Today at the 2nd Linn Academy 2015 in Manchester, Jodi from ReplyManager talked about how you should be measuring your customer services metrics prompting the question “Do you actually know how good your customer support is?”.
We know that responsive customer service is important, Jodi pointed out that Amazon say that merchants who respond to email within 24 hours receive 50% less negative feedback. This may not entirely be down to response time, it may be reflective of an overall commitment to customer service, but it does explain why Amazon measure sellers based on email reply time metrics.
So what other metrics are important? ReplyManager gives 18 reports so that you can measure the performance of your support staff, but listed some of the key metrics as:
User Activity
Do you know which of your support staff are most active? Who’s swinging the lead and who’s spending the most time helping resolve your customer’s queries?
Average Response Time
How long does it take you to respond to a customer? If you’re segregating support (perhaps by channel) are you more responsive to contacts from one particular channel and is this intentional or accidental. Do you need more resource for a particular type of query (for instance technical support enquires) or is there a time of day when your support service lags.
Average Resolve Time
How long does it take your staff to resolve issues? Can your staff resolve issues instantly and if not do you need to give them greater leeway in issuing return authorisations or credit notes? Do you support staff need more access to tech support or managers to cut down your resolution times?
Average Handle Time by User
If you’ve got one member of staff who takes twice as long to handle support calls as everyone else do they need more training, or are they they one member of your team who provides the best possible service and it’s everyone else who should learn from their excellence? Do you even know how long on average it takes to respond to a customer when they contact you?
Unreplied Email Summary
Without going and checking, do you know how many outstanding support tickets you have for eBay, Amazon, your website and any other platforms that you trade on? Are these outstanding simply because no one has got to them yet or are they outstanding as they couldn’t be responded to by the first person that read the email? Are queries already escalated requiring someone else’s input or are customers still waiting for someone to reply?
There’s a lot to think about here and, regardless what methods you use for managing customer support, Jodi makes some good points. Of course using ReplyManager will give you access to all of these reports, as well as being able to route enquiries to the member of your staff best placed to respond. Even if you don’t have a software solution to assist, it’s worth taking a look at how your support staff measure up, especially in the run up to the Christmas Peak season which is when they’ll likely be busiest and streamlining your processes will have the greatest impact.
If you’re interested in getting some order behind your customer support, ReplyManager have a 15 day free trial with support to help you get set up.
