Are you looking for a guide to commonly used outsourced live customer support chat KPIs? Continue reading to learn more. 

Live customer support chats have been driving customer satisfaction scales up all over the globe. Businesses and enterprises have started recognizing the power of live chat support. It is convenient, accessible, and quick.

Over 50% of customers prefer live chat over other communication platforms. It is time for businesses to step up. In order to keep up, companies prefer to outsource chat services. So get ready to brush up on your knowledge of Live Customer Support Chat KPIs with this article.

However, the story does not end here. It is essential to track the performance of the outsourced team. This is where key performance indicators come in handy.

What is Live Customer Support Chat?

Live customer support chat is a service offered to customers by businesses. It allows customers to reach out to customer services directly. In fact, they no longer have to send an email or call a toll number.

The easy accessibility offered by live chat is unmatched by other customer support platforms. Furthermore, these live chat sessions can be used for customer support. It also works as a marketing channel. When used effectively, outsourced live customer support chat is a powerful tool. Outsourced Live Customer Support Chat KPIs can be used to monitor performance.

Live chat provides a more personal experience for the customer.  It also helps them get their questions answered faster than through email or phone calls. By harnessing its power, businesses can improve their bottom line. It also leads to higher customer retention and improved sales figures.

Advantages offered by Outsourced Live chat support

Now let’s take a look at some of the many benefits offered by outsourcing live chat support:

• Improved customer experience
• Boosts customer retention rates
• Increase customer service productivity
• Offers a chance to provide round-the-clock service<
• Increase customer engagement
• Identify customer pain points easily

Why do we need Outsourced Live Customer Support Chat KPIs?

KPIs or Key Performance Indicators are used to measure the performance of a team or individual while carrying out a specific task. KPIs are used to measure the support team’s performance while outsourcing non-core tasks. For example, live chat, customer support, and so on.

In fact, businesses rely heavily on these metric values to determine the success of an outsourced team. Reliable outsourcing companies put forth the KPIs as a part of the SLA. The SLA or (Service Level Agreement) is a contract that lays out the terms and conditions for both parties.

First Contact Resolution

First contact resolution or FCR is a key performance indicator that measures the support team’s ability to solve customer issues within the first contact. In other words, no further follow-ups are needed.

Companies arrive at the value by taking the percentage of the number of cases resolved. The value is determined as seen below:

For instance, suppose a team resolves 220 requests within the first resolution out of a total of 500 support requests. In this instance, the FCR rate is 44.4%. This indicates that current strategies have to be analyzed.

FCR is a primary metric that monitors customer support service quality. In other words, it measures the outsourcing company’s ability to handle and resolve queries across different platforms within the first interaction.

Additionally, FCR also offers a perspective of how the end customers perceive the organization. FCR has the power to affect other KPIs. It plays a critical role in measuring the performance of an outsourced support team. Furthermore, a careful analysis of FCR values offers insight into how to improve the outsourcing strategy.

FCR differs across different businesses and support teams. Hence, there is no steadfast industry standard to compare it to. FCR values depend on various factors. For example, the number of customers, the complexity of the product or services, the nature of queries, the request platform, and so on.

The “high” end of the FCR scale is often around 90%, while the “low” end is typically around 40%.

How to improve FCR value

FCR strategy can be improved with these steps:

• Evaluating the current FCR strategy
• Narrowing down what needs to be improved
• Set achievable goals
• Track FCR continuously after implementing a new strategy

Outsourced support agents adopt several good practices to improve FCR. These include active listening, appropriate response, quick responses, access to knowledge bases, and so on. To conclude, FCR is a critical outsourced live customer support chat KPI.

First Response Time

First Response Time or FRT is the time taken by the support team to offer an initial response to a customer’s query. With time playing a critical role in customer satisfaction and experience, high FRT values are desirable.

Acceptable, response times fall between 6 to 15 seconds. Most businesses prefer to outsource customer support in order to improve FRT values.

A high FRT value is an indication that customers receive quick responses to their queries. If your FRT value is low, it is time to partner up with a reliable outsourcing partner like Bobcares. Outsourcing companies have a workforce skilled in supporting customers with quick responses.

Average Resolution Time

The next KPI we will be turning our attention to is Average Resolution time or ART. This metric measures the average amount of time the support agent spends on a customer’s concern.

This value often differs depending on the complexity of the issue at hand. Several factors have a direct bearing on the ART value. These include the number of available end-user agents as well as the number of tickets currently received.

Maintaining a high ART is an important criterion for successful outsourced support teams. End-user agents need to be able to engage successfully with customers and offer quick resolutions to their queries.

Chat to Conversion Rate

The Chat to Conversion Rate KPI measures the support team’s ability to convert chat conversations into sales. When used strategically, Live Customer chat has the power to increase conversion and sales. Interestingly, there is an increase in repeat purchases among live chat customer support users.

