Key Customer Service Metrics to Track and Improve

Being responsible for customer service, it can be overwhelming to choose the right metrics to measure team's performance. With so many options, it's hard to know which ones matter and how to evaluate them. You might wonder if you're tracking the right metrics, and how to ensure that you're not just collecting data but actually making improvements.

In this blog post, we’ll share insights on key customer service metrics like Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), and First Response Time (FRT), along with practical tips on how to measure and improve them. We'll also have a look at other metrics that are useful to track and improve if your team has enough resources to do that.

Table of contents:

1. Types of customer service metrics to track and improve
2. Top 5 customer service metrics to track

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
• Customer Effort Score (CES)
• First Response Time (FRT)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Customer Churn

3. Other useful customer service metrics to keep an eye on

• Escalation Rate
• First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR)
• Overall Resolution Rate (ORR)
• Ticket backlog
• Average handle time (AHT)

4. Summary

Types of customer service metrics to measure and improve

In this article, we talk about two types of customer service metrics and it's important to understand the differences between them.

Immediate customer service metrics, like Customer Satisfaction Score and First Response Time, show how well the customer service team is handling inquiries. They help track daily operations for efficient customer interactions. On the other hand, long-term business health metrics, like NPS or customer churn, measure customer loyalty and retention, showing how customer service affects business success. Balancing both types improves immediate experiences and fosters long-term relationships for growth.

Top 5 customer service metrics to track

If your goal is to focus on the most essential metrics before taking a look into the other ones, we recommend measuring and improving the following:

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
• Customer Effort Score (CES)
• First Response Time (FRT)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Customer Churn

Let's have a closer look at each of them.

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

CSAT measures how satisfied customers are with the customer service or support they have received. It tells you whether your team is effective, friendly, and helpful. CSAT is a widely used metric because it's easy to gather, measure, and analyze.

How to Measure CSAT

It’s typically gathered through post-service surveys where customers rate their satisfaction on a scale of five- or ten-points. You may ask a simple question like How satisfied are you with [support/service/experience]? and give a scale like:

• Very dissatisfied
• Dissatisfied
• Neutral
• Satisfied
• Very satisfied.

The most common formula for CSAT is:

The sum of all scores / total # of responses x 100 = % of satisfied customers.

How to Improve CSAT

To improve CSAT, provide consistent and high-quality service. Empower your team with better tools, such as AI-powered knowledge bases, easy preview of up-to-date customer data or effective workflows to resolve issues faster—after all, solving issues rapidly makes every customer happy.

Forest Assist is a proven solution to improve CSAT. By giving support reps access to more customer details and actions directly within the ticketing system, it allows them to resolve issues faster and with more accuracy.

Regular training, faster response times, and listening to customer feedback can also help improve satisfaction scores.

What is a good CSAT

Many industries consider a CSAT score between 75 and 85 percent as good, and a score above 90 percent as excellent. However, the average metrics don't fit every industry and product - for some it's harder by default to meet their customers' expectations. What is important is to make sure this metric goes up until it reaches the goal set, and doesn't deteriorate.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures the effort a customer has to put into resolving an issue or completing a task. The lower the better, obviously, and according to Customer Contact Council (quoted by the Harvard Business Review), reducing the amount of effort a customer has to put in to get their problem solved is a high indicator of customer loyalty.

How to Measure CES

After a single interaction with support, customers receive a short survey where they're asked how easy it was to get their problem resolved, often on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 7. The survey can appear on the website or be emailed to the customer. The CES is calculated by averaging the responses, with lower scores indicating less effort:

Sum of CES scores / # of responses = CES

How to Improve CES

Reducing friction in the customer journey is key to improving CES. The first thing you should look into is providing multiple contact channels - phone, email, WhatsApp, Messenger - just to name a few. Providing efficient self-service option is also a good idea, as many customers prefer to solve issues themselves whenever possible. Finally, give your agents access to the relevant customer data so that they don't have to request information that has already been provided. It's possible e.g. with Forest Assist, a Chrome extension that opens a side panel with customer data and business workflows next to the ticketing system.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS shows how likely customers are to recommend your product or service. It's a customer success framework used by two-thirds of Fortune 1000 companies. At first glance, NPS may look like CSAT but there is one fundamental difference between them: CSAT measures customer satisfaction with a product or service, while NPS looks at the overall relationship with the organization. It's important to monitor both—CSAT shows real-time short-term customer satisfaction, while NPS is a long-term game.

