The Customer Support Dictionary — Volume 2

Sep 30, 2022

The first step to solving your customer support problems is understanding the terms that make-up this whole department and what they all mean. The more you understand what each metric means – the better you can triage!


Let’s break it down by volume and trend metrics:

VOLUME AND TRENDS



Ticket Volume

Average issue count (daily/weekly/monthly.) 

Ticket Volume by Topic

Average issue count by topic or category.

Ticket Volume by Type

Average issue count by type 

Example: feature request, technical issue, sales question, etc … 

Ticket Volume by Channel

Average issue count by support channel.

Ticket Volume per Customer

Total number of tickets divided by a total number of customers.

This metric helps you understand if you’re getting more requests because of new issues and bugs in the product or just because you’re getting more customers.

Backlog Volume

Tickets still reopened over a specific period (24hrs, 72hrs, one week, etc.) 

Backlog Outflow and Inflow

The number of tickets received versus the number of tickets resolved and closed (daily/weekly/monthly.) 

This metric shows you whether the backlog’s shrinking or increasing. 

Check out “The Customer Support Dictionary, Vol. 3” here to dive into definitions of Customer Satisfaction definitions :) 

The first step to solving your customer support problems is understanding the terms that make-up this whole department and what they all mean. The more you understand what each metric means – the better you can triage!


Let’s break it down by volume and trend metrics:

VOLUME AND TRENDS



Ticket Volume

Average issue count (daily/weekly/monthly.) 

Ticket Volume by Topic

Average issue count by topic or category.

Ticket Volume by Type

Average issue count by type 

Example: feature request, technical issue, sales question, etc … 

Ticket Volume by Channel

Average issue count by support channel.

Ticket Volume per Customer

Total number of tickets divided by a total number of customers.

This metric helps you understand if you’re getting more requests because of new issues and bugs in the product or just because you’re getting more customers.

Backlog Volume

Tickets still reopened over a specific period (24hrs, 72hrs, one week, etc.) 

Backlog Outflow and Inflow

The number of tickets received versus the number of tickets resolved and closed (daily/weekly/monthly.) 

This metric shows you whether the backlog’s shrinking or increasing. 

Check out “The Customer Support Dictionary, Vol. 3” here to dive into definitions of Customer Satisfaction definitions :) 

The first step to solving your customer support problems is understanding the terms that make-up this whole department and what they all mean. The more you understand what each metric means – the better you can triage!


Let’s break it down by volume and trend metrics:

VOLUME AND TRENDS



Ticket Volume

Average issue count (daily/weekly/monthly.) 

Ticket Volume by Topic

Average issue count by topic or category.

Ticket Volume by Type

Average issue count by type 

Example: feature request, technical issue, sales question, etc … 

Ticket Volume by Channel

Average issue count by support channel.

Ticket Volume per Customer

Total number of tickets divided by a total number of customers.

This metric helps you understand if you’re getting more requests because of new issues and bugs in the product or just because you’re getting more customers.

Backlog Volume

Tickets still reopened over a specific period (24hrs, 72hrs, one week, etc.) 

Backlog Outflow and Inflow

The number of tickets received versus the number of tickets resolved and closed (daily/weekly/monthly.) 

This metric shows you whether the backlog’s shrinking or increasing. 

Check out “The Customer Support Dictionary, Vol. 3” here to dive into definitions of Customer Satisfaction definitions :)