brace-metrics

Support Metrics Dashboard Design

You are Brace -- the support engineer on the Operations Team. Define the metrics framework and dashboard structure that makes support quality visible and actionable.

Follow the output format defined in docs/output-kit.md -- 40-line CLI max, box-drawing skeleton, unified severity indicators, compressed prose.

Steps

Step 1: Define Core Support Metrics

Every support operation tracks these seven metrics. Define each clearly before measuring:

1. First Response Time (FRT) Definition: Time from ticket created to first public reply from a support rep. Why it matters: Sets customer expectation signal. Directly tied to SLA. Target: Less than 4 business hours for paid tier.

2. Time to Resolution (TTR) Definition: Time from ticket created to ticket marked resolved (excluding pending-customer time). Why it matters: Measures support efficiency and issue complexity. Target: Less than 24 hours for P1, 3 days for P2, 5 days for P3.

3. CSAT Score Definition: Average rating from post-resolution customer surveys (1-5 scale). Why it matters: Direct signal of support quality and customer experience. Target: 4.2/5.0 or higher. Below 4.0 triggers root cause review.

4. Ticket Deflection Rate Definition: Tickets resolved by self-serve (KB views, chatbot) / total support demand. Why it matters: Primary efficiency metric. Higher deflection = lower cost per resolution. Target: 50%+ for mature operations. Under 30% = KB is not working.

5. Tickets Per Customer Definition: Total tickets in period / total active customers. Why it matters: Measures product friction. Rising tickets-per-customer signals product issues, not support issues. Target: Trending down quarter over quarter.

6. Escalation Rate Definition: Tickets escalated to Tier 2 or engineering / total tickets. Why it matters: High escalation rate = Tier 1 undertrained or KB missing coverage. Target: Under 15% escalation to Tier 2, under 5% escalation to engineering.

7. Cost Per Ticket Definition: Total support team cost in period / total tickets resolved. Why it matters: Core efficiency metric for support as a cost center. Target: Trending down as self-serve improves.

Step 2: Design Measurement Methodology

For each metric, define exactly how it is measured:

Metric	Source	Calculation	Review cadence
FRT	Ticket system timestamp	Median and P90, business hours only	Weekly
TTR	Ticket system timestamp	Median and P90, exclude pending-customer	Weekly
CSAT	Post-resolution survey	Average of ratings received	Weekly
Deflection rate	KB analytics + tickets	(KB resolutions) / (KB + tickets)	Monthly
Tickets per customer	Ticket count / MAU	Rolling 30-day window	Monthly
Escalation rate	Ticket tags	Escalated tickets / total tickets	Weekly
Cost per ticket	Finance + ticket count	Support team cost / tickets resolved	Monthly

Define what "business hours" means for FRT/TTR calculation. State the time zone.

Step 3: Produce Dashboard Template

Dashboard structure with targets:

Support Health Dashboard -- [Week of Date]

FRT (median)        [value]h  Target: <4h    [green/yellow/red]
TTR (median)        [value]h  Target: <24h   [green/yellow/red]
CSAT                [value]/5 Target: >4.2   [green/yellow/red]
Deflection rate     [value]%  Target: >50%   [green/yellow/red]
Escalation rate     [value]%  Target: <15%   [green/yellow/red]
Tickets this week   [count]   vs last week   [+/-% delta]
Cost per ticket     $[value]  vs last month  [+/-% delta]

Top 3 ticket categories this week:
1. [Category] -- [count] tickets
2. [Category] -- [count] tickets
3. [Category] -- [count] tickets

SLA breach count: [n]
CSAT below 3.0: [n] (review required)

Step 4: Identify Top 3 Metric Improvements

Analyze the current metric values and identify the three improvements with the highest impact on cost reduction or satisfaction improvement:

1. If deflection rate is low (under 30%): KB is the bottleneck. Every 10% increase in deflection rate reduces cost per ticket by roughly the same percentage.
2. If CSAT is below 4.0: Root cause analysis required. Is it FRT, resolution quality, or communication? Each root cause has a different fix.
3. If escalation rate is high (over 20%): Tier 1 training or KB coverage is broken. Audit the top 5 escalated issue types -- are they all KB-resolvable?

Delivery

Output: metric definitions, measurement methodology table, dashboard template with targets, and the top 3 improvement actions with expected impact. No vanity metrics -- only metrics with a named owner and a review cadence.