Acknowledgement rate refers to the proactive approach of a support agent to acknowledge a customer’s statement, primarily in order to assure them that the respective agent understands their predicament and will try their utmost to resolve it. Acknowledgement is the key to a proactive support session, which happens to be the principal factor to provide a pleasant Customer Experience to the consumers.

Interactions between Contact Centre Staff & customers become robotic if a customer support representative (CSR) is constantly following a script, rather than acknowledging a customer’s other questions. This shows lack of compassion on part of the CSR, which in return creates friction between the agent and the customers, thus eventually resulting in decreased customer satisfaction ratio and increased churn ratio, respectively.

Acknowledgement rate in Live Chat is defined as the number of acknowledgements given to the customers during a single Live Chat session. This includes acknowledgements at the start, middle and end of a support session.

AR in Live Chat can be calculated by following formula,

Furthermore, Live Chat is a hybrid communication channel. Therefore, you can also measure the Acknowledgement Rate of your support agents on different platforms, such as Social Media sites, your business website, and mobile application, in order to determine their efficiency ratio on these platforms, to devise better strategies in the future.

In comparison to other communication channels, email support response can be fairly slow and therefore, the customer acknowledgement holds more value. For instance, if a customer has asked a question along with their issue in an email to you and your support agents have proceeded to reply them with a scripted question like “Have you followed all procedures properly” rather than addressing their question. Then, the irrelevant reply along with late response will surely affect their happiness proportion.

AR in Email can be calculated by following formula,

Note: You need to keep track of all the emails that are included in a particular customer support interaction to effectively measure your email support teams Acknowledgement Rate.

The primary reason why people use Call Support is due to the sense of personalization it provides them. Hence, a prompt response, a friendly voice, and relevant answers to customer queries are key factors to improve your Call Support’s Acknowledgement Rate.

Likewise, if your support agents are unable to follow these guidelines, then customers may become irritated and subsequently hesitant to call the next time a similar problem arises. And later, this development will become problematic for you, as a single unhappy customer that complains regarding your services represents 26 silent customers that are likely to churn in the near-future.

AR in Call Support can be calculated by following formula,

This formula can be further optimized to better identify your Acknowledgement Rate in terms of acknowledgements at the start, middle, and end of a support session. As, each of these kinds of acknowledgements is an integral part of a personalized customer support session, in order for you to achieve a higher Customer Satisfaction & Retention proportion, respectively.

Acknowledgements are an integral component of the Customer Service Process, as they have a direct influence on your Customer Retention Proportion. Customers appreciate acknowledgements to a great extent, simply because it makes them feel that their predicament has been heard completely and now they can expect a relevant solution to it.

Acknowledgements at the start of a support interaction are vital. This proactive approach by your agents gives customers assurance regarding your services and therefore they are more willing to discuss their issues in detail. As a result, your support agents can resolve customer issues with better efficiency.

An example of acknowledgements at the start of a conversation would be to initiate a support interaction with an opening statement. It can include the name of your organization along with the name of your support agent and a “how can I be of assistance today” statement. Simple gestures such as these provide assurance & a feel of personalization to the customers so that they can communicate more freely.

Acknowledgements during the middle of support interactions are a combination of Active Listening & Taking Interest in Customer issues, i.e. what is the nature of their predicament and what are their expectations regarding you to resolve them. By incorporating Active Listening & Interest Taking into their customer service process, your support agents can promptly acknowledge customer statements & ask questions that can help them resolve customer issues more effectively.

Example of during conversation acknowledgements can include statements like, “I am sorry you are facing this problem. Let me see, how we can help you in this situation” or “I completely understand your situation and how much it would be frustrating to you. Let me see, how we can resolve your situation.”

Akin to acknowledgements at the start & middle of a support interaction, they are crucial at the end of an interaction as well, mostly, because of two reasons. First, if your support agent is unable to resolve a customer issue, they should provide assurance that the particular customer concern will be resolved in a timely manner. Second, to end the conversation on a personalized & friendly note so, that your customers are not hesitant to contact you in the future, in case any other issue arises.

