports that highlight areas which are doing well or need
improvement.

Hope that answers your query.

For further information or in case you need a report as an example, please

feel free to contact me on hzm.akbani[at]live.com

Regards,

Haris

Martin Lindeskog
March 7, 2015 at 4:11 am

Do you think the most companies are covering all these KPIs?
Reply

Mwansa
June 27, 2015 at 6:08 am

I don’t think so. Most companies focus on sales as a measurement of success. They
don’t really care for anything else.
Reply

Everto
March 11, 2015 at 6:16 am

Keep it simple! Your company should measure kpi’s who will increase value for the customer.
For sure, some of that listed in this article can help your business.
Reply

Jennifer Epstein
April 24, 2015 at 11:07 am

Great article! If I had to pick the top metric to measure (since we can’t measure ALL of them
continuously), it’ll have to be the NPS. It’s been proven time and again that the net promoter
score is a powerful metric in understanding customer satisfaction. Only challenge is that
sometimes, you can have great NPS scores, but the business could be losing money. So it’s
always great to have a link to the relevant commercial metrics as well
Reply

abo
May 26, 2015 at 10:45 am

can any one recommend the best tool to generate reports to measure those KPIs ?

Thanks
Reply

Cheryl Jackson-Colleli
October 13, 2015 at 11:26 am

Very informative.
Reply

Cheryl Jackson-Colleli
October 13, 2015 at 11:28 am

Very helpful article.

R l
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21/10/2017 14 Key Performance Indicators to Measure Customer Service
Reply

asim
August 25, 2016 at 7:43 am

what type of service indicators should we use

Reply

Abeer Hamza
February 23, 2017 at 12:08 pm

Hi would you please provide me the excel templates of Customer service/customer satisfaction
KPI
Reply

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