Better customer service means solving the customer’s actual problem with as little effort and uncertainty as possible—not merely answering quickly or closing a ticket. Teams can improve by measuring real resolution, making waits and handoffs clear, treating self-service as a place to solve issues rather than deflect them, keeping human help reachable when needed, and using service failures to fix recurring causes.
What better customer service means in practice
A useful standard is whether the customer reached a correct outcome, understood what would happen next, and avoided unnecessary effort. Speed matters, but a fast reply that does not resolve the issue can create repeat contacts and more work for both the customer and the team.
Customer-service leaders should look beyond individual interactions. When the same problem returns, the goal is not only to recover that customer’s experience but also to identify and correct the process, product, or policy that caused it.
Lessons support teams can put into practice
1. Measure resolution, not ticket closure
First-contact resolution is useful only when the issue is genuinely solved. A ticket marked closed is not proof that the customer’s need was met: the customer may contact the company again, reopen the case, or find another way to get help.
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Qualtrics XM Institute’s 2024 Global Consumer Study, published in Global Contact Center Trends, 2025, reported that 62% of consumers said their issue was resolved the first time they contacted a company. In the same study, overall satisfaction with contact-center experiences was 63%. These are consumer findings, not targets every support team should be expected to match.
Pair resolution measures with repeat contacts, reopened issues, customer effort, and satisfaction. Review the measures together: an apparent improvement in first-contact resolution is less convincing if repeat contacts or effort rise at the same time.
2. Make waits and next steps understandable
Customers can be frustrated by uncertainty even when a case needs time to resolve. Set a realistic expectation for the next update, explain what is being done, and make it clear who owns the case. If a team cannot provide a definite completion time, it can still give a definite next step, such as when the customer will hear from the company again.
In Qualtrics XM Institute’s 2024 study, 55% of consumers globally said they were satisfied with the amount of time they waited. That result points to an experience challenge, not a universal response-time target. The right expectation depends on the issue and the work required to resolve it.
3. Make self-service a resolution channel
Self-service helps when a customer can complete a task or solve a problem without unnecessary friction. It fails when information is hard to find, incomplete, or unable to handle the customer’s situation—and when the customer has no clear route to assisted support.
Gartner reported that 73% of customers used self-service at some point in their service journey, but only 14% of customer-service issues were fully resolved there. For issues customers described as “very simple,” the figure was 36%. The findings came from a survey of 5,728 customers conducted in December 2023 and published by Gartner in 2024. They show why usage alone is a poor measure of self-service success: customers may try it without getting an answer.
Build help content around the customer’s task, keep it current, and give customers a straightforward way to continue with a person when the available guidance does not solve the problem. Gartner’s Eric Keller, Senior Director, Research in the Customer Service & Support Practice, said: “While 73% of customers use self-service at some point in their customer service journey, it’s concerning to see that so few fully resolve there,” (Gartner, August 19, 2024).
4. Keep human help reachable for the cases that need it
Not every customer or issue needs a person, but some cases require judgment, exceptions, reassurance, or work that self-service cannot complete. Make the path to an appropriate human easy to find rather than forcing customers to repeat steps that have already failed.
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Qualtrics XM Institute found that consumers said it was easy to connect to a person in 64% of contact-center interactions that did not involve only a chatbot. This is a reported consumer experience, not a claim that every interaction needs a human. The practical lesson is to make escalation available and preserve relevant context when a case moves between automated and human support.
5. Recover from service failures, then address the cause
AHRQ’s healthcare quality-improvement guidance offers the principle “Do it right the first time.” For a service failure, a practical application is to acknowledge what went wrong, take ownership of the next step, correct the problem, and confirm the result with the customer. Then look for recurring causes that can be addressed in the underlying process.
This sequence is a practical synthesis, not a verbatim AHRQ checklist. AHRQ’s guidance is written for healthcare quality improvement; its service-recovery logic can inform other sectors, but it should be applied in context. See AHRQ’s Strategy 6P: Service Recovery Programs.
