
Many people don’t understand the importance of customer service metrics. Consider that 78% of customers will do business with you again after a mistake if you have excellent customer service.
Unfortunately, while most companies obsessively track sales and marketing numbers, they completely overlook customer service metrics—and miss out on the insights they can learn about customer service, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty.
The main challenge is knowing which metrics to track. So, to help you out, we talked to leading customer service experts to discover what metrics they track and why.
Here are the 15 most important customer service metrics:
1. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) is a popular key performance indicator that enables you to track how satisfied your customers are with your products and services.
You can conduct surveys with multiple-choice questions and allow people to rate different aspects of your products, services, and customer support. As far as customer service metrics go, CSATs are perhaps the most important one to track.
How to calculate it:
Send a survey to your customers asking them to rate their experience on a number scale (such as 1-10).
Then, to calculate the average CSAT, you can use the following formula:
Average CSAT = total combined value of all CSAT ratings / # of customer ratings
What it tells you:
The CSAT tells you how happy customers are with your company. It also provides some insight into what you could do better. For instance, if you receive a six or lower CSAT from a customer, you can ask additional questions to identify specific issues to address.
Be sure to focus on the aspects of customer service that your team can control. For example, you may receive negative feedback because of pricing or something out of your hands, like an unreasonable request to change something. Don’t take this personally. Simply move on to other feedback that is actionable.
2. Ticket Volume
Ticket volume is the number of open customer requests, cases, or inquiries in your support inbox. As it’s one of the critical customer service support metrics, ticket volume should be visible on your customer service dashboard at all times.
How to calculate it:
You can calculate your current ticket volume by logging into the software you use to track support tickets. It can also be helpful to calculate ticket volumes over specific periods to derive an average.
What it tells you:
By performing data analysis on your ticket volume, you can identify trends and may be able to predict spikes in customer inquiries. For instance, you might project more queries in the run-up to a new product launch or during a seasonal sales campaign. By leveraging data analytics, you can prepare by staffing more agents or developing a more robust FAQ section on your website.
When changing your product features, you can measure the rise or fall of ticket volume to determine if the changes to your product made your customer experience easier or more difficult. In the end, your ticket volume tells you if you are moving in the right direction by reducing support issues and queries over time.
3. Unresolved Tickets
Unresolved tickets, or ticket backlog, is the number of outstanding support tickets that have yet to be resolved. Ticket backlog is among the leading customer service metrics for a simple reason: the more unresolved tickets you have, the more unhappy customers you have.
How to calculate it:
Count the number of tickets in your queue that are not yet resolved. For deeper insights, compare the number of unresolved tickets to the total number of tickets you received during a specific period, such as the month of December.
What it tells you:
Unresolved Tickets tell you how much work your customer support team has ahead of them. This metric also helps you understand how well or how quickly your team is resolving issues. With these insights, you may determine that you need to improve training, staff more agents at specific times, or hire more people to address the outstanding issues.
4. Case types and topics
You can classify customer service issues by case types and topics, which refer to the nature of your customer support tickets. For instance, you may have case types such as refunds, product quality, or website navigation questions.
By keeping a record of all the case types and topics, you can understand which elements of your products, services, and customer service are working well—and which areas need improvement.
How to calculate it:
To calculate case types and topics, use tags within the program you use to track customer inquiries and support tickets, such as your customer relationship management (CRM) platform or email provider.
You can sort and filter inquiries by individual tags to view the source of the most common requests or complaints.
If your software does not automatically allow you to view the total number of tags for a chosen topic, then upload the tags manually into a spreadsheet. Just remember to update the spreadsheet and review the totals periodically.
What it tells you:
By tracking the nature of your support cases, you can glean insights into recurring issues. If specific topics are tagged often, you should identify ways to reduce confusion or improve the quality of the customer experience around these aspects of your business.
5. Issue Resolution Rate
The issue resolution rate tells you the percentage of total inquiries that your team has resolved. Failing to solve customers’ problems is not a good look for your brand and could damage customer trust. Therefore, consider this rate as one of your essential customer service metrics.
How to calculate it:
You can calculate the Issue Resolution Rate with the following formula:
IRR = # of issues resolved / total # of issues generated
What it tells you:
Knowing the ratio that your team resolves customer issues is vital, as it tells you how efficient your team is at handling customer concerns. Over time, a rising issue resolution rate is a sign your customer service is getting stronger.
6. First Response Time (FRT)
The FRT is the time it takes between a customer making an inquiry and a support agent first responding. First impressions matter, which makes this metric one worth tracking.
Customers want to know that their issue is being worked on right away. Even sending a quick email to let customers know you received their inquiry is a step in the right direction, which can boost customer satisfaction.
How to calculate it:
Calculate the number of minutes between the time the customer sent their inquiry and the time your team sent its first response.
What it tells you:
The FRT gives you a good indication of how well your support team is staffed or how efficiently they are working.
A short FRT means that your team is not too overloaded. You should implement automated responses whenever possible to reduce the FRT and put customers at ease. Automation can also indirectly boost other customer service metrics.
7. First Touch Resolution Rate
The first touch resolution rate tells you the percentage of inquiries that are entirely resolved on the first engagement. Also known as the first contact resolution rate, this metric is a crucial barometer to gauge team productivity and customer satisfaction.
How to calculate it:
You can calculate the First Touch Resolution Rate with the following formula:
FTRR = # of issues that are resolved on first contact/total # of issues generated
What it tells you:
A high first touch resolution rate indicates that you are efficient and clear with your communication. A low first touch resolution rate means that you should refine your response messages to provide more helpful guidance.
Not every issue can be resolved with one touch, but there are “low hanging fruit” scenarios where a prolonged back-and-forth is not necessary to solve the issue.
