Are your customers happy? These 11 customer service KPIs will tell you!

Customer service KPIs (key performance indicators) are important and measurable performance indicators that help companies measure, analyze and visualize all customer relationship information. In the end, it's all about using KPIs to optimize customer service. In this article, we'll show you which customer service KPIs are really important, and how messaging apps can help you improve them.

Do you want to know if your customers are really happy with your customer service? Don't guess, measure it! We'll show you the 11 most important customer service KPIs to find out what your customers really want, and why messaging apps will help you make your customers happier!

1. Customer service channel availability

Nothing is more annoying for customers than not knowing how to reach a company's customer service when they need it. And what's the fastest, most direct way to reach anybody these days? By messaging! Messaging apps have become the most popular social media channels and every day, 175 million customers reach out to businesses on WhatsApp alone.

That's why it's mind-boggling that companies still only use e-mail and phone for their customer service. So, the first important rule of thumb for customer satisfaction is: If you want to be available to customers, you need to be on the channels your customers use, and that's messaging apps!

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2. First response time to customer service request

The higher the accessibility of your company, the better. Not being available to customers can cost your business a lot of money. Why? Because frustrated customers will just shop elsewhere!

One of the best ways to reduce response times is to offer messenger apps as customer service channels. Thanks to the asynchronous communication in chat apps, waiting loops are eliminated. Customers don't expect an immediate response like on a website live chat, which takes the pressure off your service team. At the same time, customers don't have to stay glued to a device waiting for an answer. They can just check their messages when they have time.

With the help of automation through chatbots, even the simplest questions can be answered quickly and directly at any time. And if a customer needs personal assistant, it's easy to transfer them to an agent, for example by having them select that option through a button. Overall, the combination of chatbots and messaging apps in customer service will improve your response times.

3. Average time until resolution or Average Handling Time (AHT)

Customers want quick solutions. Therefore, the total time from first "hello" to final resolution is just as important as the time it takes to get the first response.

⏰ On WhatsApp or other messaging apps, the success number "fall time" can be higher than on other channels, simply because of the number of chats and asynchronous communication. Each side responds when it is most convenient. It can happen that a customer needs a few hours to respond, which means that the case time can extend over several days.

So, rather than looking at the old customer service KPI of "average handling itme", it would be better to just measure the net drop time:  How much time did the customer on one side and the agent on the other side really need to solve the case? Thanks to the lack of a queue or repetitive problem description and short texts, the "net case time" indicator is much lower than for other customer service channels.

4. Customer service metric: Service level

How many inquiries do companies answer within a defined period of time? In customer service, this KPI is called "service level".

Again, messaging apps will have a positive impact on reaching your set service time.

Conversations on WhatsApp and other messenger services are faster than by e-mail, for example. First, the messages are shorter, since formal greetings or expressions are often unnecessary in chats. Second, the use of multimedia, such as pictures or videos, allows for better illustration of an issue.

The indicator "service level" is therefore extremely high with messaging apps! And this number can be improved even more by adding a first level chatbot in cusotmer service. Chatbots are great at answering simple questions really fast and efficiently, and they don't require any time at all on the part of the company. And: they solve problems very quickly.

5. Escalating requests

Escalating requests are the inquiries that service employees or agents pass on to their team leaders or managers because they can't solve the issue themselves, or because the customer asked for the supervisor.

💡 The "human take over" is important when using chatbots. If the bot is stuck, the question should be handed over to an agent as quickly as possible. But also service employees, must be able to escalate or pass on tickets easily and quickly.

If you are using a professional messaging solution in your customer service, like Sinch Engage, that can be done very easily through a central inbox, where messages — no matter what messaging channel they came from — can be handled through one central inbox, and you can assign queries to specific agents as well, both automatically and manually. 

In addition, you can also set up your chatbot to automatically route a customer to an agent if a customer asks the same question again and again, or keeps pressing the same buttons..

This will greatly help you reduce escalating requests and solve customer inquiries quicker.

6. Customer Effort Score (CES)

"How much effort did it take for you to resolve your inquiry with our customer service?" The Customer Effort Score is the customer service KPI that indicates how quickly and easily customers can describe their problem and solve it with the service. The faster this happens, the happier the customer. Additionally, your company saves valuable resources.

This also works very well for B2B scenarios. FAIE, a B2B mail order company for agricultural products, has also significantly sped up its customer service and complaints processes thanks to WhatsApp and the Messenger on Facebook.