As per industry standards, anything above 10% is considered a good conversion rate. If your Chat to conversion rate is below 10%, it is time to take a seat and consider the support strategy again. In fact, businesses that outsource live chat customer support often have a high Chat to Conversion rate. This leads to a boost in sales figures.

Customer Satisfaction Rate

The success of any support team lies in the satisfaction of the customers. We can measure this value for outsourced time with the Customer Satisfaction Rate or CSAT score.

This number demonstrates how happy customers are with the company’s customer support services.

For instance, a live chat CSAT score can be obtained by asking customers to fill out a survey after their interaction with the agent. Furthermore, the survey may consist of open-ended and multiple-choice questions to understand the customer’s experience better.

Trustworthy outsourcing companies will be able to promise high CSAT scores. This metric is a great way to ensure the performance of an outsourced support team. It also offers an idea of how the brand or company is perceived by customers.

Net Promoter Score

Another key performance metric used by outsourcing companies is the Net Promoter Score or NPS. This metric is measured by asking customers how likely they are to recommend the brand to someone else. In other words, NPS measures customer satisfaction, loyalty, and dedication. It helps predict business growth as well.

In fact, businesses across the globe use the NPS metric to measure customer experience. Furthermore, this metric helps address problem areas, monitor loyalty trends, improve customer experience, and boost revenue.

NPS can be described as the percentage of customers who are likely to recommend products or services.

For instance, customers are asked a question similar to the one below:

How likely is it that you will recommend our brand/product/service to your family and friends on a scale of 0-10?

Answers that fall between 9 to 10 are classified as promoters and 0-6 are considered detractors. On the other hand, 7-8 scores are considered passive respondents.

The NPS value can be calculated as seen below:

Reliable outsourcing companies like Bobcares have several strategies to ensure a high NPS score. For instance, they engage with detractors to get to the root of their dissatisfaction. Furthermore, they also reach out to promoters for more feedback.

NPS metric gives businesses a way to measure how much word-of-mouth power they hold. According to recent studies, word of mouth boosts sales by five times compared to paid advertising.

The best way to take advantage of word-of-mouth marketing is by strengthening customer service. At this point, outsourcing to a dependable partner becomes the best option. These companies excel in increasing Net Promoter Score, ultimately leading to better sales figures.

Total Number of Chats

One way of measuring the engagement on the website via support chat is by monitoring the total number of chats. This KPI plays a key role in lead generation. It also measures the support team’s performance as well as productivity.

Besides chat interactions, this KPI also reviews content interaction.

For instance, suppose a lot of the chat queries are about the number of servers included in the package. We can include this information in FAQs. This will reduce buildups in the chat queue. Furthermore, support agents can focus on complex queries.

Additionally, the Number of Chats KPI helps set ups support staff schedules for optimal response time.

Average Wait Time

Customers prefer not to wait too long for a response during live chat. Hence Average wait Time is a key metric. It measures the average time a customer has to wait in the queue.

This KPI helps understand whether the chat support is over-utilized or under-utilized. Outsourcing companies rely on strategies like these to reduce the Average Wait Time:

• Increase the number of active chats that a single agent may manage at once.
• Automated chat routing to the appropriate departments will allow for quicker responses.

Tags

We can measure the performance of an outsourced live customer chat support team with another metric called Tags. It classifies customer chat interactions into different groups.

This KPI keeps tabs on which groups receive more questions and which do not. In fact, we can track which areas need improvement with this KPI. With over 50% of customers preferring chat support, it is essential to keep a tab on this metric.

For example, suppose we have 20 chat sessions tagged under pricing out of 40 chat sessions. This indicates that the relevant pricing information is not easily accessible to customers. The chat queries can be reduced greatly by adding the required specific information on the website.

This clears up the chat queue, thereby reducing Average Wait Time. In fact, this helps improve customer satisfaction leading to higher NPS.

Final Thoughts on Live Chat KPIs & Analytics

At the end of the day, live chat customer support has the power to help businesses connect with customers, boost conversions and increase customer satisfaction.

While accomplishing this in-house can increase overheads, outsourcing is the solution. In fact, many successful businesses outsource live chat customer support to reliable partners like Bobcares. They rely on the KPIs mentioned above to track the performance of the outsourced team.

The Live Customer Support Chat KPIs mentioned above are some of the most commonly used KPIs. However, there are several more metrics used by outsourcing companies.

Businesses can use the industry standard values of these metrics. They offer a clear picture of the outsourced support team’s performance. It also helps tweak the performance of the outsourced support team for better returns in the long run.

KPIs help both parties ensure that customer satisfaction remains high, followed by a boost in sales figures. After all, live chat support is one of the most preferred customer support platforms among consumers. Unlike other support platforms, live chat helps customers in real-time. With time being of the essence, its no wonder businesses prefer to offer live chat on their website.

Outsourcing live customer support is the best way to take advantage of this fact. Furthermore, it offers a competitive edge in today’s competitive world.