8. Average Resolution Time
The average resolution time is the median amount of time a business takes to resolve a customer’s issue completely. This metric has a massive influence on customer satisfaction.
As a result, it’s often smarter to focus more on faster resolutions and worry less about quick replies.
How to calculate it:
You can calculate the Average Resolution Time with the following formula:
ART = total time to resolve all issues/total # of issues resolved
What it tells you:
Average resolution time can tell you if you are solving customer’s issues within your target timeline. Keep in mind that certain situations can create outliers that impact this metric, such as a computer error, website crash, or if a customer service agent was out of the office.
9. Average Handle Time (AHT)
The average handle time (AHT) is a commonly used metric for call centers, which represents the average length of a phone call with a customer. 66% of people still use the phone to resolve service issues, making AHT one of the most crucial customer service metrics.
How to calculate it:
You can determine handle time for individual inquiries by tracking the time that elapses from the moment an agent answers the phone until they resolve the issue—including all the post-call tasks they undertake.
To calculate AHT, use the following formula:
AHT = (total talk time + total hold time + total time spent on post-call tasks) / total number of calls
What it tells you:
Shorter handle times mean your team is more efficient at resolving issues, and therefore, you are saving time and money. A higher AHT is a sign that you need to address issues, such as poor productivity, inadequate training, or a complex or confusing issue resolution process that contains unnecessary steps.
10. Customer Contact Rate
Customer contact rate is the percentage of customers who make support requests within a given period, like per month or year. As your company improves its services and online channels, including website features, copywriting, bug fixes, and product design, this rate should fall.
How to calculate it:
You can calculate CRR with the following formula:
CRR = # of customer support inquiries in a specified period / # of paid orders within the same period
What it tells you:
A low customer contact rate means you probably have an easy-to-use purchasing funnel or a well-designed product. A high rate tells you there is room to create more self-help resources or ensure that there are ongoing issues with your products, services, and services or the customer experience as a whole.
11. Escalation Requests
The escalation requests metric is a measure of the number of times customers ask to escalate an issue—or speak to a higher authority within the company than the current customer service agent. It’s important to track these incidents to understand customer sentiment and also the efficacy of your support team members.
How to calculate it:
Log any time that an escalation request occurs. You can then use filters on your tracking software to view the total number of escalation requests within a defined period, such as per month, quarter, or annum.
What it tells you:
A high level of escalation requests can indicate that your customers are not happy with your service. It might also suggest that your frontline support agents need more tools or training to resolve issues without escalation.
12. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
The NPS is an indication of how likely your customers are to recommend your product or service to others. A high NPS is important in generating word-of-mouth marketing and strengthening your brand reputation.
How to calculate it:
Survey customers and ask them how likely they are to recommend your company on a scale from one to ten. After you gather all data points, you can classify customers by their responses as follows:
- 9-10 - Promoter
- 7-8 - Passive
- 0-6 - Detractor
Then, you can calculate your NPS for a defined period by using the following formula:
NPS = Percent of Promoters - Percent of Detractors
What it tells you:
A low NPS is a big problem that signifies critical mistakes in your customer service or other aspects of your business. Consider sending follow-up surveys to detractors to identify the exact issues your company needs to improve.
13. Conversation Ratings
Conversation ratings are a type of customer service metric that assigns a satisfaction rating to each customer resolution. The higher the rating, the better your team handled the customer’s inquiry regarding speed, service level, and helpfulness.
Low ratings could be a symptom of an underlying problem such as your agent’s demeanor or another aspect of your customer experience, which may be causing friction or stirring up resentment for the customer.
How to calculate it:
How to measure conversation ratings is pretty straightforward. Once you close a customer ticket, send a quick email asking the customer to rate the conversation with your team on a scale from one to ten.
What it tells you:
There are various factors in any conversation with a customer. When they provide a low conversation rating, you need to dig deeper. You may need to increase response time, reduce the number of back and forth messages, or ask better questions to resolve their problems.
14. Customer Retention Rate
The CRR represents how many of your customers you are retaining over a given period. It is one of the most vital customer service metrics to track because low retention rates lead to more time and effort to acquire additional customers. Higher retention rates reduce your customer acquisition costs.
How to calculate it:
You can calculate the CRR with the following formula:
CRR = (# of total customers at the end of a period) - (# of new customer acquisitions during that same period) / ((# of customers at the beginning of that period) x 100)
What it tells you:
If your CRR is falling over time, it means that you aren’t meeting your customers’ needs. They are either choosing to do without any product in your category or going to a competitor. You need to evaluate whether this is due to customer service, price, or other factors.
15. Upsell and Cross-Sell Frequencies
Upsell and cross-sell frequencies are customer support metrics that tell you how often customers purchase a higher-tier version of your product (upsell) or a complementary product (cross-sell).
How to calculate it:
You can calculate upsell frequencies with the following formula:
Upsell Frequency = # of customers who purchase an upsell / # of paying customers
You can calculate cross-sell Frequencies with the following formula:
Cross-sell Frequency = # of customers who purchase a cross-sell / # of paying customers
What it tells you:
If you are up-selling and cross-selling frequently, it likely means your service department is excelling at identifying product-market fit. Not only are your support teams doing a great job of making customers happy, but your customers like and trust you enough to make further purchases after their initial buy.
If these metrics are lagging, you must develop a stronger understanding of what your customers truly need and offer product recommendations that align with their interests.
Which Customer Service Metrics Are You Tracking?
Customer service is the lifeblood of any business nowadays. Amid intense competition and similar products, an excellent customer experience is often what sets a successful company apart from the competition.
The customer service performance metrics here are the most commonly-tracked KPIs, but you should not use just one alone—it’s essential to track several and consider them in relation to one another. With this approach, you get a holistic view of your customer experience, your customer service standards and identify where improvements are required.

