Operations and their KPIs

After you’ve designed your process, set up the right triggers, broken down the work into clear actions, and documented everything, your job isn’t done yet. Now it’s time to focus on monitoring.

In operations, there are as many metrics as there are processes, and knowing which ones to track is key to making sure everything runs smoothly.

Operations is part of the customer experience

When looking at company-wide KPIs, operations must be reflected in them.

For example, a company’s NPS, a most common customer satisfaction KPI, can reflect the quality of their support team, and the activation rate may reveal how efficiently new customers are onboarded, for example if there’s a screening process before onboarding.

That's why we say: operations are part of the customer experience.

But operations have their dedicated KPIs as well.

Completion rate

This tells you how many tasks are successfully completed versus how many get stuck or dropped. A high completion rate means your process is running as it should, while a low rate might signal bottlenecks or inefficiencies.

Example: In a bakery, it’s how many batches of croissants are completed and ready for sale each day. In tech support, it’s the percentage of tickets resolved by the end of the shift.

Lead time

Measures how long it takes to complete a task from start to finish. Shorter lead times usually mean a more efficient process, but it’s also important to ensure quality isn’t compromised in the rush to be faster.

Example: In tech support, it’s the time from when a ticket is opened to when it’s resolved. In a bakery, it’s the time from mixing the dough to having fresh croissants ready for sale.

This KPI can go by different names (lead time, handling time, processing time) each with a slightly different focus:

• Lead time: The total time from when the process is triggered to when it’s completed, including all waiting, handling, and processing stages.
• Handling time: The period when an operator is responsible for the task, including both active work and any pauses or idle times.
• Processing time: The time spent actively working on the task, excluding any idle or waiting periods, such as during escalations or setup delays.

Error rate

Tracks how often mistakes or defects occur. A lower error rate means better quality and fewer issues to fix later.

Example: How often croissants are underbaked or overbaked, or how many tech support tickets are reopened because the issue wasn’t fully resolved.

Cost per Unit

This KPI helps you see the cost associated with completing each task or unit. Lower costs generally indicate a more streamlined process, but you need to make sure cost-cutting doesn’t affect quality.

Example: Monitoring how much it costs to make each batch of croissants, including ingredients, labor, and overhead.

Output volume

Measures how much product or work is completed in a given period. This helps assess productivity and capacity.

Example: The number of croissants baked in a morning or the number of tickets resolved in an hour.

As an Operations Manager, you’ll find yourself looking at a mix of different metrics, depending on what you need to uncover. For example, if you want to check if the escalation process is working efficiently, you might look at false positives (tasks that were escalated but didn’t need to be) or track the lead time after escalation (how quickly the new team picks up a ticket once it’s been escalated).

Improving processes

Once your monitoring is in place, it’s time to focus on making your processes even better. The company’s big-picture goals will usually guide where you start—whether it’s cutting down costs, speeding things up, or boosting overall quality.

There are a few tried-and-true approaches to process improvement, like Six Sigma, Lean, and Kaizen. We won’t dive too deep into the details, but here’s a quick overview:

• Six Sigma
  This method is all about minimizing defects and creating consistency. It’s data-driven, using stats and analysis to spot where things are going wrong and fix them, with the goal of making everything run as smoothly and error-free as possible.
• Lean
  Lean focuses on eliminating waste. That means cutting out any unnecessary steps, materials, or actions that don’t add value. It’s all about streamlining processes to make them simpler, faster, and more efficient.
• Kaizen
  Kaizen is the idea of continuous, small improvements. Instead of big, sweeping changes, it’s about finding little ways to improve things every day. Over time, those small tweaks can lead to major progress.

At their core, these techniques are all about getting insights and acting on them. Insights can come from data (the monitoring you just set up is a great starting point), but they can also come from feedback loops with your team, regular check-ins, or even just paying attention to patterns over time. The more you understand where the process can be improved, the more effectively you can make changes that stick.

Why does it matter?

Monitoring isn’t a “set it and forget it” kind of thing—it’s an ongoing process. By keeping a close eye on how things are running, you can catch issues early, find opportunities for improvement, and adapt to changes before they become problems.

The key is to set up regular reviews, track the right KPIs, and stay open to feedback. Processes are rarely perfect on the first try, and that’s okay. The goal is to keep refining and tweaking so that everything gets a little bit better, a little bit faster, and a lot more efficient over time.

Curious to learn more? Download this free ebook and learn everything you need to know about customer operations.