Cost of customer service

The cost of customer service is a financial metric that can be divided into two types:

• hourly cost: which must also include overtime, benefits and charges when calculated for teams of employees.
• total cost per service: the total cost of the period (day, week, month or year) divided by the total service at that specific period of time.

These KPIs are widely used as a criterion for comparison, considering that there are several solutions to deliver the service, from outsourcing to the implementation of virtual agents, such as chat and voicebots.

Abandonment rate

The abandonment rate indicates the percentage of people who drop out of the contact center calls while waiting for customer service. To calculate it, just divide the total number of dropouts by the total number of calls and then multiply the result by 100.

This is one of the most important KPIs, as it reveals points that need immediate improvement. If your calls are not being completed, certainly your customers are not only having trouble solving problems with your company, but they are also irritated by this situation.

The dropout rate, however, can be linked to several different factors and, therefore, other metrics need to be analysed to understand what can be done to lower it as much as possible.

FCR (FIRST Call RESOLUTION)

The FCR rate assesses the percentage of calls that are resolved in the first contact. It is, therefore, an efficiency KPI directly related to your company’s ability to identify the most recurring problems of your audience or your customers and offer quick solutions.

Its result is obtained from the difference between the total number of contacts resolved in the first call by the total number of contacts made, times 100.

Naturally, the faster the demands are resolved, the greater the customers satisfaction. Time is just as valuable as money, so any metric aimed at gaining agility in the different stages of the purchase process is highly appreciated by consumers in general.

TME (AVERAGE WAITING TIME)

If a long service time is stressful, a long waiting time is even worse. This is one of the main complaints of consumers of large companies that depend on call centers. The famous electronic songs played during the waiting calls have already gained space even in comedic scenes from successful series and films.

We have the TME by dividing the total (sum) of all waiting times by the number of completed calls. Its result allows us to estimate the efficiency of the team and the digital support solution, including pointing out the need to invest in training or expansion.

As you can see, service indicators are closely related. A small problem at the beginning or in conducting a contact can increase the waiting time for others and affect the quality of everyone’s experience.

TMA (AVERAGE SERVICE TIME)

Following the same direction as FCR and TME, TMA is used to identify the average time that has been required for your service to be performed. The TMA is the result of dividing the total and uninterrupted time of all calls by the number of contacts received.

However, this KPI needs to be used with caution. While it is always desirable to provide agile service, your strategy needs to be based not only on the customer’s solution, but also on delivering the right experience. This means that there is no point in solving the problem quickly if the impression generated by this call is impatience, neglect, or any other negative feeling. Whether performed by a human agent or carried out by a chat- or voice-bot, it is essential that your service is adapted to the rhythm and demands of your audience.

NPS (NET PROMOTER SCORE)

NPS is a methodology that aims to identify the contentment and loyalty of a company’s customers. It is one of the most used service and Customer Success KPIs in the world and its application is relatively simple.

In practice, it is a kind of a satisfaction survey in which a single question is asked: on a scale of 0 to 10, how much are you willing to recommend our company to a family member or friend?

When presented at the right time, the simple and incisive character of the question favors the honesty of the respondents, and their answers are classified into three groups:

• 0 to 6 (detractors): it does not necessarily mean that these people do not like your product or service, but it certainly indicates that they expect more from them.
• 7 and 8 (neutral): these are those who probably had their problem solved but did not have such a satisfactory experience.
• 9 and 10 (promoters): these are the ones who felt very well looked after, either by the product or by the experience provided, and are willing to promote their brand.

This type of analysis, as well as all others presented throughout the article, is usually performed with the help of software that is also able to organize this data and indicate the best actions to be taken by managers.

Strict monitoring of these metrics is one of the safest ways to evolve your service strategy and, consequently, increase customer retention and satisfaction. However, this is just the beginning. It is very important to optimize your internal processes, and technology can also play a key role in this regard.

Interactive Media is an expert company in the development, implementation, and improvement of virtual conversational agents. In addition to improving the experience of your customers and improving its service KPIs, the Interactive Media virtual conversational agents also benefits your employees by freeing them from exhausting and repetitive tasks and concentrate on really improving the customer experience for the benefit of your customers, and your company.