As the old saying goes: if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it; and if you aren’t managing it, you probably can’t improve it.  In today’s digital age, we’re able to collect data on just about any interaction.  But when it comes to measuring and using that data effectively, many companies are at a loss as to why certain metrics matter, and what purpose they serve.  The reality is, data is absolutely useless if you don’t know how to correctly interpret it.  Every Customer Care team will have a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are designed to provide insight into the effectiveness of the team or its individual members.

The question is, “How relevant are these KPIs and are there more effective metrics to consider?”

Traditionally, Customer Care teams are measured a million and one different ways.  Call volume, chat times, response rates, close ratios, and a laundry list of other metrics are often used to measure an individual’s performance however these are often misleading.

For example, a company that measures team member performance on the number of tickets resolved is unlikely to see real improvement in Customer Care as operatives are likely to ‘cherry-pick’ easy / quick to close tickets leaving real, hard to solve issues in Customer Care limbo.  On paper, the operative will appear to be very effective, often leading the team in terms of tickets successfully closed, however has this operative been an effective member of the team?

So what should I care about?

In order to gauge the success of a team, it’s important to identify what constitutes success in the eyes of your Homeowners.  From the Homeowner’s perspective, all that they care about is whether or not their issue has been recognised, how long is it going to take to resolve and how easy was it to get the issue resolved.

Putting the customer’s needs first is paramount to Customer Care success and here at clixifix® we believe the most important Customer Care metrics for Housebuilders are;

1. Average Response Time

How long does it take your team (on average) to respond to a support query?  This is not how long it takes to resolve the query, simply the period of time between a Homeowner submitting a ticket and the first contact from one of your operatives.  The sooner a Homeowner is responded to, the more likely they are to feel as though they are a valued customer.

2. Average Time to Close

How long (on average) does it take from the instant a Homeowner submits a query to the query being resolved?  Whilst it’s important to respond to a query as soon as possible, if the issue is not resolved within a reasonable amount of time, you’re creating another customer care issue for yourself.  What percentage of your support queries are closed within the agreed upon repair response times?

3. Average Number of Touch Points per Query

Having an issue resolved by a customer care operative should be a positive experience.  However, if your Homeowner has to send 5 emails and make 3 phone calls in order to resolve their issue, this can’t be considered effective.  Tracking the number of times a Homeowner has been contacted throughout this process will allow you to streamline your customer care processes and provide better service to your Homeowners.

At clixifix® we’re passionate about Customer Care, specifically in the Building and Construction sectors.  We have created a portal that allows you to track these performance metrics and so much more at the click of a button.  The SaaS platform is available on any internet connected device with a web browser and requires no software to download or install.  Best of all, we’ve made clixifix® available to new customers on a free, no-obligation, 30 day trial.  For more information, please visit our website or speak to one of our team members directly on 01 388 824 958. 

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We encourage you to come back on Friday when we launch our monthly series “Ask clixifix®” where we take in an depth look into specific issues faced by Customer Care teams and offer our ‘best practice’ solutions to common issues.  These will be posted on the first Friday of the month and we welcome your input.  Whether it’s future topics or what you and your team have done in order to overcome an issue, we’d love to hear from you.  The first topic will be “Effectively managing Homeowner expectations” with a particular focus on Defect and Repair response times.