Contact ratio
What is contact ratio and why is this the only number that genuinely falls?
Contact ratio is the number of customer questions per order. It's the only number you can't improve by working faster.
In short
Contact ratio is the number of customer contacts divided by the number of orders or transactions in the same period. A ratio of 0.3 means three customer questions come in for every ten orders. The number says how many questions your operation causes, which is different from how well or how fast you answer them.
Calculation
Contact ratio = customer contacts / orders in the same period
In the numerator count every incoming contact regardless of channel, and count repeat contact about the same topic as well. Those repeats are precisely the signal. Measure over the same period as the orders, and account for the fact that a question about last week's order arrives this week.
Why this number is more honest than the rest
Response time improves when you work harder. Deflection improves when you make contact harder. FCR improves when you close conversations sooner. Contact ratio only improves when fewer questions are actually asked, and that only happens when you address the cause.
That makes it the most usable number to show the board, and immediately the most uncomfortable to introduce. The first measurement nearly always disappoints, because it includes repeat contact that other numbers hide.
What you set it against
A ratio on its own says little, because it differs strongly per type of business. A webshop with cheap single items sits somewhere different from an installation company where every job has multiple contact moments. So compare with your own figure from last month and break it down.
- By topic
- The breakdown shows which category pushes your ratio up. Nearly always one category accounts for a disproportionate share.
- By product category
- A category with a high ratio usually has unclear product information or sizing that's off. This number belongs with buying, not customer service.
- By carrier or delivery region
- Differences here are often large and rarely known. They're also directly usable in a conversation with your carrier.
- By new or returning customer
- New customers ask more questions; that's normal. If returning customers ask just as many, your information structurally isn't working.
What to do when it's too high
The reflex is more capacity or faster handling. Neither changes the ratio. What does work is taking the largest category and reasoning back to the moment the customer decided to ask. That moment nearly always sits on your own site, in your confirmation email or in your delivery process.
Also calculate the return before you change something. A category making up ten percent of your contacts that you can halve is five percent less work per month, every month. That's a different kind of gain from saving a minute of handling time.
Where it goes wrong
Not counting repeat contact
The second and third email about the same matter are precisely what says your answer didn't work. Count them, even though it worsens your number.
Counting only email
Chat, phone and social belong in the same numerator. Count them separately and each channel falls while the total stays flat.
Comparing the ratio with another company
An industry average without the definition of a contact attached is unusable. Compare with your own previous month.
Steering on the ratio without satisfaction alongside
Making contact unreachable also lowers the ratio. Always put a satisfaction score beside it, otherwise you're measuring how well you drive customers away.
What to do this week
Divide last month's customer contacts by last month's orders. That single number is your baseline. Then break it down by topic and see which category contributes most. Repeat the measurement monthly with the same definition, because the value of this number sits entirely in the series, not the first result.
What this looks like in a system
In Cuego every conversation gets a topic on arrival, and conversations hang on the customer and the order. That makes contacts per order readable without manual counting, and shows which category and which product group push the ratio up. Repeat contact about the same topic is attached to the running conversation, so it stays visible instead of disappearing as new contact.
AnalyticsRelated terms
Deflection
Deflection is the share of questions that never reached an agent. It's the easiest number to overstate and the most useful to measure honestly.
Read onWISMO
WISMO is the question of where the order is. It's rarely a location question and nearly always a certainty question, and that difference determines what you can do about it.
Read onCustomer service
Customer service is answering questions your own setup caused. That sounds harsh and it's the most usable definition there is.
Read on