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.
So, what’s the answer? What is the value of Support to the company?
Beyond Customer Satisfaction
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’s 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.
Support’s value lies in its impact on customer retention and revenue expansion.
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.
The Limitations of Traditional Metrics
Current Support metrics—focused on satisfaction, interaction volume, and case resolution times—are necessary but not sufficient. They fall short of revealing the efficiency, effectiveness, and real impact of Support initiatives.
Support Effort Leads to Business Outcomes
Satisfying customers and quick issue resolution are important, but true customer loyalty, retention, and growth hinge on helping customers achieve success with your products.
Customer loyalty, retention, and growth hinge on helping customers achieve success with your products.
When Support efforts help customers successfully use your products customer health rises, revenue is retained, and opportunities for expansion increase.
- Relationship Health – 97% of customers that achieve success milestones report a healthy relationship with their vendor and plan to continue or expand product usage.
- Expansion – 90% of customers that achieve adoption and success milestones indicate that they are very likely or likely to buy more products and services.
- Retention – Over 95% of customers that achieve adoption and success milestones plan to sustain or increase product usage levels.
The Need for NextGen Support Metrics
We understand that helping customers adopt and successfully use products leads to better business outcomes. What remains elusive are the connections between Support’s efforts and customers’ outcomes.
What remains elusive are the connections between Support’s efforts and customers’ outcomes.
If we want deeper insights into the impact of Support’s efforts, we need better Support metrics. Here are seven areas I believe we need to focus on when measuring Support performance.
Customer Engagement
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.
Support engagement metrics must reveal who is being helped, the relationship value of the recipient, and the circumstances surrounding the need for support.
Support Reach
Sharing knowledge is a workforce multiplier and the best way to scale support delivery.
Metrics must capture the type and volume of shared support knowledge engaged through direct and digital channels.
Answers Delivered
Shared knowledge helps to scale support when it is consumed by customers and not simply viewed.
Metrics must capture the meaningful consumption of shared knowledge to indicate delivery of value to the customer.
Answers Accepted
The ultimate measure of success for shared knowledge is when it delivers value and resolves a customer’s need.
Metrics must capture the extent to which shared knowledge is consumed and answers customer questions fully.
Effectiveness
Effective support delivers a result measured by helping a customer overcome an obstacle or showing them how to use and apply a product.
Metrics must focus on the impact of delivering support indicated by customers’ ability to adopt or successfully apply a product.
Support Costs
Support insights cannot be complete without a full accounting of costs and resources required to deliver results.
Metrics must account for the cost, time and allocation of resources to support customers.
Delivery Efficiency
While we want Support to contribute to tangible business outcomes, we want to assure that it is as efficient as possible.
Metrics must indicate the impact or outcome of support delivery compared to the cost of delivery.
Each one of these focus areas has specific underlying activities and outcomes we need to track and generates a set of measurable performance indicators. 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.
Gaps in Your Support Metrics?
Do you have gaps in your Support metrics?
Please share your thoughts about the metrics you track, the ones you think you should, or the measurement focus areas I have outlined.