Joran Hofman

Karen Orford

Rebekah Dotty
- CSAT:
A CSAT score indicates the average percentage of customers who reached out to us, that were satisfied with our help in a particular period of time.
It’s good to review this at least every week (not longer than that, so we can act quickly to address a bad customer experience.
Customers that respond with a bad score can actually be a good opportunity to see what we can be doing better. But also bear in mind that a bad CSAT score doesn’t necessarily mean we did something wrong. Many people rate badly for things like we didn’t grant them their (unreasonable) request, or perhaps they asked us for something that is beyond our control.
It’s not necessarily our fault; they’re just upset. We focus on the areas we can improve and we don’t take the rest personally. :)
- First Response Time (FRT):
The time it takes us to first respond to a customer is incredibly crucial. Customers really appreciate a real person getting back to them quickly to at least acknowledge the problem and assure them that we’re working on it.
In fact, customers often still give good CSAT ratings even if their problem can’t be solved, for the mere fact that we responded quickly. Fast FRT minimizes how long a customer spends in uncertainty and frustration. A fast FRT is also a good indication that our team is not overloaded to the point where tickets start backing up.

Aiza Coronado

Petra Odak

Andy Crestodina
Project complete! Wait two weeks then call the client for a brief interview. The final question is the “how likely would you be to refer us to a friend” question. We’re measuring net promoter score. We look for insights immediately (what could we improve?) and we report on it in the all company meeting quarterly (how are we doing as a team?).
When we get a 10 and the client says all kind of nice things about us, we ask for permission to use their words in a testimonial. There’s also a gentle reminder that we’re always grateful for referrals. In these two small ways, this process aligns with lead generation best practices. It’s key to our growth.

