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

Customer service key performance indicators (KPIs) 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 what role messenger apps like WhatsApp can play in this.

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!

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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!

Messenger apps like WhatsApp, iMessage or the Facebook Messenger are installed on almost any phone in the world, and what’s even more important: they are widely used! In 2022, WhatsApp is already the third most popular social media platfom in the world !

In Brazil, 90 percent of people use a messaging app daily, and in India over 80 percent of internet users between 16 and 64 years use WhatsApp. And businesses should know: People don’t just use messaging apps to talk to family and friends. They also reach out to businesses.

Currently, one billion users send a message to a business every week . And that’s just on Meta’s family of apps!

That’s why it’s mind-boggling that companies still 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 synchronous and asynchronous communication, 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. If a customer needs a personal assistant, they typically contact you during business hours anyway. So either way, their questions are handled faster, and in the all-important 24-hour window.

We’ve optimized our response time for Messenger service requests to three to five minutes.

Lukas Ratschke, Head of Project & Innovation Management at Transgourmet

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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 metric of “Average Handling Time”, 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.

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4. Customer service indicator: 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 (chats) on WhatsApp and other messenger services are faster than by mail, for example. First, they 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 good 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 do not require any time at all on the part of the company. And: they solve problems very quickly.

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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 so-called “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 the Messenger Communication Platform by MessengerPeople , that can be done very easily through a ticketing system where queries can be assigned automatically or manually to the right agent or manager.

In addition, you can also set up your chatbot that if a customer asks the same question again and again, or keeps pressing the same buttons in the chatbot, it automatically triggers a ticket to a human agent.

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

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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.

Customers can easily send us pictures via WhatsApp. In the case of complaints, we can find a solution quickly – and in many cases avoid returns. That’s also a big advantage economically.

Harald Goßler, Head of Customer Services at Hessnatur

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.

Due to the use of WhatsApp, the volume of e-mails and the effort and time required to process incoming inquiries has been significantly reduced.

Lisa Wiesauer, Product Manager Animal Husbandry, FAIE

With the help of pictures or videos, inquiries can be explained much faster via WhatsApp. 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.

These are the reasons why the customer service success indicator “CES” is above average for messengers!

A phone call takes about five to ten minutes. With messaging apps we could increase our efficiency significantly because it only takes us two to three minutes to solve a query.

Christian Sroka, Heimathafen Hotels

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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.

On average, we expect lower costs for a customer inquiry until the problem is solved via messenger app than previously via e-mail and live chat.

David Kurzmann, CEO & Co-Founder of Women’s Best

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 percent 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 MessengerPeople by Sinch, 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 percent 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 .

After only 100 days of offering WhatsApp as a customer channel, we were able o reduce our churn rate by 50 percent.

Katharina Bansemer, Director Marketing at Dr. SAM

Also keep in mind that once you have 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!).

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9. Conversion Rate /up and cross selling

Customer service is not always about complaints or problems. Service also means selling! Messenger apps are now 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.

Nine out of ten WhatsApp consultation chats lead to a sale.

Erik Reintjes, MissPompadour

According to a Facebook survey , 53 percent 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.

We are even seeing noticeable increases in sales, as we can now use the chatbot to direct our customers specifically to the right product in the store and personally point out special and discount promotions to them.

Thomas Zeitz, Toneart

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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 will notice a difference. 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.

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

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!

for many companies is the recommendation of their product or service. The so-called Net Promoter Score (NPS)! The Net Promoter Score is a customer service metric related to company success. Under the influence of promoters and detractors, the recommendation rate is calculated based on a survey. This then provides information if customers are satisfied, or whether there is 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%!

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Measure customer service KPIs with a professional software

In the Messenger Communication Platform customers of MessengerPeople by Sinch can measure a whole range of customer service key performance indicators (KPIs). Our tool offers the possibility to create and view charts for tickets and chats. After logging in to the tool, you will see current ticket statistics on the right side of the dashboard, for example the number of open and answered tickets.

With our software-as-a-service solution, we offer the first professional and privacy-compliant ticket system specifically for customer service for messaging apps like WhatsApp, Apple Messages for Business, the Messenger from Meta, Telegram, and Viber.

And the best part: it will not only help you measure your customer satisfaction, it will also make your customers happier!

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