Are Your Customer Service Metrics Customer-Centric or Self-Centric? (Why you can’t be afraid to ask) Part 3

In the final installment of our Customer Service Metrics series, we will discuss our final two tips for determining whether your metrics are customer-centric or self-centric, and how that will impact your customers’ experiences.

Empower your agents with data and training that means something.

Agents need data that helps them understand how their behavior correlates to customer happiness. They also need to understand how their SLAs are designed to drive exceptional customer service.

Being a customer service rep is one of the most difficult jobs in any organization. And yet, these valuable employees are often the newest to the organization and the least compensated. At Five9, we provide double the training to our support agents than most our competitors and we see a positive impact on retention and customer experience.

When you can retain an agent, you can continue to develop them. Training never stops -- and it must include conflict resolution, communication, how to deliver bad news to a customer, stress management, and how to set expectations with a customer.

Feed what you’ve learned back into the organization.

It will not help your organization if the data you measure stays siloed. It needs to be presented to the enterprise in ways that help everyone understand how their work touches the customer experience. Tell your stories and keep telling them so that you can continue to celebrate what you’re doing right and innovate on what needs to be improved. 

Think about this: in an age of online commerce, your agents may be the ONLY humans from your organization that your customers ever interact with. That is a huge opportunity and responsibility for agents.

Customer support experiences can and will make or break your customer retention. By measuring what matters to customers and implementing the customer point-of-view across your organization, you set your company up to take the lead in keeping your customers happy.

Thank you for following our Customer Service Metrics series! If you are just joining us, you can view the first two installments here and here.