Jeffrey Kagan

Carlo Morandi

Seema Nayak
- Average resolution time Average resolution time is a great indicator of how quickly we are able to resolve an issue for a customer. If we see that the number is higher for certain customer service reps, we work with them to understand the challenges and resolve the issues.
- Net Promoter Score NPS shows you how likely your customers are to promote your company. We consider this our North Star metric in the Customer Service team as it’s a great indicator of business growth. A low NPS shows us that there are areas that need improvements to gain customer trust. We aim for a NPS score of 70+ as it shows that we have a lot of evangelists who would recommend our business to others.

Craig Morison
Rebuy Rate – This is a great demonstration of whether your customers are happy or not.
Friend Referrals – If a customer is telling their friends, they are telling you their experience was good enough for them to promote their personal brand to their friends and family.
Customer Reviews - If a customer will go out of their way leave a review on a 3rd party website, it’s a great indication of your customer service.
All reporting should be live so you can react immediately. Finding our at the end of the month your service levels dropped isn’t much good and leads to lost opportunity.

Dan Tjahjadi

Raul Galera

Sheikh Shourav

Alysha Schultz
If we’re doing great work, partnering successfully, and meeting our customers goals, they stay. Simple as that.

Beka Dominguez

Blaine Bertsch

Brett Casey

Gwen Beren
Specifically from a marketing perspective, we are internally measuring our project KPIs weekly and making adjustments so that our monthly client reports illustrate the work that was performed AND the results that the work produced. Again, this gives us insight into whether our marketing tactics result in revenue for the client, which in turn is directly linked to their level of satisfaction with the company.

Andre Oentoro
CSAT shows how happy customers are with our support. It helps us to understand the health of our relationship with customers. We usually measure and do a report on this metric right after every new update to help successfully gauge customers’ satisfaction with the changes.
Meanwhile, FRT measures our support’s team efficiency as it indicates how long a customer has to wait before they get helped. A faster initial, first-ever time response will help us set us on the right track for positive impressions which can boost customer satisfaction. We do a report on this metric each month — in comparison with the previous month.

Ebnu Sudarso
These two metrics are important because it measures how quick we can get back to a customer and how satisfied they are with our services. We all know how frustrating it is to wait forever for a response from someone. So, measuring our AHT and CSS helps us identify any bottlenecks and areas we need to improve.

Natasha Rei
In the meantime, the Customer Retention Rate describes how many customers we can retain for using our services over a given period. With this metric, we can define the probability of selling to new customers and upselling to current customers. The higher number indicates a good effort, and we always work to increase our Customer Retention Rate.

Andrea Moxham

James McGrath

Philippe Huot
We keep a close eye on the incoming support volume (tickets created). As our customer base grows, it’s normal to see ticket volume increase over time. However, ticket volume should not grow at a faster rate than our customer rate and ideally should remain steady or even diminish over time. We continually work on improvements that will help reducing incoming support tickets.
First reply time is important and we keep an eye on this and aim to maintain an in-house standard. Customers like to know that their support request has been acknowledged or taken in charge by someone.
Median reply time because not only the first reply time is important.
First reply resolution rate: As a business, we aim to help our users in the most effective way and accordingly we aim to get it done on the first reply.
We also keep an eye on the average number of replies inside a ticket and aim to keep it as low as possible. No one likes endless back-and-forth. As a business that wants to provide the best support, it is our duty to be as efficient and straight to the point as possible when helping our users.

Kenneth Burke

Joe Sloan

Ken Marshall
Monthly Customer Churn. This is something we monitor monthly and it gives us insight into how we should be structuring our services, client communications, pricing, etc to be able to deliver higher quality services.
Lifetime Client Value. We review this quarterly as a way to determine what marketing channels, marketing campaigns, software, etc we can use in an effort to acquire new clients and retain them for longer.
Monthly Recurring Revenue. As an agency, this allows us to make more accurate forecasts than a lump sum payment or contract work model and plan new hires, internal marketing campaigns, etc. We review this against our target each month.

Paige Arnof-Fenn

Maggie Simmons
The following are the top three types of customer service metrics:
- Customer satisfaction metrics
- Agent performance and efficiency metrics
- Metrics for team performance and efficiency
From the above metrics, I would like to suggest using Customer satisfaction metrics because Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is a metric that measures how satisfied your customers are. It is based on a survey that customers typically complete after interacting with your support team. Though the exact questions vary, the survey asks customers to rate their experience on a scale, allowing you to quantify the often-qualitative metric of customer satisfaction. CSAT is an important customer service metric. The ultimate goal of customer support teams is to assist clients and ensure their satisfaction. CSAT measures the success of these efforts and provides feedback directly from the customer.
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