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SMART customer service goals to aim for in 2022

How do you write a customer service goal? We teach you the SMART goals model for setting and achieving key customer service objectives.

Published March 3, 2021
Concluding updated March thirteen, 2022

The route to unhappy customers is paved with vague intentions.

Solid goal setting is big for a support team's success—and, by proxy, your customers' happiness. Without it? You're going to feel the bad effects.

5 targets for client service goals

Achieving your ideal client service results starts with clear objectives. 1 of the about pop methods of goal development is SMART. The acronym, originally released in a 1981 article by Director of Corporate Planning for Washington Water Power Visitor George T. Doran, lists five requirements each client service goal must meet.

Specific: The goal must be focused on one particular problem or area.
Measurable: There must exist a clear method for measuring progress and gauging success.
Achievable: For a goal to be worth pursuing, success has to be possible.
Relevant: Your goals must necktie back to your company's overarching strategy and mission.
Time-bound: The goal has to have a set borderline or deadlines.

The number one question I become: "What are your other customers doing?" Which is helpful only to an extent because what they do may not really exist what you do. Copying off your neighbour's exam is not going to help you in this situation.

Sam Chandler, manager, startup success, Zendesk

Understanding customer service goals: a deep dive

Using the SMART method, you can assist your reps work towards the ultimate back up goals: customer happiness, customer loyalty, and a groovy customer experience.

Specific: Design narrow, support-focused objectives

As mentioned earlier, knowledge creation is generally not an agent's top daily priority. Hence, it'due south considered extra work. That'due south why investing in the correct technology that facilitates cognition creation is paramount for every smart goal.

Eighty percent of New Year's resolutions fail. Ane reason? The objectives aren't specific plenty. To meet your goals, they must be highly specific and detailed.

Think about the New year's resolution nearly half of all people brand: losing weight. A goal so broad can seem impossible to meet considering information technology's difficult to know where to become started. That feeling of being overwhelmed causes almost people to carelessness the goal earlier they've really begun.

In obviously words, what are you trying to accomplish in your business concern? And how can we relate that to your customer service?
Sam Chandler, director, startup success, Zendesk

What if, instead of having this vague, fuzzy objective, you zoomed in a little? Maybe, "I will walk 2 miles every day for three months," or "I volition lose two pounds a week for a total of 40 pounds in five months." These goals are more likely to succeed considering they break a larger, overarching goal into smaller, and more achievable, goals and tasks.

The same tactic can apply to customer service goals. "Ameliorate client satisfaction" can be broken down into targeted goals similar "decrease call transfer occurrence by 30 percent over a vi-week period."

If yous want to brand sure your goals are focused plenty, test them past making sure y'all can answer the following questions.

Say, for example, that you lot currently have customer complaints about the long await times when they call back up and you want to build a goal around improving first call reply times.

What: Can you explain what the goal is in a judgement or less?
Who: Does the goal have a clear target and champion?
When: Does the goal have an established deadline?
Why: Can you lot clearly explain the goal's value for your team?

Based on these answers, you can fix your new objective: "We will decrease our boilerplate back up call wait times by 50 percent within vi weeks by designing and implementing a targeted and detailed program led by Mark." Instead of setting for the original objective—lowering wait times—you've crafted a goal that is more specific, detailed, and actionable. And you've invested in accurate client care.

Measurable customer service goals: how to start

I've worked with customers whose end-users value speed—they need to get their answer rapidly. With other customers due to either the nature of their piece of work, or how they're using our services, it'southward not and then much about lowering response time, just rather almost getting an in-depth answer, or decreasing the number of times that somebody submits a question.

So you really take to empathize what information technology is that you're trying to exercise, and what your customers demand from you lot—and and then your metrics should exist built off of that.

Before yous can get to the specifics of how to measure what you're trying to achieve, it's more about deciding: What's our baseline now? Where are we with this metric now? And then how much practice we want to increase, decrease it? Past how much do we desire to modify? What is an actual goal that makes sense that can striking? What are stretch goals? And and then on and so on.

