Web Site Measurement Hacks

Key Performance Indicators for Customer Support Sites

The surest path to lowering customer support costs is making sure that people are successful using your online support content. The surest way to do this is to regularly monitor a handful of support key performance indicators, watching for problems and monitoring the effect of changes.

The customer support business model is often overlooked by both vendors and businesses themselves when it comes to web measurement. Often, companies that have a significant support presence and very significant customer support costs fail to actively work to optimize their support web sites. Perhaps it’s because so often, support sites are deployed using packaged applications that are difficult to modify or because support sites are so dependent on search. Regardless of the cause, there is a fantastic opportunity for companies to lower operating expenses by ensuring that customers are able to self-service their support needs, rather than making an expensive phone call.

Basic Key Performance Indicators for Customer Support Sites

The following key performance indicators should be considered core to the regular reporting for any customer support site. Each assumes a constant period of time, for example, the previous day or the previous week, unless otherwise noted, and most KPIs assume that you’re able to segment or otherwise isolate traffic to your support site if that site is part of a larger site (which is common).

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