Customers today expect you to not only meet but exceed their expectations. Doing so is difficult if you don’t measure service quality correctly. Understanding the KPIs and metrics at play is the first step in understanding the actual issues that your customers face and it will help to make the right decision regarding your working process.
This article will look at the most critical service quality metrics and methods to keep track of them.
How to Measure Customer Service Quality
When learning how to measure customer service quality, you’ll discover that it can be tricky. Many of these measurements are subjective, so extracting useful information takes some skill. Starting with the straightforward tools in this section gives you a useful starting point.
Service Quality Metrics
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Determining your client’s level of satisfaction is difficult. The CSAT provides a way for businesses to track their past performance. It’s a simple test. Firms ask their clients to rate their performance in different areas.
You’d ask questions like, “How satisfied were you with the query resolution process?” You’ll average out the answers from several clients to get the total.
The measurement is useful because it allows you to identify trends. Depending on how specific the questions you ask are, you can drill down into particular service areas quite intensely.
The most popular KPI for measuring customer satisfaction is CSAT. With it, you ask your customers to rate their satisfaction with your business, product, or service. Your score is the average of all customer responses.
How to Measure Customer Service Quality With CSAT
With a CSAT scale, you’ve got some leverage. You can use smiley faces, stars, circles, or any other symbol you prefer. Keep it as simple as possible to reduce the chances of misunderstandings.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS is a better indicator of how clients will behave in the future. It’ll show you if they’re likely to refer friends or colleagues to your business. This measurement is slightly less subjective because a consumer might be willing to recommend your company even if they’ve experienced some disappointment.
How to Measure Service Quality with the NPS
The NPS rates your company on a scale of one to ten. One means that they won’t recommend you, and ten means that they’ll always recommend it.
- Promoters: Nine to ten points puts the client in the category of “promoter.” Such clients actively promote your business. Companies should aim to build most clients into promoters.
- Passives: Seven or eight points puts the client in the category of passives. Passives don’t have strong feelings about your business. They won’t actively promote your business, but they won’t have anything bad to say about it.
- Detractors: Any other clients fall under the title of detractors. These are the consumers most likely to say bad things about your business.
To get your net total, subtract the detractors from the promoters.
First Response Time
Another metric you’ll come across when learning how to measure customer service quality is the first response time. According to Statista, 77% of clients expect you to answer questions via instant chat immediately. A further 64% of customers expect you to answer questions rapidly by phone.
Having a dedicated call center that answers client calls and chat messages gives your company the edge here. How to measure service quality in a call center is simple. Monitor the client calls and how quickly they’re answered.
Even if all you’re saying is, “Someone is working on it,” get that first response out as quickly as possible. This trick doesn’t solve the issue, but it reassures the client that their query was received. As the query progresses, employees must keep customers updated on the progress.
Following up on the call with a quick customer survey is good business practice. Ask clients to assess how effectively the call center staff answered the queries.
Customer Retention Rate
Monitoring your client retention rate is critical to monitoring service levels. A high churn rate indicates that something is lacking. It could be in the performance of the product or the levels of service the client received.
How to Measure Service Quality Through Direct Surveys
The statistics that we’ve looked at so far deal with a specific aspect of service. The limited nature of the information collected makes it useful only to a point. If you’ve identified a potential problem, direct surveys make it possible to zero in on the cause of dissatisfaction.
Surveys should be carefully targeted so that you don’t waste the client’s time. A quick, open-ended question at the end of one of the other metrics works well. You should give your clients a chance to elaborate on their previous answers.
An example is where a client says it wasn’t easy to get an answer to their question. An excellent direct survey question would be to ask them why they felt that way.
Final Notes
Monitoring these simple customer service metrics allows firms to identify minor issues before they become major ones. Firms may improve their service delivery and turn more passives into promoters.
It’s a winning strategy that makes client retention and acquisition far more straightforward.