—Sam Chandler, director, startup success, Zendesk

Measurable: Brand a programme for tracking your client service squad's progress

Metrics are the best way to objectively runway how your goals are moving forth. They're especially valuable in back up considering so many measures of success aren't ever hands quantitative, similar customer loyalty and customer happiness. But supporting your team with existent-fourth dimension metrics tin be a great motivator.

To use metrics in customer service goal setting, choose one stat for every objective that clearly shows your progress. Consider these examples.

High-level goal: Boost agents' productivity by offer more self-service options for customers.
Track the number of problems resolved per day over the eight-calendar week period following the release of cocky-service options.
High-level goal: Decrease the fourth dimension it takes reps to resolve a customer issue.

Rails boilerplate resolution time over a gear up catamenia.
High-level goal: Meliorate rep knowledge base of operations to shorten the customer support experience.

Monitor the first-call resolution. That's the rate of how many issues are resolved in a unmarried phone phone call without having to escalate or transfer the call. If your reps' knowledge bases are growing finer, they shouldn't have to transfer as many calls or put equally many customers on hold to solve their upshot. The showtime-phone call resolution charge per unit should therefore increase.

Focusing your goals around a single metric gives you lot a tangible mode to see the results of your teams' efforts. Honing this skill will aid as yous develop measurable goals.

Measurable customer service goals: start at the height

If nosotros give our agents, our people, a goal, they're going to discover a manner to hit it. So we've got to make certain that information technology'southward the right goal. I am super into this concept right at present called a triple metric model. Information technology comes from essentially a volume called The Expansion Sale, and it's a style to brand sure that what you're measuring your team on really aligns all the way up the chain to the top company metrics.

It's a way to 1, make certain that everybody's aligned. But also, I've found that it really helps to show teams, "Hey, wait, what you're doing does make an impact." When I'thou choosing metrics, I try to figure out, OK, so from the elevation upwardly, what ultimately are we concerned about as a company? Then going one level down, how does my organization affect that bottom line that we're trying to become to? And and then, one level down from that, OK, if this is the office of information technology that nosotros're responsible for, what are the elements that are affecting that? Then that'due south how I choose my metrics.

—Sam Chandler, managing director, startup success, Zendesk

The best customer experiences

Calibration your business concern and enhance the customer service feel with Zendesk.

Achievable: Set constructive customer service goals within reach of your customer service squad

Make certain you but gear up goals that are inside your squad's power to achieve independently of another team. Smart goal tip: "Gain 10% more customers this month" isn't realistic for a support squad alone. "I'll get customers who say, 'I want to decrease this or increase this by xxx%.' And I enquire them, 'OK, well, where did that 30% come from?' Oft it turns out they just pulled it out of their head, or they saw another company doing it," says Sam Chandler, director, startup success, Zendesk.

Too, growing a customer base likewise depends on the sales and marketing teams.

You lot really have to understand what it is that you're trying to do, and what your customers need from you, and and then your metrics should exist built off of that.
Sam Chandler, director, startup success, Zendesk

Setting unachievable customer service goals can lower team morale and motivation—the verbal opposite of what yous want in goal setting. On the flip side, setting goals your team tin can reasonably achieve builds confidence and motivation. In fact, a 2019 study from the University of Basel ound that setting goals that are reachable are the central to personal well-being.

Sometimes, a reality check can be helpful to make certain your goals aren't but pipe dreams. Grab another support manager to review these questions with you to determine if your goal is achievable or not.

