If you are an executive at an information technology company you have a lot to think about on a day to day basis, but there are 5 more things that you need to be aware of.
Your service organization is an incredible source of metrics and measurements that describe ongoing interactions with your customers. They can tell you about the top concerns of your customers, the challenges they face using your products and the features they want to see in the future.

Service interactions with customers offer a wealth of insights into how to sustain and grow customer relationship value and create opportunities to differentiate your products. Of all the metrics your service team tracks there are 5 important areas that you should key a close eye on.

The industry average first contact resolution rate is 53.7%, an interesting yet meaningless number for determining what your FCR performance level should be. This article provides industry average FCR rates organized by common product characteristics including: The type of product; product complexity; type of customer supported, product price level; and the quality of the product as measured by defect rates. Leverage these benchmarks as a guideline to establish your optimal FCR performance level.

Successful knowledge management is not achieved by chance, rather it is a function of understanding the scope of the required effort, establishing a clear vision of the expected benefits, and securing the support and resources necessary to execute. The formulation of a successful knowledge management strategy is based on providing answers to five fundamental questions.

If you inventory all the metrics used by your customer-facing organizations – Sales, Marketing and Service – you will find an impressive collection of data elements that describe how you interact with your customers. Marketing metrics describe the ability to reach and influence customers; Sales metrics provide insights into the time and efficiency to book revenue; and Service metrics describe the volume, timeliness, and effectiveness of interacting with them. Add to this, insights provided from customer satisfaction assessment efforts. As an industry we have a lot of customer data, but does it tell us everything we need to know about how to engage and sustain long term profitable relationships?

First Contact Resolution (FCR) is a common metric used throughout the technology services and broader customer services industries. While widely used the underlying inputs and assumptions that makeup FCR vary widely. A consistent definition of FCR is essential to identify opportunities to improve customer satisfaction with case management activities and to increase support efficiency and effectiveness. This article provides a consistent and comprehensive definition and approach for measuring First Contact Resolution.

Social media’s ability to empower consumers by giving them the voice to discuss their problems and perceptions publicly has dramatically shifted the business/customer relationship. Companies need a strategy to engage socially with customers. Service and support organizations should view social media as a platform to gain insights about the issues, questions, and perceptions customers have about their products. If you don’t have a Social Media strategy for Support, it’s time. It’s better to start small than not start at all.

What is your ability to deliver Support if the building loses power? Or if there is a small fire in the kitchen? Or if the roads nearby are closed and people can’t get to the office? None of these things are actually disasters, and all of them can happen for very ordinary reasons. The fact is these and many other situations may disrupt your ability to deliver support to customers. Do you have a plan?

The amount of recurring revenue a company receives may increase, stay the same, or decline for a given period. Recurring Revenue Rate indicates the percent change in the amount of recurring revenue at the end of a specified period compared to the recurring revenue at the beginning of the same period. Measuring recurring revenue rate is essential to help identify the factors that lead to revenue retention and attrition and provides an indicator of the overall state of customer relationship health.

Social media strategies introduce non-conventional opportunities to deliver Support. Instead of providing direct assisted services or self-help content, Support creates an environment for others within the community to provide the expertise to help other customers. As Support develops social channels it must consider how to measure the impact of these strategies relative to their pursuit of technical support excellence.

Periodically we need to stop and place ourselves in our customers shoes and experience what we ask them to experience. If you have not done so recently, call for service, try to order a product. Here is a brief reminder of why you need to try being your own customer.