Did we resolve your problem?

The New York Times has set up what it calls a “learning lab” where six customer service execs sit in a dedicated space in marketing, and experiment with ways to improve customer service and roll them out across the subscriber base.  This retention focus is leading to better integration and innovation in customer service.

Two key things I've learnt from managing marketing and customer services teams are
1) customer service teams must have access to a single view of the customer, and the data and insights that the marketing team has. You don't want your customer -facing teams to start out on the back foot when customers call in with queries or complaints.  As the first line contact you want them to be able to engage with customers, and provide recommendations and advice that are customised to the individual’s buying preferences rather than generic advice. And it's also important for customer feedback to flow back into the organisation in a structured format so that it can be used to drive product innovation or enhance the user experience.  

And 2) if your organisation collects too many customer service metrics, you won't be able to see the wood for the trees;
I came across this article here which lists the top twenty five customer service metrics a company should care about. In my experience that's just too many data points to monitor on regular basis and it's better to focus on a few KPIs that you can really dig into and use the insights to improve business performance. 

For singlemindedness and focus I like this one from Amazon.The key metric Amazon customer service teams are measured on is Negative Response Rate to the question: Did we resolve your problem?  

That’s it. Power to the customer.