Do you have the staff necessary to complete the task? You lot can't comport out a grand programme without acceptable manpower. If your goal is to increase the amount of resolved tickets as a team, do yous accept enough staff to spread the workload?
Do you have the budget to properly invest in this goal? Say, for instance, the goal is to offer omnichannel support. Consider whether you have a realistic budget for upgrading your CRM that has omnichannel functionality. If y'all don't, appraise whether there are other budget areas you can cutting to invest in the CRM.
Do you lot accept the expertise, or a staff member who does, to achieve your goal? You take the manpower and the money—only what nearly the necessary noesis? If your goal is to adopt a new CRM in the adjacent quarter, for example, consider whether you lot'll have specialists to train reps about the tool.

If yous answered "no" to any of these questions, all hope is not lost. You merely need to create a plan to go the resources yous demand to move forward.

Relevant: Make certain your goals resonate with the entire company

Skillful goals take to affair to more than but you, the team director. They should necktie into your client's pain points, your reps' objectives and the company's overall strategy. For customers, the support team's objectives should alleviate product issues. For reps, the goals should help them meet their own individual objectives. And for the company, the goals should contribute to the overall organization'southward vision and purpose.

Collect mutual rep goals. Look for trends in your reps' reported individual goals within their roles, paying special attention to goals that are repeated past multiple people. Multiple teammates echoing the same matter suggests areas of improvement for your organization as a whole.
Sympathize customers' pain points using surveys, feedback forms and social media research. Make sure all of your goals ultimately piece of work toward an easier, more positive experience for your buyers.
Make sure you can make a clear example for how these goals tie into the overall company strategy. Nearly customer support strategies are based on customer satisfaction, and satisfaction is achieved by providing exceptional experiences. Test whether goals concerning your reps are relevant to your customers and company by making sure that achieving said goal will ultimately make for happier customers.

Tying all team goals back to your company's strategy gives your team a unified purpose—and reminds them that, ultimately, you're all in that location for the customers.

Fourth dimension-spring: Give your back up reps a deadline to piece of work toward

A deadline adds accountability. Once you take a due appointment set, yous can work backward from that deadline. Set internal goals and check-ins to make sure your squad is staying on task and hitting the mini-milestones necessary to be successful.

Short-term goals can be peculiarly expert at boosting team morale and motivation because patient reps quickly encounter results. These curt-term goals tin be either team-wide or individual for each person on the team.

Say your goal is increasing individual resolved bug by 10% this calendar week compared to the previous week. If a rep averages 10 resolved issues a twenty-four hour period, that'south an average of 50 issues a calendar week. To reach a goal of a 10% increase, that rep only has to resolve ane more outcome a day.

This short-term goal tin can experience a lot easier to attain than setting the aforementioned goal on a larger scale. Small wins like this can keep your support team motivated, and achieving them can build confidence.

If you're chasing a bigger goal, make it await like a short-term goal. See if there's a fashion to intermission it up into mini-deadlines, and then it's more approachable for your team to tackle.

Ex: Increase CSAT score by 25% from terminal quarter.
Utilize the "Southward" (specific) in SMART to break this goal upward into weekly increases. Cheque in with your squad weekly to work slowly toward the larger goal by hit smaller goals forth the way.
Ex: Decrease support call volume by fifty% compared to last twelvemonth by building out the cocky-service resource library.
Break this long-term goal down into monthly and weekly goals.

Weekly: "Each rep will write ane article a week addressing a common issue for the self-service department."
Monthly: "Phone call volume will subtract by 5% each month, and site views on the cocky-service page volition increase by v%."

Setting the right timeline can make otherwise lofty goals more manageable and add a sense of challenge and urgency to easily attainable goals.

Fix and mensurate SMART goals with Zendesk

The perfect partner for SMART goal setting? A CRM with advanced reporting features. Zendesk's support suite includes avant-garde analytics that makes measuring your team'south progress easy. The wide variety of reporting features lets you customize your statistics to rails what's virtually important to your goals. Our platform also automatically tracks real-time customer interaction data for extra insights. Yous tin utilise this data as a live feedback mechanism to see how your goals are straight affecting customer interactions.

The best client experiences

Scale your business organisation and heighten the customer service feel with Zendesk.