Compare improvement efforts by customer outcomes
Use a consistent set of questions when reviewing a channel, process change, or service initiative. The measures emphasized by the cited studies include resolution, waiting, satisfaction, and access to a person; customer effort, handoffs, channel consistency, and learning from repeat issues are additional practical comparison lenses.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute| What to assess | Question for the team | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Actual resolution | Did the customer’s issue reach a confirmed solution? | Separates completed outcomes from replies or ticket closures. |
| Customer effort and handoffs | How many steps, repetitions, or transfers did the customer have to manage? | Shows friction that a response-time figure may miss. |
| Useful response and wait clarity | Did the customer receive useful information and know when to expect the next update? | Reduces uncertainty while work is underway. |
| Access to an appropriate person | Could the customer reach human help when the issue needed it? | Provides a workable route for exceptions and unresolved cases. |
| Consistency across channels | Could the customer continue the case without losing context when the channel changed? | Helps prevent customers from starting over. |
| Learning from repeat problems | Did recurring contacts lead to a process or product fix? | Moves improvement beyond handling the same failure repeatedly. |
Build a practical improvement cycle
- Define what “resolved” means. Set criteria appropriate to the issue type, including how the team confirms that the customer’s need was met.
- Review outcomes alongside operations. Track resolution, time to a useful response, repeat contacts, customer effort, and satisfaction. Segment results by channel and issue type so that different kinds of work are not obscured by a single average.
- Find friction in the customer journey. Examine where customers wait without an update, repeat information, switch channels, or reach self-service that cannot finish the task.
- Make ownership and escalation visible. Tell customers what happens next, who is responsible for the case, and how to reach a person if the current route does not work.
- Use failures as improvement signals. Recover the individual case, then review repeated causes with the teams able to change the process, policy, or product.
- Check whether the change improved the whole experience. Compare relevant outcomes before and after the change, including repeat contact and effort—not only speed or closures.
Set targets carefully
The available studies do not establish one universally optimal response-time target, staffing ratio, or first-contact-resolution benchmark for every business. A complex claim, a simple account question, and a safety-sensitive issue have different requirements. Use survey percentages as context for customer experience, not as quotas for an individual team.
Qualtrics XM Institute also reported associations between first-try resolution and loyalty behaviors: consumers whose issue was resolved on the first try were 1.9 times more likely to purchase more and trust a brand, and 2.1 times more likely to recommend it. These are reported associations, not proof that resolution alone caused those behaviors.
InMoment’s April 10, 2025 vendor announcement described a survey of 1,215 consumers: it reported that 81% still needed to interact with a company to resolve issues and that 61% expected resolution on first contact or would consider competitors. Treat those figures as a vendor-reported survey signal rather than a universal service benchmark.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Optional resource for structured training
For teams seeking a textbook for broader service training, Pearson lists the print edition of Elaine K. Harris’s Customer Service: A Practical Approach, 6th edition (ISBN 9780137546381). Pearson describes coverage of problem solving, communication, empowerment, challenging customers, technology, retention, and satisfaction measurement. See the Pearson publisher page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most important way to improve customer service?
Make it easier for customers to reach a real solution. Measure whether the issue was resolved and pair that result with repeat contacts, effort, and satisfaction so that closing cases quickly does not substitute for helping customers.
How should a team measure first-contact resolution?
Count a case as resolved on first contact only when the customer’s issue is actually solved, using criteria appropriate to that issue. Review the figure alongside reopened cases, repeat contacts, customer effort, and satisfaction.
Does self-service reduce the need for human support?
Self-service can solve some customer needs, but Gartner’s 2024 findings show that many issues were not fully resolved there. Provide an assisted route for cases that the available self-service cannot complete.
Should every support interaction be handled by a person?
No. The appropriate channel depends on the task. Make human help easy to reach when the issue requires judgment, an exception, reassurance, or a next step self-service cannot provide.
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Acknowledge the failure, take ownership, correct the customer’s problem, and confirm the result. If similar failures recur, review the process or policy behind them and address the cause.
Is there a universal customer-service response-time target?
No universal target is established by the sources cited here. Set expectations that fit the issue and tell customers when they can expect a useful update.
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