With the help of pictures or videos, inquiries can be explained much faster via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Apple Messages for Business. Short queries help to narrow down the problem as quickly as possible. Individual standard tasks in the process (for instance, requesting contact data or step-by-step instructions for the return) can then be taken over again by a chatbot or chat module.

All in all, this adds up to many reasons why the customer service success indicator "CES" is above average for messenger apps!

7. Cost per contact in customer service

Every customer contact requires resources in the form of workers and software. The goal in customer service should be to keep the customer service indicator "cost per contact" as low as possible while maintaining the same level of customer service quality.

When talking to customers on a messaging service, agents can answer fast, and they can also go back and forth between conversations, which will greatly reduce customer waiting times. In addition, fist-level chatbots can handle up to 80% of routine tasks already automatically, which in turn saves a lot of working time.

Companies can also save on the cost of expensive software and telephone systems when, for example, with Sinch Engage, they can get a completely ready-to-use service software including a chatbot builder, without any major IT effort during implementation! 

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8. Customer Retention (Customer Loyalty)

Customer retention refers to a variety of measures intended to bind customers to brands, products, services, or companies. Customer service is the key for this retention. One bad experience with the customer service, and 76% of your customers will look for another product or company.

WhatsApp lets us stay closer to our customers than any major sporting goods manufacturer.

Matthias Leibitz, CEO & Co-Founder of T1TAN

💚 Customer service on messaging apps is fast, direct, and leaves customers satisfied! Companies that focus on data protection and fast and individual feedback, and use chatbots to support them, increase their customer retention. Offering messaging apps in customer service can, in fact, reduce your churn rate significantly.

Also keep in mind that once you've had an exchange with a customer on a messaging app, it's very easy to pick up where you left off at a later time (re-activation of customers has never been easier!).

9. Conversion Rate: Up- and cross-selling

Customer service is not always about complaints or problems. Service also means selling! That also goes for messenger apps, as  they're now also used throughout the entire customer journey! The ratio "conversion rate" shows what percentage of the advised customers later buy a product or book a service.

According to a Facebook survey, 53% of respondents said they would be more likely to buy from a company that offers customer service via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger chat. Also, this study shows that customers who use customer service via Messenger, for example, buy three times more often and give much more frequent and better feedback than customers who have chosen another service channel.

10. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

One of the most popular customer service metrics for measuring customer satisfaction is the CSAT, which directly asks your customers to rate their satisfaction with your company, product or service.

The CSAT rating scale can consist of regular numbers, but also stars, smiley faces, or tiny unicorns. You can ask your customers to rate you at the end of a customer service chat via WhatsApp, and the results are measured from the average of all answers of your customers.

Even here, you'll notice a difference with messaging apps. After a nice, friendly chat on Instagram Direct Messaging or WhatsApp, customers are more likely to leave feedback, and they tend to leave higher scores as well. It's also much easier to collect feedback on a messaging app: a few taps, and you are done. Your customers are far more likely to do that than filling out an online form!

The CSAT is therefore often very good on messenger apps, since the channel alone represents real added value for the customer.

11. The most important customer service KPI: the Net Promoter Score

How likely are your customers to recommend you to others? That's what the net promoter score (NPS) measures. For many companies, this is even more important than the  internal CSAT score. After all, word of mouth is the best advertisement for any business!

The Net Promoter Score is a customer service metric related to company success. Under the influence of promoters (customers actively recommending a business) and detractors (customers actively dissuading others from buying from your business), the recommendation rate is calculated based on a survey. This then provides information if customers are satisfied, or whether there's still room for improvement.

Experience shows that companies with good and innovative customer service are rated very highly. BMW, for example, has determined an NPS of 67.53% for its customer service via WhatsApp and a recommendation rate of 90%!

Measure customer service KPIs with a professional software

Did you know that you can also use a professional messaging software to easily measure a whole range of customer service KPIs? Sinch Engage, for example, offers the possibility to create and view charts for your chats. After logging in to the tool, you'll immediately see current ticket statistics on the right side of the dashboard, for example the number of open and answered tickets, or the average customer wait time.

Using a professional messaging tool like Sinch Engage doesn't only help you to offer customer service on messaging apps, it'll also help you measure and optimize your customer service KPIs, and ultimately, make your clients happier! 

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