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Tell a Story with these 3 Customer Service Metrics: Crafting a Narrative to Wow Execs and Prove the Value Your Team can Bring

By Asia Anderson | Data Analysis | Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Metrics are more than just numbers on a page. They’re storytellers, living as part of a greater narrative in your organization. Performance indicators have the power to tell the story of your organization’s values. Metrics don’t exist in a vacuum. When they work in a relationship with one another, your metrics can measure success and failure and recognize progress.

Metrics drive performance and behavior. Or as famous management consultant Peter Drucker stated, “What gets measured gets improved.” When your employees expect to be measured on their work, they’ll behave a particular way in order to achieve that measurement.

Download Now: Use contact center data to build customer experience strategies based on real customer needs.

It’s hard to understand your team’s true performance without examining the relationship between different metrics. Metrics speak to one another as they tell your contact center’s story.

It’s undeniable that employee experience and engagement influence your customer’s experience. Research says companies with excellent customer experience have employees who are 1.5x more engaged than employees at low performing companies.

The metrics associated with your customer service have power. They tell the story of how your whole company cares for its customers and how your agents contribute.

So, when you are asked to report progress to your executive team, how do you begin to craft a narrative from all of the metrics you track? What metrics should you select to prove the value your team is bringing to the entire company?

Measuring Quality in your Call Center

The quality of your customer service directly impacts any other metric. If you’re telling a story, your quality metrics are the tangible plot points that build to your climax and resolution. They are the measurements that extend from the quality of both your service and product. Quality measurements are foundational to contact center performance. Nearly 82% of contact centers measure the quality of their contacts. To show quality, let’s pick a metric and take a closer look:

First Contact Resolution

First contact resolution is a direct result of getting quality right. It’s measured by taking the percentage of contacts that require no further contact to address the customer’s problem.

Boosting FCR:

Improve FCR with agent training, coaching, and empowerment. When you provide your employees with the best tools and train them well, they can answer questions without additional assistance. Your team will be free to help customers without extra interactions.

Download Now: 7 Ways to Improve your Coaching Skills to Impact Agent Performance

The Impact:

How many times have you emailed or called a customer service line and had your answer resolved in just one interaction? When I’ve experienced this, I pretty quickly associate the lone conversation with excellent customer service.

For this exact reason, FCR provides the greatest value as a measurement over time. Resolving an issue on first contact is so important. Many claim that first call resolution is the single most important KPI related to a customer’s level of satisfaction with a company. For every 1% jump in FCR, there’s a correlating 1% jump in CSAT. But that’s not the only plus.

Some other benefits include:

Lower operating costs. A low FCR rate breeds a low number of repeat callers – reducing the cost burden of callbacks.
Reduced at-risk revenue. Research shows that if the customer’s issue is resolved on the first call, only 3% of customers are at risk of defecting to your competitors.
Higher employee satisfaction. It’s a strain on agents to contend with frequent callbacks from often-frustrated customers. It leads to low morale, poor customer service, and high agent turnover. When agents are given the tools and training they need to achieve high FCR, they feel empowered and confident on calls.

Watch how your agent knowledge and experience feeds into your levels of FCR. And then, see the impact of a high percentage of FCR on overall customer experience.

Measuring Employee Satisfaction and Agent Experience

Employee satisfaction as a customer service metric is symbiotic. It directly influences other customer service metrics, like CSAT. At the same time, agent satisfaction can take a hit when other metrics struggle. Like if too many agents call in sick and absenteeism spikes, putting remaining agents on overload. Employee satisfaction clearly influences, even drives, customer satisfaction. It’s true, when you have happy employees you have happy customers as well. Additionally, when you have retention, productivity, and quality, you can track a positive correlation back to agent satisfaction.

Track agent experience with a mix of metrics. Keep track of your agent retention, turnover rates, and levels of absenteeism in your contact center. This will give you a baseline to interpret other behaviors. Then, regularly collect survey responses from your employees on their experience at work. Use surveys to measure engagement and overall happiness. Gathering first-hand accounts from your agents is imperative to understanding their satisfaction levels.

