The Support Metrics Glossary

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction — typically a support conversation. It i…

DSAT (Dissatisfied Customer Score) measures the percentage of support interactions that resulted in a negative customer rating. It is the in…

Internal Quality Score (IQS) is a QA metric that measures how well support conversations meet your team's internal standards — tone, accurac…

Sentiment Score is a quality metric that uses natural language processing (NLP) or AI analysis to classify the emotional tone of support con…

Voice of Customer (VoC) is a structured discipline for capturing, analyzing, and acting on customer feedback about their experience with a p…

First Response Time (FRT) measures the time between when a customer submits a support request and when they receive the first substantive re…

Median First Reply Time is the middle value when all first reply times for a period are sorted from shortest to longest. If you have 101 con…

Time to Close (also called Resolution Time) measures the total duration from when a customer opens a support conversation to when it is mark…

Resolution Rate measures the percentage of support conversations that are successfully resolved within a defined period or on the first cont…

Reopen Rate measures the percentage of support conversations that were closed and then reopened by the customer within a defined window (usu…

Average Handle Time (AHT) measures the average time a support agent spends actively working on a single ticket or conversation — including w…

First Contact Resolution (FCR) measures the percentage of support interactions where the customer's issue is fully resolved on the first con…

Deflection Rate measures the percentage of potential support contacts that were handled by self-service resources — help center articles, ch…

Containment Rate measures the percentage of customer conversations initiated with a bot or automated system that were fully resolved without…

Escalation Rate measures the percentage of support tickets that require escalation to a higher support tier, specialized team, or management…

Abandonment Rate measures the percentage of customers who initiated contact via live chat or phone but left the queue before an agent became…

Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) is the average time from when a support ticket is opened to when it is fully resolved and closed. Borrowed fr…

Schedule Adherence measures how consistently agents work the hours and tasks they were scheduled for, expressed as the percentage of schedul…

Occupancy Rate measures the percentage of an agent's available shift time spent actively handling contacts — writing, talking, or completing…

Repeat Contact Rate measures the percentage of support contacts that are follow-ups from customers who already contacted support about the s…

Transfer Rate measures the percentage of support conversations that are transferred or reassigned to a different agent or team during their …

SLA Compliance Rate (also called SLA Attainment) measures the percentage of support tickets where the team responded or resolved within the …

Automation Rate measures the percentage of inbound support tickets or conversations fully handled by automated systems — bots, AI workflows,…

Average Touches per Ticket (also called Average Reply Count or Average Interactions) measures how many agent replies a support ticket requir…

Contact Ratio (also called Contact Rate or Contacts per Customer) measures the average number of support interactions a customer initiates p…

Agent Concurrency (also called Simultaneous Chat Count) measures how many active live-chat or messaging conversations an agent handles at th…

Self-Service Rate measures the percentage of customer support sessions successfully resolved through self-service resources — help center ar…

Survey Response Rate measures the percentage of customers who complete a satisfaction survey (CSAT, NPS, or CES) out of those who were sent …

Handle Rate (also called Throughput Rate or Tickets per Hour) measures how many tickets or conversations an agent or team fully handles per …

Ticket Aging tracks how long open, unresolved tickets have been sitting in the queue without resolution. It is typically measured as the ave…

Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty by asking a single question: "How likely are you to recommend [product/company] to a frie…

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy it was for a customer to get their issue resolved. It is typically measured by asking: "How ea…

Churn Rate measures the percentage of customers who cancelled their subscription or stopped using the product in a given period. Support tea…

Customer Retention Rate measures the percentage of customers who continue using a product over a defined period, typically monthly or annual…

Contact Volume (also called Ticket Volume or Inbound Volume) is the total count of support conversations, tickets, or contacts initiated by …

Support Backlog is the accumulation of open, unresolved support tickets that have not been handled or resolved within an expected timeframe.…

Channel Mix describes the distribution of support contacts across communication channels — email, live chat, phone, in-app messenger, commun…

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a documented commitment between a company and its customers specifying minimum response and resolution ti…

A Service Level Objective (SLO) is an internal performance target that a support team sets for itself — typically 10–20% stricter than the c…

Ticket Triage is the process of sorting, categorizing, and prioritizing incoming support requests immediately upon receipt — before assignme…

Support Tiers (Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3) describe a hierarchical structure for routing and resolving customer issues by complexity and require…

Shift-Left Support is a strategy that moves issue resolution toward lower-cost, faster touchpoints — from Tier 3 to Tier 2, from Tier 2 to T…

Macros (also called Canned Responses, Saved Replies, or Templates) are pre-written response blocks that agents can insert into replies with …

An Escalation Path is the defined route a support ticket follows when it needs to move beyond its initial handling team — from Tier 1 to Tie…

Queue Management is the practice of monitoring, organizing, and prioritizing the pool of open support tickets to ensure timely handling acco…

Ticket Routing is the process of directing an incoming support ticket to the right agent, team, or queue based on rules that match ticket ch…

Workforce Management (WFM) is the discipline of ensuring the right number of agents with the right skills are available at the right times t…

A QA Rubric (also called a Quality Scorecard or Review Framework) is the structured set of dimensions and criteria used to evaluate the qual…

QA Calibration is the process of aligning multiple QA reviewers on how to interpret and apply a quality rubric consistently. In calibration …

Omnichannel Support is a support approach where customer interactions across all channels — email, live chat, phone, social media, in-app, c…

Asynchronous Support (async support) describes support channels where the customer and agent don't communicate in real time — the customer s…

Service Recovery is the process of identifying customers who had a negative support experience — typically signaled by DSAT, NPS detractor r…

Proactive Support is a support approach where the team initiates contact with customers before customers reach out — typically triggered by …

Inbox Zero in customer support refers to the operational goal of having no unread, unassigned, or unresolved tickets at the end of a shift o…

A Priority Matrix (also called P1/P2/P3/P4 tiers or Severity Levels) is a framework that classifies support tickets by urgency and business …

Knowledge Management in support is the discipline of creating, organizing, maintaining, and delivering accurate product and process knowledg…

Agent Coaching is the structured process of using performance data — IQS scores, CSAT feedback, DSAT conversations, handle time, and FCR — t…

Support Capacity Planning is the process of calculating how many agents are needed to handle forecasted contact volume at target service lev…

Ticket Tagging (also called Ticket Categorization or Classification) is the practice of labeling support conversations with structured metad…

AI Assist (also called AI Copilot or Agent Assist) refers to tools that use AI to help human support agents handle tickets faster and more a…