A good way to provide acknowledgements at the end would be to avoid being abrupt and include a statement like (depending on the scenario), “Thank you for using our (Channel name) support, hope to hear from you soon” or “Thank you, for your patience. We will resolve your issue as soon as possible.” together with a confirmation like “Do you have any other questions” or “Anything else I can help you with, today?”, if the answer is No, proceed to end the session on a positive note, “Thank you, once again. If you have any further issues don’t hesitate to reach us. Have a nice day!”

Popular conventional metrics like Customer Satisfaction & Conversion ratios require a CSRs each support session’s data in a particular time-period to provide credible actionable insights.

In contrast to this, a support agent’s Acknowledgement Rate is measured based on their random customer support interactions on daily basis to determine their efficiency ratio as well as the quality of support they are providing to the customers. It can be easily calculated by following formula:

The Total Number of Acknowledgements represents how many times a support agent acknowledged and subsequently proceeded to answer a customer’s question rather than following their script, in a particular interaction. Meanwhile, the number of support session represents the randomly selected interactions from which the aforementioned acknowledgements are extracted to determine a CSR’s efficiency proportion.

Acknowledgement Rate is a crucial component of your Quality Assurance Report. It informs you whether your Customer Support Representatives were responsive in a support session.

Today, if you are unable to cater the needs of your customers, chances are someone else will. Likewise, a 1% chance of not answering a prospect’s question results in a reduction of the possibility of their conversion by approximately 30%, primarily because such behaviour negatively affect their happiness proportion to a great extent. And why not, if you are unable to properly address your prospects questions at the start of their Journey, then how can they trust you in the future to do this. As a result, you are unable to convert prospective customers, which affect your yearly goals as well.

Furthermore, apart from your conversion ratio, AR also has a significant effect on your Customer Retention Ratio as well. For instance, if your support staff is persistently following a script and are neglecting other customer questions then in such scenario even the most loyal customers will become irritated overtime and as a result, will simply churn to your customers.

In lieu of these essentials, routine monitoring of your support agents Acknowledgement Rate is crucial to identify whether any of your support agents is lacking in this regard and subsequently devise appropriate strategies to improve their performance accordingly.

Appropriate & prompt Customer Acknowledgements are an essential part of the customer service process regardless of the industry. That is, if you want to increase your probability of converting a prospect into a full-fledged customer and subsequently to keep your existing customers brand loyal, thus also decreasing your Churn Ratio.

Likewise, the typical standard for Acknowledgment Rate is 90%, on average. This means your support agent needs to acknowledge every 9 out of 10 customer questions in a support session to get a passing grade. Otherwise, there is a great chance that you will be unable to successfully convert a prospect.

The reason behind such higher industry standard for Acknowledgment Ratio is probably due to its nature. For instance, customers contact you when they face a predicament and are desperate to seek help. Therefore, in such scenario, if your support agents are continuously asking them to follow a proper procedure, rather than first listening to & acknowledging their requests, then indisputably your customers will become frustrated and as a result, they will leave.

Moreover, repetition of the same behaviour will eventually result in you, losing your potential as well as your existing (brand loyal) customers.

In Conclusion, along with other major mainstream metrics, Acknowledgement Rate is also an incredible customer-centric metric to have in your arsenal. Because it can help you improve your Customer Service capabilities even further by providing you with the possibility to analyze your support agents’ responsiveness in every support session. Afterwards, you can use this information to devise better strategies in case their performance is not according to your expectations.

With the feasibility of a powerful client KB (Knowledge Bank) and resourcefulness, we are able to successfully manage an above industry standard Acknowledgement Rate (90+%, on average). This outcome is primarily attributed to a dedicated support team along with the access to our extensive Knowledge Bank that allows the support agents to provide an appropriate Customer Experience to your customers by offering prompt acknowledgements, regardless of their questions.

We understand the importance of a proactive support session and how it can boost your conversion ratio. Therefore, we devise methodologies that focus on such aspects and train our support agents accordingly to achieve your customer-centric goals faster & better.