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Four numbers that tell you if your support team is actually working

Message volume is not performance. These four are.

Most teams measure how many messages they handled. That number goes up when things go badly as easily as when they go well, so on its own it says nothing.

First response time

How long a customer waits for any human answer. This is the number that correlates most directly with whether they buy, and it is the one customers actually feel.

Resolution time

How long from the first message to the conversation being closed. A fast first response and a slow resolution means your team is acknowledging rather than solving.

Reopened conversations

How often a closed conversation comes back. A high rate means answers are being given that do not hold, and it is usually a training or documentation problem rather than a staffing one.

Loss reasons

For anything with a sales pipeline, why deals were lost matters more than how many. If most losses say "price" you have a positioning problem; if most say "no response" you have an operations problem, and that one is yours to fix.