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Blog · Board and management reporting · Customer service

Repeat contact on ten tickets: the whole arithmetic on one page

The complete repeat contact calculation on ten tickets from three accounts, small enough to check by hand: each ticket's category, opened and closed dates, reopen flag and linked ticket, the repeat rule as reopened or raised in the same category within fourteen days of a closed one, the state per ticket, the repeat rate per account against the team's base, the minimum ticket count that keeps a small account off the list, the category where repeats cluster, and the assertion that tickets equal first-contact resolved plus repeat plus open, so a reader can reproduce every figure and then run it on their own ticket export.

The short answerTen tickets, three accounts, one month. A ticket is a repeat if it was reopened after closure, or raised on the same account in the same category within fourteen days of a closed ticket. Four of ten are repeats. Per account: account A has six tickets, four repeats, 67 percent against a team base of 19; account B has three tickets and no repeats; account C has one ticket and is under the minimum count of eight, so it is shown and not listed. Three of A's four repeats are in one category, integrations, which is a product finding. Tickets equal first-contact resolved plus repeat plus open. Every number can be reproduced by hand.

Repeat contact is a rule per ticket and a rate per account, and on ten tickets it can be worked by hand. This page works the rule, the state per ticket, the rates, the floor, the category cluster and the assertion. Window: 14 days. Team base: 19 percent. Minimum count: 8.

The tickets

Ticket Account Category Opened Closed Reopened? Linked to
1 A Integrations 1 Sep 2 Sep No
2 A Integrations 5 Sep 6 Sep No 1: same category, 3 days after close
3 A Billing 6 Sep 8 Sep No
4 A Integrations 9 Sep 9 Sep, reopened 11 Sep Yes
5 A Integrations 15 Sep 16 Sep No 4: same category, 5 days after close
6 A How-to 20 Sep open
7 B How-to 3 Sep 3 Sep No
8 B Billing 10 Sep 11 Sep No
9 B How-to 28 Sep 28 Sep No 7: same category, 25 days after close: outside window
10 C Configuration 12 Sep 14 Sep No

The rule and the state

Repeat if reopened, or same account and category within 14 days of a closed ticket

Ticket State Why
1 First-contact resolved
2 Repeat 3 days after ticket 1 closed, same category
3 First-contact resolved
4 Repeat Reopened
5 Repeat 5 days after ticket 4 closed, same category
6 Open
7 First-contact resolved
8 First-contact resolved
9 First-contact resolved 25 days: outside the window
10 First-contact resolved

Ticket 4 qualifies twice, reopened and raised three days after ticket 2 closed in the same category. It is one ticket and one repeat, counted once.

The assertion

tickets = first-contact resolved + repeat + open = 6 + 3 + 1 = 10

Three repeats: tickets 2, 4, 5.

Per account

Account Tickets Repeats Repeat rate Base Above base (×2)? Count ≥ 8? Listed?
A 6 3 50% 19% Yes No: 6 Shown; on a full month it would be listed at 8+
B 3 0 0% No No
C 1 0 0% No No

On this ten-ticket page no account reaches the floor; on the month's full export, A at 31 tickets and 55 percent is the row. The floor is the point: a rate on six tickets is shown greyed.

The category cluster, A

Category Tickets Repeats
Integrations 4 3
Billing 1 0
How-to 1 0 (open)

Three of three repeats in integrations. If integrations repeats across other accounts this month, engineering owns it with A on the list; if only at A, the account manager does.

Where it goes wrong, even at ten

Team average only. The team's 19 percent; A's 50 invisible.

Rule undefined. Ticket 9 counted as a repeat by one person and not another.

No floor. C at one ticket and a reopen would read 100 percent and lead the list.

Category ignored. A's problem worked as a support quality problem when it is a product one.

From ten to ten thousand

The same rule per ticket, the same rate per account with the floor, the category split, every week. Covirage runs it on the ticket export and the account list. The first contact resolution guide covers the measure, and the surge list guide covers the volume signal beside it.

Questions people ask

Why fourteen days?

Long enough that a customer coming back on the same problem is caught, short enough that a genuinely new problem in the same category a month later is not. The window is stated and the same for every account; a desk with linked-ticket fields uses them first.

Why the minimum count?

Because one ticket with one repeat is 100 percent and means nothing. Eight tickets is the stated floor; accounts under it are shown with their rate greyed and are not on the list. Account C is one ticket.

What does the category cluster change?

The owner. Three repeats in integrations at one account, and integrations repeating across other accounts this month, is a fault for engineering with the account list attached. One repeat in billing is the account manager's.