Allan Wille

Cost per Lead (CPL) is the average amount spent on acquiring a new lead, inclusive of all marketing channels such as paid advertising, social media campaigns, and content marketing. Cost per Lead (CPL) is a crucial metric that helps businesses measure their marketing campaigns' effectiveness in generating leads. CPL is calculated by dividing the total cost of acquiring new leads by the number of leads generated. This metric is particularly valuable for businesses that want to optimize their marketing spend to maximize return on investment (ROI). Marketing teams can segment CPL by channel. For instance, they may focus on paid advertising and consider only the inputs relating to paid ad costs and leads generated. It's important to always include the right costs in your equation, especially if salaries, creatives, or equipment are the main drivers.

First Contact Resolution Tickets is the count of customer tickets that are marked as solved by agents on the first attempt. Whether it's a single phone call, a chat conversation or an email response - the customer leaves happy and so does your staff!

Ticket Reopen Rate (RR) is the percentage of resolved support tickets that customers reopen, signalling the issue was not fully resolved. Tracking this metric gives support teams a direct measure of resolution quality. A rising reopen rate can point to gaps in agent training, product knowledge, or escalation processes. Left unaddressed, it erodes customer trust and increases support volume.

In an hour-based agency, the billable utilisation serves as a crucial metric, representing the percentage of billable hours employees spend on billable client projects. A higher billable utilisation indicates optimal efficiency and resource allocation, while a lower rate may suggest under-utilisation or potential areas for workflow improvement.

Agent Wait Time is the total combined time a support ticket spends in pending status, waiting for a response from the requester. Unlike customer-facing metrics such as First Response Time or Resolution Time, Agent Wait Time measures how long the support agent waits between interactions. High pending time reduces agent efficiency and makes it harder to maintain context across complex tickets.

Tickets Solved is the count of support tickets that a customer support agent has marked as solved within a given period. Teams commonly set a daily Tickets Solved target per agent and monitor performance as a percentage of that goal. A solved ticket can be reopened if a customer needs further assistance; tickets that remain solved for a set period convert to closed, which cannot be reopened. Resolution rates vary based on agent experience, escalation level, the product or service being supported, and query complexity.