How to Measure NPS

Customers are asked how likely they are to recommend a product or a service on a scale from 0 to 10. Scores are grouped into Promoters (9-10), Passives (7-8), and Detractors (0-6). The NPS formula is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.

Total % of promoters – total % of detractors = Net Promoter Score

How to Improve NPS

To improve your NPS, focus on enhancing the customer experience with your product or service. The NPS survey usually appears on the website after a certain time of use, regardless of recent customer service interactions. Happy customers give high scores when the NPS popup shows up. The survey should let users leave comments, and acting on this feedback can help improve NPS over time. Lastly, address common complaints from detractors to resolve their issues.

What is a good NPS

Any score above 0 is considered as good, but you should aim for more. NPS above 50 is excellent and above 80 is world class.

First Response Time (FRT)

First response time shows how fast your team replies to a customer's first question. Some companies set a standard FRT in their service level agreements (SLA), meaning they must reply within a certain time. First Response Time is linked to Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) because customers are unhappy when they have to wait for their issues to be resolved.

How to Measure FRT

First response time is usually measured from when a ticket is created to when the first reply is sent. Unless you offer 24/7 support, average FRT should be measured during business hours to avoid being affected by tickets opened at night, on weekends, and during holidays. After excluding data outside business hours and automated replies, you can calculate First Response Time using this FRT formula:

Sum of First Response Times / Number of Tickets = Average First Response Time

How to Improve FRT

To lower First Response Time, set a clear and realistic goal that matches your Service Level Agreement (SLA). Use templates for common questions and offer support through multiple channels, so customers can contact you in their preferred way—like using WhatsApp instead of your website chat. Make sure your team is well-staffed during busy times. Also, prioritize urgent tickets to speed up responses for critical issues.

Customer churn

Customer churn, also called customer turnover, is a critical (and sometimes scary) metric that directly affects your business’s bottom line. If customers are leaving, it’s a sign that something isn’t working—whether it’s the product, service, or the support experience.

How to Measure Customer Churn

Customer churn is the percentage of customers who leave your company over a certain time. It is calculated by dividing the number of lost customers by the number of customers at the start, then multiplying by 100.

Lost Customers / Total Customers at the Start of Time Period x 100 = Churn Rate

How to Improve Customer Churn

To reduce churn, identify why customers are leaving, which can be the result of a poor product-customer fit, inadequate customer service, pricing misalignment, active competition, or many other reasons. This can be done through exit surveys or by monitoring recurring complaints. Then proactively address the issues raised by your former customers. Offering incentives like loyalty programs or personalized offers tends to keep customers engaged, but don't forget about proactive customer engagement, especially with at-risk customers. It is crucial for reducing churn.

What is an ideal churn rate

The ideal benchmark for churn rate is often stated as 5-7% but it highly depends on the industry, services provided and customers served.Typically, you can expect more churn from smaller customers, as migrating to another tool is often more cumbersome for bigger ones.

Other useful customer service metrics to keep an eye on

Aside from the 5 crucial customer service metrics that every customer service manager should follow, there are other metrics that are useful to monitor for a well-rounded customer service strategy:

• Escalation Rate
• First Contact Resolution Rate
• Overall Resolution Rate
• Ticket backlog
• Average handle time

Escalation rate

Imagine a customer calls support because they can't log into their account. The first-level support representative asks the necessary questions and follows the troubleshooting steps, but the issue continues. A second-level support person needs to step in to fix a technical problem. This is called escalation; the Escalation Rate is the percentage of support tickets that are escalated to a higher support level. Sometimes this is needed for complex issues, but it can also indicate problems with first-level support or the product itself.

How to Measure Escalation Rate

Escalation is calculated by dividing the number of escalated tickets by the total number of tickets, then multiplying by 100.

# support tickets escalated from first level / total # of support tickets = Escalation Rate

How to Improve Escalation Rate

To lower escalation rates, provide more training for first-level representatives so they can solve complex issues themselves. Also, ensure that common technical problems are fixed well to reduce the need for higher-level support.

What is good Escalation Rate

There is no single industry standard, as the escalation rate varies depending on the industry, complexity of the product or service, the customer expectations, and many other factors. Ideally, you should keep it below 10%.

