From A to I to Z: Jaid’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence

The resolution rate is a measure of how many customer support tickets you’ve successfully closed over a given period of time, expressed as a percentage.

Working out the resolution rate tells you how well an individual customer service staff member — or your customer service department as a whole — is performing. If you handle customer service on behalf of your clients, it also tells you whether you’re meeting your obligations under any service level agreements you might have in place. 

To measure the resolution rate:

• Define what counts as a “resolved” case. Typically, these will be support tickets you’ve closed because the customer is happy with how you’ve addressed their inquiry
• Decide the period over which you’ll work out your resolution rate — weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, mid-yearly, yearly?
• Divide the number of resolved tickets by the total number of tickets in your chosen period
• Multiply the answer by 100 to get a percentage

Let’s say you want to work out the resolution rate across your firm for the month of January. 

During that month, you received 2,000 support tickets, and you successfully resolved 1,600 of them. 

In this case, your resolution rate would be 80% — 1600 / 2000 x 100. 

This tells you you’ve resolved eight out of every ten tickets you’ve received, while two out of every ten remain pending.

Some facts

The resolution rate is a good way to track your customer service team’s efficiency, but there are also other metrics you can use to get a more nuanced view of their performance. These include:

• First contact resolution rate: this tells you how many support tickets are resolved in your first interaction with the customer. You can work it out by dividing the number of tickets resolved on first contact by the total number of tickets and multiplying your answer by 100. 
• Interactions per ticket: this is the number of communications required to resolve an issue. A greater number of interactions per ticket could be a sign of poor communication or other problems with your customer service process. 
• Average resolution time: this tells you how long it typically takes to resolve an issue. As with interactions per ticket, longer resolution times can be an indication of issues with your process. 
• Escalation rate: this is the percentage of support tickets that have to be sent to a more senior member of staff. A high escalation rate can be a sign that your customer service staff either have gaps in their training, or don’t have sufficient authority to handle some of your customers’ more common issues. 

High resolution rates are correlated with greater customer satisfaction. Customers whose issues are resolved quickly are more likely to be loyal, while customers whose issues take a long time to be resolved or aren’t resolved to their satisfaction will generally have a negative view of the business.

Research suggests that businesses tend to overestimate client satisfaction levels. In asset management, for instance, clients’ customer service ratings can be up to 14% lower than what firms perceive them to be.

Want to know more?

This article by HubSpot is a good overview of the 11 key customer support metrics every firm should track, including the resolution rate, first contact resolution rate, average resolution time, and interactions per ticket. 

Because customers value speedy resolutions, your first-contact resolution rate is the metric with the greatest potential to impact your customer satisfaction scores. This article is a deep dive into the metric: what it is, why it matters, and tips for improving it.

Jaid’s perspective

“The true test of customer service is how speedily and efficiently you can address and resolve issues. Today’s customers rarely think twice about leaving a bad review, moving on to a competitor, or both if you take too long to respond or don’t address inquiries to their satisfaction, so monitoring your resolution rate and other customer service metrics is critical. AI’s ability to parse huge amounts of data and take effective action quickly means it can significantly improve your resolution rate, first-contact resolution rate, and other key customer service metrics that are correlated with greater satisfaction and, so, happier, more loyal customers.”

Discover how Jaid’s AI-powered platform is increasing resolution rates and customer satisfaction – contact us today for a free demo!