E-MAIL METRICS.Increasingly, end users have come to accept e-mail as an alternative to live phone support. With e-mail, customers generally don't don't 1. Contraction of do not. 2. Nonstandard Contraction of does not. n. A statement of what should not be done: a list of the dos and don'ts. expect instant answers to their questions, so support reps can handle traffic flow more smoothly and efficiently. When questions are fairly repetitious rep·e·ti·tious adj. Filled with repetition, especially needless or tedious repetition. rep  e·ti , moreover, support reps can often use stock
e-mail answers to speed up the time it takes to create a reply.
Still, our numbers suggest that e-mail so far hasn't has·n't Contraction of has not. hasn't has not hasn't have brought the industry a dramatic breakthrough in support productivity. Overall, support reps seem to handle about 20 e-mail incidents per day, roughly the same productivity that comparable telephone support reps achieve. Predictably, larger support organizations are able to squeeze Squeeze 1. In financial terms, a period of time when borrowing is difficult. 2. In general business terms, times when increasing costs cannot be passed onto consumers. The decrease in profits is said to be caused by a "squeeze" on profit margins. more e- mail productivity from their employees than their smaller counterparts. Another significant variable in productivity measurement is the cost of the application, which often corresponds to the complexity of support questions.
E-mail productivity per support rep E-mails/day 50%
Range*
By support organization size:
30+ employees (30 responses) 25 7.5 - 45
10-29 employees (27 responses) 20 10 - 35
1-9 employees (45 responses) 15 6 - 30
By application price:
$10,000+ (24 responses) 10 4 - 22.5
$1,000-$9,995 (29 responses) 16 7.5 - 30
$15-$999 (36 responses) 32 16 - 67.5
Median (103 responses) 20 7 - 35
* "50% Range" represents the middle half of all responses.
How quickly do software companies answer e-mail support questions? The prevailing guarantee is a 24-hour turnaround Turnaround A situation where a company that has had poor performance for an extended period of time experiences a positive reversal. Notes: A speculator may profit from a turnaround if he or she accurately anticipates the improvement of a poorly performing company. , but actual response times are almost always much faster; typically, customers will hear back within about five hours (median). Moreover, response time usually reflects product cost: Customers who buy higher-priced applications get the fastest service. Surprisingly, though, price has almost no impact on whether a company guarantees a specific e-mail response time:
E-mail response time Guarantee % Promised Actual
By application price:
$10,000+ (26 responses) 54% 18 hrs 4 hrs
$1,000-$9,995 (34 responses) 53% 24 hrs 7 hrs
$15-$999 (42 responses) 52% 24 hrs 9 hrs
Median (114 responses) 53% 24 hrs 5 hrs
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion