Contact rate in service: what it is, importance and tips
Understand what contact rate is in service, the importance of the indicator, how to measure, and tips to improve the quality of the support service.
Some people say that a good product or service doesn't need support. This may even make sense at first, but if Contact rate at the service Being high doesn't necessarily mean everything went wrong.
After all, there are several reasons for the customer base to contact the company for support. Precisely for this reason, it is necessary to analyze the reasons why this Attendance indicator is it high or low.
The contact rate may increase during the launch of a new product or when a new feature is released in the service offered.
So, the fee alone doesn't say everything the care team needs to know to analyze whether the result is positive or negative. It is necessary to consider other aspects that influence the contact rate.
Do you want to learn more about the contact rate in customer service? Read on and understand the concept, the importance, how the fee is calculated, and how to improve results.
Have a good read!
What is the contact rate?
The contact rate (CR) or contact rate, in Portuguese, is one of the customer service KPIs that shows the volume of contacts received via call, live chat, e-mail, etc. compared to the company's active customer base.
That is, the CR indicates how requested the company's customer service is. As we highlighted above, the number of calls received may vary according to the type of business analyzed and the moment it is experiencing.
Under normal conditions, this metric will indicate the success of the sales process, analyzing the reasons for opening tickets, whether the services are well evaluated and whether actions to increase customer satisfaction are having an effect.
What is the importance of the contact rate in customer service?
The monitoring of the contact rate in the service is important because the requests made by the customer base throughout the relationship with the company will indicate the effectiveness of the product or service offered.
In addition, contact records can provide insights to expand the client portfolio, with the analysis of the points that are being raised as improvements, functions that are working, and others.
Increasing or reducing the contact rate itself is not the main thing and it also doesn't mean that customers should never need the company.
On the contrary, customer feedback can and must be requested so that, in fact, the team does not rely solely on their initiative to make contact.
Therefore, remember to always consider everything when analyzing the contact rate in the service so that the analysis is truly assertive.
How is contact rate measured?
Now, on the practical side of monitoring the contact rate, which will allow the analyses mentioned above, we have how the contact rate is measured in the service.
The account is fairly simple and straightforward. Normally, the measurement is taken monthly, which makes it easy to create a file with the history of the results to follow the evolution of the results. The formula is as follows:
Number of contacts received in the month ÷ total customer base for the month = Contact Rate.
So, for example, if during the month of October, the company received 200 calls and maintained a base of 950 customers, the contact rate is 0.21.
By monitoring the monthly contact rate, you can compare how CR develops as the base increases or decreases and how this is reflected in the business and the type of contact received - plus questions, support requests, or complaints.
How to improve the contact rate? 3 tips
By analyzing your business and what benefits you want to offer the customer, you can work to improve the contact rate, reducing the rate if that is the purpose or planning the increase at key moments such as the contract renewal period, for example.
To help you with this planning, we have put together some tips on how to improve the contact rate and achieve the desired results. Check it out!
Keep a constant flow of feedback
Based on the idea that the lower the contact rate in the service, the better, the first step is Keep passing on feedback about your product/service to the development team.
After all, the role of customer service isn't just about receiving and recording support tickets. The information that comes from customers is very valuable and must be passed on to the areas of interest.
Hold weekly meetings to analyze, categorize, identify trends in feedback and forward it to the responsible sectors. Thus, it is possible to monitor improvements from one week to the next, without generating peaks in the contact rate.
In this way, the company also guarantees the delivery of a product/service that meets customer needs and provides a friendly experience with the highest quality.
Also read >>> Customer service and loyalty: how to improve strategies?
2. Provide a self-service channel
Another tip to improve contact rate is provide a self-service channel for customers. O Chatbot and the Help Center with text answers and video tutorials are the most common examples.
This is useful because in addition to feedback, the service team has to deal with a number of other demands. So, to aid productivity and prevent the customer from waiting long hours for a simple question to be answered, these channels help a lot.
Thus, human attendants are responsible for more complex services, managing to optimize response time and avoid the pressure of moments of Peak service.
3. Create a community to promote exchanges
Finally, another strategy that works to reduce the contact rate is create a community based on your customer base. This option is useful for companies that sell services such as software, for example, that perform a variety of activities, resources, and applications.
Especially since users like to be able to solve problems on their own and to exchange with people who have similar needs and are knowledgeable about the subject.
For these spaces to be useful, offering a gamified experience, where users are classified by their expertise and comments can be evaluated, is important for the credibility of the community.
It is also important that the team moderates the space to avoid false information and offensive behavior.
Read more: How to reduce the cost of customer support in a company?
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