Customer support staffing is like a never-ending game of Jenga. If you’ve got a team of customer support reps who are all aligned on how best to help your customers and have experience doing just that, you’ve got an excellent foundation for resolving customer queries. But if you take out just a few of those reps – if they leave, get promoted, or are out sick for an extended period – then your support provision suddenly looks much less stable.

Data analysis is critical for all employees, no matter what department or role you work in. Whether you’re a marketer analyzing the return on investment of your latest campaign or a product manager reviewing usage data, the ability to identify and explore trends and fluctuations in your data is an essential skill for decision-making. Unfortunately, many companies today struggle with data organization and analysis.

The traditional way to measure customer service metrics is to track averages, such as average reply time or average resolution time. But Geckoboard’s Customer Support Experience Report found that some companies measure first response time as a service level agreement (SLA) metric rather than an average. SLA metrics are internal metrics used by customer support teams to set targets for the proportion of customers who will receive a predefined minimum level of service.