What are Customer Service Standards?
Providing good customer service is important for your business.
That’s no secret.
However, that’s easier said than done.
When it comes to operationalizing your customer service across your company, you might want to create a system to measure your performance.
That’s where Customer Service Standards come into play.
What are Customer Service Standards?
Customer Service Standards help your company establish a minimum level of expected customer service.
These standards are then communicated and implemented company-wide in order to maintain said level of service.
In simple terms, they are measurable goals for your customer service efforts that should always be met.
Read more on what customer service standards should be implemented
How can Customer Service Standards be used?
For example, one customer service standard at your company might be that all customer emails must be answered within 24 business hours.
This is done in order to ensure quick response times for your customers and will be seen as the longest acceptable response time for customer service teams in your company.
At the end of the day, your customer service standards will be created according to the needs and context of your company and customers.
In the long run, customer service standards should be periodically reviewed and updated to fit your current business needs and goals.
Customer Service Standards vs KPIs
So, what’s the difference between customer service standards and customer support KPI’s?
KPIs are just metrics and indicators. Meaning that, without context, they can be virtually meaningless.
For example, a KPI might indicate that your company resolves 20 support tickets a day. Is that a lot? Is that too little?
Customer Service Standards help put KPIs in context as they are meant to be measurable goals.
A Customer Service Standard might say that you’re goal is to close at least 80% of the tickets received on a given day.
As a result, you can use your KPI metrics for opened tickets and closed tickets to determine if you’re meeting such standards.
Customer Service Standards and KPI measurements work hand-in-hand to give you insights on the performance of your customer service efforts. Having one without the other would serve no purpose.
Closing Thoughts
Customer Service Standards are only as good as you want them to be.
Our recommendation is to start with a set of standards that are within reasonable reach. Then, you can update these as you see fit based on your team’s performance and support KPIs.
Want to learn more? Read our guide on the 10 best practices for customer support in 2020.