What is resolution rate?
Definition: Resolution rate is a key performance indicator that measures the number of customer requests that customer support resolves in a certain period.
It is used to measure the effectiveness of customer support and how successful they are in solving customer requests.
Resolution rate formula
Calculating the resolution rate means comparing the number of solved tickets to the number of received tickets and is measured in percentages.
Solved Tickets / Received Tickets x 100 = Resolution Rate
Note: Only fully resolved tickets are considered in the formula.
For example, a customer support representative received 400 tickets in the past month and solved 350.
350 / 400 x 100 = 87.5%
In the past month, this representative solved 87.5% of the tickets that were assigned to them, leaving the other 12.5% in the ticket backlog.
What is a good resolution rate?
It depends on many factors, like the industry, type of support, size of the team, and the team's support strategy.
In most industries, a resolution rate of 80% or higher is considered good, while 70% and below indicates that the team and support systems need improvement.
The goal of any customer support team is to increase the resolution rate without a drop in the quality of ticket resolution.
How to increase resolution rate?
The two main ways of increasing the resolution rate are decreasing the number of tickets the support receives and increasing the number of tickets the team solves.
To achieve these, teams employ these tactics:
- Implementation of self-serving options like FAQs and knowledge bases allowing customers to solve issues independently.
- Customer notifications on a regular basis to let them know their tickets are still open as they can forget, leaving them unresolved.
- Ticket routing to the representatives with the right skill to solve the problem a customer is having.
- Ticket backlog cleaning on a regular basis, allowing the team to focus on clearing the tickets that are left unresolved.
- Collaboration with other departments (especially development) to solve complex problems.
- Fixing the root problem with the product and eliminating one type of ticket the support receives.
- Regularly training the support team and updating the internal knowledge base with new problems and solutions.