First Contact Resolution Rate

First Contact Resolution Rate measures the percentage of customer tickets resolved on the first interaction, without follow-ups.

How to Measure FCR

FCR is calculated by dividing the number of queries resolved on the first contact by the total number of contacts. It is important to define 'tickets' resolved first. For example, in Zendesk or other ticketing systems, a ticket resolved means flagged as such by the ticket owner. Here is the formula:

# issues resolved on first contact / # issues X 100 = FCR

How to Improve FCR

Equip support representatives with the right tools and training so that they are able to resolve issues on the first intervention. Additionally, implementing more self-service options can help address simple issues before they even reach the support team.

What is a good FCR

The industry standard for a good First Contact Resolution Rate is between 70% and 80%.

Overall Resolution Rate

This metric shows the percentage of customer issues that are completely resolved. The resolution rate ranks support agents based on their efficiency in solving issues. Understanding the overall resolution rate helps you see if you’re meeting your service level agreement (SLA).

How to Measure ORR

It’s calculated by dividing the number of resolved cases by the total number of cases within a given time frame, and multiplying by 100. The overall resolution rate formula looks like this:

solved tickets / received tickets x 100 = Overall Resolution Rate

How to Improve ORR

To improve your resolution rate, regularly check unresolved tickets to find patterns and causes, and take preventive steps. Consider adding self-service options like tutorials and knowledge bases. Also, routing tickets can help if one support agent is stuck. Automating ticket queues, like Forest Admin Inbox, makes it easier.

What is a good overall resolution rate

In most industries, a resolution rate of 80% or higher is considered good, while 70% and below indicates that the team and support systems need improvement.

Ticket backlog

Ticket backlog is the number of unresolved tickets in the queue over a specific time period. It is an effective way to determine the efficiency of your customer support process and team. Although there are many reasons for the significant backlog, acknowledging its existence is the first step to improving customer loyalty.

How to Measure: Ticket backlog can be tracked by counting the number of open tickets at the end of each day, week, or month.

sum of unresolved tickets open longer than (the number of) days = Ticket Backlog

How to Improve: Reducing ticket backlog requires optimizing team efficiency and balancing workloads effectively. Assign the right agents to tickets based on complexity and ensure proper prioritization of urgent cases. Implementing better workflows, automation for routine tasks, and proactive support practices (like anticipating customer issues) can also reduce the number of tickets that pile up.

What is a good ticket backlog

There is no single industry standard. The smaller the backlog, the better, and it shouldn't be acceptable to have tickets unresolved for more than 30 days. However, you should group tickets based on their urgency and importance, and set a goal for each group.

Average Handle Time

AHT is a complementary metric to Average Resolution Time (ART). That's because both measure the time it takes to handle the ticket; however, ART focuses on the time when agents work on the ticket only, while AHT also measures the time spent on waiting, hold, and follow-ups. It is typically measured by call centers.

How to Measure AHT

AHT is calculated by adding total talk time, hold time, and follow-up time, then dividing by the number of tickets handled.

total talk time + total hold time + total wrap time / number of inquiries handles = AHT

How to Improve AHT

To reduce AHT it is essential to provide agents with quick access to customer information, and efficient tools to manage tickets. It significantly reduces the time the customer has to wait until the rep finds the right information and solve the issue. Ideally, they should have access to the the ticketing system, up-to-date customer data and business workflows on one screen. It is possible with tools like Forest Assist.

What is a good AHT

Generally, in AHT below six minutes is considered as good, but it can be different for every organisation. You should strive on improving your AHT instead of comparing it with the others.

Summary

We’ve explored the most important customer service metrics that can help you track and improve both immediate performance and long-term business health. Metrics like Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and First Contact Resolution (FCR) provide real-time feedback on how well your team is resolving issues, while long-term indicators like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Churn offer insights into customer loyalty and retention. We hope that understanding these metrics and getting to know industry benchmarks will help you improve the KPIs of your team.

However, when analyzing possible ways of improving all these metrics, we've realized they have one thing in common. Even the most efficient and skilled support representatives won't achieve their best when they struggle with the tools they use. The most common bottleneck is the constant tool switching and searching for relevant data. We have fixed this issue with Forest Assist.

Forest Assist is a Chrome extension that opens a side panel next to the ticketing system. With all relevant data and actions available on one screen, support operators can handle requests without switching tabs, which makes their work much faster and productive.