A support engineer is a skilled technical professional who provides frontline assistance to customers experiencing issues or having questions related to a company’s products or services. Their primary goal is to resolve customer concerns efficiently and effectively while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. Support engineers often work in high-pressure environments, dealing with a diverse range of technical complexities and customer interactions.
Pain Points
Technical complexity
The product the engineer is supporting can vary in complexity from trivial to daunting. For software companies, who release new features/updates frequently, this can be a very difficult thing to stay ahead of. Unless there is a good knowledge transfer (KT) structure in place, the engineer may always be lacking the knowledge they need to perform optimially.
Another complexity is that each customer’s environment may be different, further adding to the complexity of troubleshooting.
KPIs to track:
- First Contact Resolution Rate
- Knowledge Base Contributions
High-pressure environment
Dealing with people are angry or frustrated isn’t easy, even for the calmest person. In their role, they are the primary person triaging requets from customers and status updates from others in the organization; this can make this a very complex and tense role.
Additionally, most support organizations are very speed focused, so there is pressure to deliver good results quickly.
KPIs to track:
- Individual First Response Time
- Individual Average Resolution Time
- Ticket Volume
Repetitive tasks
All customers are different, but not all problems or process steps are. One of the most frustrating things in this position is dealing with the repetitive grunt work (I refer to this as “work suck”) and the potential monotony of tasks. HINT: automation and/or intelligent systems are key here!
To make these resources most productive, it is important to leverage automation to handle some of these lower-level activities; then, by the time it reaches the engineer, they are dealing with more complex pieces of the puzzle. Examples of this are KB deflection, Q&A flows (gather context), and system offloads (AI is great here).
A great example is the monotony and frequency of “What’s the status of this?” inquiries. If people have access to the system, and the system is automatically tracking changes, you can eradicate this scenario.
KPIs to track:
- Tasks per ticket
- Automation/deflection Rate
- Task Variety Score
KPI Definitions
Individual First Response Time (FRT)
- Definition
- The average time it takes for a specific support engineer to respond to a customer’s initial inquiry.
- Calculation
- (Sum of response times for all first responses by the engineer) / (Total number of first responses by the engineer)
SELECT engineer_id, AVG(TIMESTAMPDIFF(MINUTE, t.created_at, r.created_at)) AS IndividualFirstResponseTime
FROM tickets t
JOIN responses r ON t.id = r.ticket_id
WHERE r.is_first_response = 1
AND EXTRACT(@period FROM t.created_at) = EXTRACT(@period FROM CURRENT_DATE)
GROUP BY engineer_id;
-- NOTE: Replace @period with 'DAY', 'WEEK', 'MONTH', or 'QUARTER'.
Individual Average Resolution Time (ART)
- Definition
- The average time it takes for a specific support engineer to resolve a customer issue from the moment it’s reported.
- Calculation
- (Sum of resolution times for all resolved tickets by the engineer) / (Total number of resolved tickets by the engineer)
SELECT engineer_id, AVG(TIMESTAMPDIFF(MINUTE, t.created_at, t.resolved_at)) AS IndividualAverageResolutionTime
FROM tickets t
WHERE t.status = 'resolved'
AND EXTRACT(@period FROM t.created_at) = EXTRACT(@period FROM CURRENT_DATE)
GROUP BY engineer_id;
-- NOTE: Replace @period with 'DAY', 'WEEK', 'MONTH', or 'QUARTER'.
Individual Ticket Volume
- Definition
- The number of support tickets handled by a specific engineer, which can help identify workload distribution and skill set alignment.
- Calculation
- Total number of tickets handled by the engineer during a specific period
SELECT engineer_id, COUNT(*) AS TicketVolume
FROM tickets
WHERE EXTRACT(@period FROM created_at) = EXTRACT(@period FROM CURRENT_DATE)
GROUP BY engineer_id;
-- NOTE: Replace @period with 'DAY', 'WEEK', 'MONTH', or 'QUARTER'.
Individual Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Score
- Definition
- A metric that gauges customer satisfaction with the support provided by a specific engineer, typically collected through surveys.
- Calculation
- (Number of satisfied responses for the engineer) / (Total number of responses for the engineer) * 100
SELECT engineer_id, (COUNT(cs.id) * 100) / (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM customer_surveys WHERE engineer_id = cs.engineer_id AND EXTRACT(@period FROM created_at) = EXTRACT(@period FROM CURRENT_DATE)) AS IndividualCustomerSatisfactionScore
FROM customer_surveys cs
WHERE cs.satisfaction = 'satisfied'
AND EXTRACT(@period FROM cs.created_at) = EXTRACT(@period FROM CURRENT_DATE)
GROUP BY engineer_id;
-- NOTE: Replace @period with 'DAY', 'WEEK', 'MONTH', or 'QUARTER'.
Knowledge Base Contributions
- Definition
- The number of articles or updates a support engineer contributes to the company’s internal or external knowledge base, which can indicate their commitment to knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.
- Calculation
- Total number of articles or updates contributed by the engineer during a specific period
First Contact Resolution (FCR) Rate
- Definition
- The percentage of support tickets resolved by a support engineer during the first interaction with the customer, which can indicate the engineer’s efficiency and problem-solving abilities.
- Calculation
- (Total number of tickets resolved on first contact by the engineer) / (Total number of tickets handled by the engineer) * 100
Training Hours per Employee
- Definition
- The average number of training hours completed by a support engineer, which can indicate their commitment to professional development and staying up-to-date with product knowledge.
- Calculation
- (Total training hours completed by the engineer) / (Total number of engineers)
Automation Rate
- Definition
- The percentage of repetitive tasks that have been automated, reducing the workload on support engineers and increasing efficiency.
- Calculation
- (Total number of automated tasks) / (Total number of repetitive tasks) * 100
Task Variety Score
- Definition
- A measure of the diversity of tasks handled by a support engineer, which can indicate the level of monotony or variety in their daily work.
- Calculation
- (Total number of different tasks performed by the engineer) / (Total number of tasks performed by the engineer)
Employee Satisfaction Score
- Definition
- A metric that gauges the overall satisfaction of a support engineer with their job, work environment, and career opportunities, typically collected through surveys.
- Calculation
- (Number of satisfied responses from the engineer) / (Total number of responses from the engineer) * 100
Work-Life Balance Score
- Definition
- A measure of a support engineer’s satisfaction with their work-life balance, taking into account factors such as working hours, shift work, and on-call duties.
- Calculation:
- (Number of satisfied responses regarding work-life balance) / (Total number of responses regarding work-life balance) * 100
Employee Retention Rate
- Definition
- The percentage of support engineers who remain employed with the company during a specific period, which can indicate job satisfaction and employee loyalty.
- Calculation:
- (Number of support engineers retained) / (Total number of support engineers at the beginning of the period) * 100