Some platforms help you measure agent experience through tracking efficiency, effectiveness, and levels of empowerment. Then, you can better understand the impact your agents have on other KPIs.

Boosting Employee Satisfaction:

I could write a book on how to empower your employees and gain satisfaction levels. Many people have. But, the foundation of improving your employee satisfaction will always require you to listen to your employees.

Take into account their experience as being vital for your success as a team and as a company. When you invest in your employees, they’ll return that investment. Provide extensive training tools. Work with your employees to meet their personal needs as well as their professional ones. Give your agents time in 1:1s and regular performance reviews. And ultimately, guide your executive team to see the importance of employee engagement.

Read Now: How a Coaching Culture can Boost your Employee Engagement

The Impact:

What’s the impact of a high employee satisfaction metric? Well, it impacts everything. Employee satisfaction lowers absenteeism and turnover in your call center. In Gallup’s State of the Workforce report, companies saw absenteeism rates 41% lower with their engaged employees.

When employees’ needs are met, they don’t just become happier — they become better performers, too. In fact, Gallup’s report says companies with employee engagement programs see a productivity increase of about 21%. Imagine the cost-savings that come with a productivity hike that big, too. Research has proven that when a company invests in employee engagement, they have more employees who are satisfied in their jobs.

And, your customers will notice the difference. When your agents are satisfied, they find creative ways to meet the needs of your customers. Your agents will be more willing to go above and beyond. They’ll be aligned on their goals to care for your customers better. They’ll be better prepared and trained to tackle any customer problem.

And ultimately, your company will see a clear ROI. Employees who are satisfied and engaged stick around, so your company isn’t losing money on backfilling positions.

Forbe s writes that companies with highly engaged employees beat average revenue growth in their sector by 1%. Meanwhile, companies with low engagement were behind their sector’s revenue growth by an average of 2%. Customers will be satisfied with their service. So, you’ll have greater customer retention, loyalty and consistently high customer satisfaction.

Measuring your Customer Satisfaction

According to ICMI’s research, customer satisfaction is considered the most important metric to contact center leaders. It’s one of the primary customer service metrics that helps you prove contact center results. Studies have revealed a direct correlation between customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, corporate revenues, employee morale and performance.

To put it simply, if your customers aren’t satisfied with your service, you won’t be as likely to sell. All companies are aware that it’s important to have satisfied customers. And, many claim to have a strong focus on their customers. But, not every company measures customer satisfaction consistently.

Measure customer satisfaction through CSAT Surveys to get more precise responses.

Boosting Customer Satisfaction:

Your other customer service metrics will be a great guide for you. They help you know how to provide your customers a better experience. Use your quality metrics and agent experience scores to evaluate weaknesses in your service.

Gathering feedback from your customers through surveys is the first step towards helping your CSAT score in the future. Use customer feedback alongside your other metrics to create a plan of action.

Perhaps your customers want more channels of communication. Or, they need faster response times and expect better product knowledge from your team. Your customers will identify for you where you can improve your technology and your agent training.

Need some practical steps? Use this 90-day Plan of Action to push your CSAT score higher.

The Impact:

It’s obvious that keeping customers happy is crucial to business success. But how exactly does your customers’ satisfaction impact different aspects of your business?

Some 81% of companies consider customer experience a competitive differentiator. Improve your CSAT score to better compete on the level of service you deliver to your customers.
Highly satisfied customers see higher brand loyalty. In fact, customers are 8x more likely to buy new products from business with high customer satisfaction. And, they’re 7x more likely to have customers who repeat purchases, and 15x more likely to have customers who recommend the company to friends and family.
96% of consumers use customer service to gauge if they will do business with a company. And, high levels of satisfaction bring in new and repeat business that drives revenue up by 4 to 8%.

Metrics Can Make all the Difference

When you have the right data and facts to tell your customer service narrative, you have the tools you need to wow your executives. The bottom line is, your customer service team is essential for the continued growth of your company as a whole. What story can you tell with your metrics to show your company the value you bring?

Improve your customer service metrics in the contact center, then act on what you find. Get your step-by-step guide to building customer experience strategies that suit your customers’ needs.