Customer support & CX

Metrics, skills and conversations that define great customer support and customer experience teams.

14 terms

Agent onboarding

The program that prepares new support agents to handle customer interactions, covering product, systems, policies and conversation skills.

The average length of a customer interaction, including talk time, hold time and after-call work.

A written guide for what an agent or rep says during a call. Modern scripts are flexible talk tracks more than word-for-word text.

A team or operation that handles customer interactions across phone, chat, email and messaging.

The sum of every interaction a customer has with a company, from first touch through support and renewal.

A score, usually from a short survey, that measures how satisfied a customer was with a specific interaction or experience.

Training that builds support agents' product knowledge and conversation skills, including empathy, de-escalation and clear explanations.

Techniques for calming an upset customer, such as acknowledging emotion, lowering the temperature of the conversation and moving toward a resolution.

A high-stakes conversation where emotions run high or opinions differ, such as delivering bad news, handling a complaint or giving hard feedback.

A phrase that acknowledges how a customer feels, such as "I understand how frustrating that is," before moving to a solution.

The percentage of customer issues resolved in the first interaction, with no follow-up needed.

A loyalty metric based on how likely customers are to recommend you, on a 0 to 10 scale. Promoters minus detractors equals NPS.

Reviewing and scoring customer interactions against a standard to ensure consistency and identify coaching needs.

A support structure where issues move from frontline agents (Tier 1) to specialists (Tier 2 and 3) based on complexity.