A typical technology company invests significantly in Support operations, and it’s reasonable for the leadership team to expect a clear understanding of the returns on this investment. After all, these funds could alternatively be allocated to Marketing, Sales, or Product Development.<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s the answer?\u00a0 What is the value of Support to the company?<\/p>\n
Driving customer satisfaction is a starting point, but it is not enough. A happy customer isn’t necessarily a loyal one; they can still reduce their spend or switch to a competitor. The true measure of Support\u2019s value lies in its impact on customer retention and revenue expansion. However, unlike Sales or Customer Success, the contributions of Support to these areas are often overlooked.<\/p>\n
Support\u2019s value lies in its impact on customer retention and revenue expansion.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Last year, I introduced the Support Contribution Index, a framework I developed to quantify how Support efforts translate into tangible business outcomes. Yet, one crucial piece is often missing: robust, quality-driven Support metrics.<\/p>\n
The Limitations of Traditional Metrics<\/h2>\n
Current Support metrics\u2014focused on satisfaction, interaction volume, and case resolution times\u2014are necessary but not sufficient. They fall short of revealing the efficiency, effectiveness, and real impact of Support initiatives.<\/p>\n
Support Effort Leads to Business Outcomes<\/h2>\n
Satisfying customers and quick issue resolution are important, but true customer loyalty, retention, and growth hinge on helping customers achieve success with your products.<\/p>\n
Customer loyalty, retention, and growth hinge on helping customers achieve success with your products.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When Support efforts help customers successfully use your products customer health rises, revenue is retained, and opportunities for expansion increase.<\/p>\n
\n
- Relationship Health \u2013 97% of customers that achieve success milestones report a healthy relationship with their vendor and plan to continue or expand product usage.<\/li>\n
- Expansion \u2013 90% of customers that achieve adoption and success milestones indicate that they are very likely or likely to buy more products and services.<\/li>\n
- Retention \u2013 Over 95% of customers that achieve adoption and success milestones plan to sustain or increase product usage levels.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The Need for NextGen Support Metrics<\/h2>\n
We understand that helping customers adopt and successfully use products leads to better business outcomes. What remains elusive are the connections between Support\u2019s efforts and customers\u2019 outcomes.<\/p>\n
What remains elusive are the connections between Support\u2019s efforts and customers\u2019 outcomes.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If we want deeper insights into the impact of Support\u2019s efforts, we need better Support metrics. Here are seven areas I believe we need to focus on when measuring Support performance.<\/p>\n
Customer Engagement<\/strong><\/h5>\n
With finite Support resources it matters that you help the right customer at the right time and not just respond to cases in the order received.<\/p>\n
Support engagement metrics must reveal who is being helped, the relationship value of the recipient, and the circumstances surrounding the need for support.<\/em><\/p>\n
Support Reach<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Sharing knowledge is a workforce multiplier and the best way to scale support delivery.<\/p>\n
Metrics must capture the type and volume of shared support knowledge engaged through direct and digital channels.<\/em><\/p>\n
Answers Delivered<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Shared knowledge helps to scale support when it is consumed by customers and not simply viewed.<\/p>\n
Metrics must capture the meaningful consumption of shared knowledge to indicate delivery of value to the customer.<\/em><\/p>\n
Answers Accepted<\/strong><\/h5>\n
The ultimate measure of success for shared knowledge is when it delivers value and resolves a customer\u2019s need.<\/p>\n
Metrics must capture the extent to which shared knowledge is consumed and answers customer questions fully.<\/em><\/p>\n
Effectiveness <\/strong><\/h5>\n
Effective support delivers a result measured by helping a customer overcome an obstacle or showing them how to use and apply a product.<\/p>\n
Metrics must focus on the impact of delivering support indicated by customers\u2019 ability to adopt or successfully apply a product.<\/em><\/p>\n
Support Costs<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Support insights cannot be complete without a full accounting of costs and resources required to deliver results.<\/p>\n
Metrics must account for the cost, time and allocation of resources to support customers.<\/em><\/p>\n
Delivery Efficiency<\/strong><\/h5>\n
While we want Support to contribute to tangible business outcomes, we want to assure that it is as efficient as possible.<\/p>\n
Metrics must indicate the impact or outcome of support delivery compared to the cost of delivery.<\/em><\/p>\n
Each one of these focus areas has specific underlying activities and outcomes we need to track and generates a set of measurable performance indicators.\u00a0 We have a fully defined framework with the specific inputs that need to be captured to reveal key support performance indicators for performance analysis and benchmarking.<\/p>\n
Gaps in Your Support Metrics?<\/h2>\n
Do you have gaps in your Support metrics?<\/p>\n
Please share your thoughts about the metrics you track, the ones you think you should, or the measurement focus areas I have outlined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NextGen metrics to measure Support\u2019s contribution to delivering value to both customers and the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":253886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[385],"tags":[390,389,387,129,91,33,386,388],"class_list":["post-254448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metrics","tag-answers-accepted","tag-answers-delivered","tag-customer-engagement","tag-effectiveness","tag-efficiency","tag-metrics","tag-nextgen","tag-support-reach","post_outcome-adopt-best-practices","post_outcome-benchmark-performance","post_activity-measure","post_activity-metrics-and-insights","post_activity-support"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254448"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254744,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254448\/revisions\/254744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servicexrg.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}