1. Ticket volume
How many tickets arrive per day or week. It is the number every other metric depends on. Look at it by week and by topic, so a spike has a name.
2. First response time
The time from arrival to the first real reply, in business hours. Report the median and the 90th percentile. The first response time guide covers how to measure and set a target.
3. Time to resolution
The time from arrival to solved. Pause the clock while a ticket waits on the customer, or the number mostly measures how fast customers reply.
4. Backlog and its age
Open tickets waiting on your team, and how old the oldest is. A small stable backlog is normal. A growing one means work arrives faster than it leaves; the backlog calculator shows how long it takes to clear.
5. Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
The share of survey answers that are a 4 or 5 on a five point scale. With few answers a score swings widely by chance, so read it with its margin of error. The CSAT and NPS calculator gives the range.
6. Reopen rate
The share of solved tickets the customer writes back on because the problem was not fixed. It is the guard against optimizing speed alone: a team can lower resolution time by closing tickets early, and the reopen rate gives it away.
What to leave out for now
Agent leaderboards, occupancy, and every vanity ratio. They help a large team plan a schedule, and in a small one they mostly start arguments. When you grow, the staffing calculator covers the planning math.
How to use them
Look at all six every week, in the same order, with last week beside it. When one moves, find the cause before you act: a rise in volume with a flat backlog is fine; a rise in reopen rate after a new macro is not. Write down one change you will try and check it next week.