KPI (Key Performance Indicators) for Live Web Chat: Their Metrics and the Importance of Customer Service Outsourcing

Live Web Chat Key Performance Indicators

As it has been reported at the start of this year (2021) that at least 41% of the worldwide customers that utilize multichannel communication and Telecom platforms (such as SMS messaging, phone calls, live web chat with conversational AI [artificial intelligence], e-mail, social media, etcetera) prefer live chat to connect with customer service and tech support due to its provision of speedy consumer solutions, it’s vitally important for businesses to consider the key performance metrics – known as key performance indicators (KPIs) – that give an indication of how well their customer service is doing in reference to properly meeting their customers’ needs and promoting strong customer service experiences that influence consumers to remain faithful to the goods and services that they enjoy. Because live chat has practically become the principal means of connection with companies’ customer service and technical support teams, businesses –eCommerce sellers or not – can greatly benefit from monitoring and heeding to the most important KPIs that give operations teams an understanding of their live chat support customer service quality – allowing them to take advantage of the data-mining so that they may ensure that consumers receive exceptional customer service, strengthening short-term sales efforts and providing opportunities for long-term sales success and financial security. Let’s take a look at some of these KPIs below.

An Inside Look at Some of the Key Performance Metrics

As there are many different live web chat metrics that contribute to an overall understanding of how well customer service teams are doing in reference to the provision of superb live chat customer service and tech support, we are going to categorize the after-mentioned KPIs into two categories:

1. Qualitative Indicators
2. Quantitative Indicators

By categorizing some of the most important KPIs into these categories according to each scientific words’ definition origins (qualitative (Medieval Latin word) meaning relating to quality– and quantitative (Medieval Latin word) meaning measurable), we can understand exactly which KPIs are influenced by CSRs and which KPIs contribute directly to customer service quality from consumers’ perspectives.

Qualitative Indicators

Here’s some of the key qualitative live chat KPIs that are directly influenced by customers’ perspectives on the customer service that they receive:

• Net Promotor Score (NPS) – as a principal means of determining customer loyalty, as well as an indicator of future customer acquisition rates, NPS measures how likely individual consumers are to refer your business; bearing in mind that this key live web chat metric offers customization, there’s an index range of 0 – 10 – as seen in the below categories:
  • Detraction (0 – 6)
  • Passiveness (7 – 8)
  • Promotion (9 – 10)
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) – closely related to NPS, CSAT actually measures the overall likelihood that products/services match or surpass customer expectations; CSAT is calculated by providing individual customers a questionnaire or range that qualifies the customer service that they have received and then transfigures overall results into a straightforward percentage that shows how well customer service teams are doing – on a weekly, bi-weekly, and/or monthly basis. These Q&A requests can be provided after customer interactions via email, phone calls, forms, social media, etcetera.
• Chat-to-Conversion Rates – Chat to Conversion Rates – often measured by how many live chat participants take action post-chat (subscription signups, product/service purchases, etcetera) out of all live web chat participants – can indicate whether or not customer service agents’ approach strategies are leading to sales conversions; if this KPI’s rates are high, then Return Over Investment (ROI) can be significantly increased.

Quantitative Indicators

Here’s some of the key quantitative live web chat KPIs that are influenced by CSRs:

• First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR) – FCR allows operations teams to see whether or not CSRs need additional product, service, or communication skills training; as this KPI calculates the percentage of web chats that have fully answered or resolved consumers/customers pre-sales inquiries/post-sales issues within the first individual live chat and without escalation, the KPI is very important in determining the quality of each CSR’s capability to meet customer needs in a rapid manner – since it has been estimated that 77% of all consumers value time as being the most important thing that businesses save on when providing online customer service.
• Average Resolution Time (ART) – similar to the above, ART actually measures the tolerable time it takes customers’ individual requests or issues to be completely answered/resolved, showing the quality of customer service teams’ commitment and efficiency; overall ART is simply calculated the following way for a pre-determined period of time:
  • (the sum of all resolution times) / (the total of all tickets solved) = the Average Resolution Time
• Average Wait Time – successfully meeting this KPIs goal – and each customer’s expectations – is the main reason why consumers find live web chat to be the most convenient means of connecting with customer service support teams; according to research, the ideal time should be under 30 seconds – meaning that CSRs should respond to incoming chats within the first 30 seconds of a ticket’s creation. The most ideal time is actually under 15 seconds; meeting this goal is a surefire means of ensuring that customers receive a good impression of each CSR.

The Importance of Customer Service Outsourcing: Callnovo Contact Center as a Viable Option

As these live chat performance KPIs allow operations teams the opportunity to monitor their customer support agents and in-turn provide higher quality customer service, a worthy option that should be considered to ensure that exceptional customer service is provided is customer service outsourcing. As an indirect benefit, customer service outsourcing solutions can ensure that businesses maximize on their productivity via 24/7/365 (full coverage) customer service in each sales market’s local language(s); our very own Callnovo Contact Center actually provides multilingual customer service in more than 35 native languages – including such languages as: English, Malaysian, Spanish, Mandarin / Cantonese, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, German, Turkish, Arabic, Portuguese – amongst others – to make sure that every serviced company – E-Commerce or not – can provide quick support at all times throughout the day – without language barriers and hiccups in service, augmenting customer acquisition and customer retention rates and ensuring that businesses create strong customer loyalty that brings long-term sales success and security. Apart from providing superb all-the-time customer service, Callnovo Contact Center likewise has a state-of-the-art Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that acutely helps businesses – like yours – to monitor the above-mentioned live web chat key performance indicators and more – providing accurate and detailed data on customer support representatives’ performance over the length of period of time that your business would choose – even giving your business insight on how it’s doing from an overhead perspective. In addition to this highlighted feature, our CRM platform likewise provides the following additional features (non-extensive) when it comes to providing live chat customer service:

• Role-based Ticket Assigning and Monitoring,

• SCAT and Q&A,
• Team-based Manual and Smart Notifications,
• Multi-client Shared Agents,
• Amazon Seller Central Integration,
• Shopify Back-end Integration, and
• Knowledge Base.