Customer Service Level: Definition, Standards, Measuring

Your customer service level can make or break a customer’s experience — and your company’s reputation. In this article, we’ll break down the different levels of customer service and share practical tips to consistently keep them high.

Definitions

Customer Service Level (CSL)

To give a ‘customer service level’ definition is to talk for hours about the quality of service and various ways to ensure it. Simply put, a customer service level is the overall quality, speed, and personalization of support a company provides, and is ultimately reflected in customer satisfaction.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Key performance indicators are a set of numbers demonstrating the efficiency of business performance and the quality of service it provides. Businesses tend to track several KPIs across the board such as customer satisfaction, pickup rate, first response time, ticket resolution rate, and so on. 

Customer Service Levels

There are five different customer service levels. Each of them reflects the quality of support a team provides, based on their performance. 

Customer Service Level 1 — Unacceptable 

It hides under many names — poor, bad, horrible, low — its nature is the same. Customers who experience this level of support will rarely come back to you. 

Here are just a couple of ways you can scare customers away, according to HubSpot Research.

And Zendesk Benchmark data shows that more than 50% of customers will abandon you for a competitor after just one bad experience. So, the only correct approach to this level of customer service is — fix it! 

Customer Service Level 2 — Basic

This customer service level represents the bare minimum in customer support — just enough to keep things running, but not enough to build loyalty or trust. A company spends minimum effort to satisfy the customers. Facing slow responses and impersonal interactions, how many customers will return to this company? 

Basic customer service gets the job done — but it won’t drive growth. 

Let’s connect and take your support above basic and beyond! 

Customer Service Level 3 — Good

This service level is reached when customers consider their experience with a company “satisfactory”. What does it mean?

• The team talks to the customers for as long as needed
• Customers get their answers quickly
• Consultants use empathetic language
• Customers are satisfied enough to leave a good review and tell their friends and family about their good experience

Customer Service Level 4 — World-Class

At this level, you become a customer service leader. The experience you provide ranks among the best globally, putting you in direct competition with industry giants. There are several ways for you to reach this customer service level:

• Constant training of your support team
• Creating a customer-centric approach
• Using customer feedback to spot pain points and improve
• Implementing AI automation to speed up responses to common queries
• Tracking and acting on KPIs like customer satisfaction (CSAT), first response time (FRT), ticket resolution rate, and other metrics.

Customer Service Level 5 — Trademark

At this stage, your customer service level sets a benchmark that others in the industry are eager to match. Your service becomes a defining part of your brand, and your customers don’t just remember the experience — they talk about it.

A Checklist to Reach a High Customer Service Level

What can your support team do to increase customer satisfaction and elevate customer service level?

1. Use positive and empathetic customer service language. Shifting from saying “no” to offering helpful alternatives encourages a more constructive conversation with your customers and opens the door to better solutions. It will influence both the resolution rate and customer satisfaction rate. 
2. Encourage the professional growth of support consultants. Ongoing learning not only sharpens their skills but also helps their confidence and motivation on the job. When team members grow, so does the quality of service they provide. 
3. Conduct regular quality assurance (QA) checks. A dedicated professional or a team lead should conduct it at least once every month. It should include reading email chains, chat iterations and listening to the calls conducted by each team member. This ensures: 

• the quality and correctness of the written and spoken languages;
• timeliness and relevance of the information given to the customer;
• high level of empathy and call center service level overall. 

4. Ask customers for feedback. Customer integration into the evaluation process is a good way to see and eliminate all bottlenecks of your business. As customers rarely leave their feedback, asking them for their opinion is a good practice. Surveys and post-service emails can also help a business establish whether its customer service level is high enough. 
5. Establish high security standards. Learn more about security certifications like PCI DSS, ISO and HIPAA. Earning these certifications proves your company meets strict security and privacy standards, and that includes your customer service team. While the process is challenging, it builds trust with clients, strengthens your reputation, and shows you’re serious about protecting sensitive data. 

Good customer support is a sure way to establish your company’s reputation at a trademark customer service level. 

Outsource Support to Reach the Highest Customer Service Level Possible

Many businesses hesitate to set high customer service standards, worried about the extra resources they might need. But maintaining high standards is exactly what drives consistent long-term performance and customer loyalty. 

At SupportYourApp, we’ve been committed to this approach for over a decade — setting the highest customer service level and ambitious KPIs for our teams. It’s what enables us to consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences, day in and day out. Partner with us to reach your ambitious goals!

FAQ

How to Calculate Customer Service Level

To define your customer level accurately, you might want to calculate the following key metrics:

• First Response Time: Measures how quickly consultants respond to the initial customer inquiry — faster responses show customers they’re a priority.
• Resolution Time: Tracks how long it takes to fully resolve an issue — the shorter, the better for customer satisfaction.
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Directly reflects how happy customers are with the support they received.
• First Contact Resolution (FCR): Shows the percentage of cases resolved during the first interaction — a key metric for efficiency and service quality. 
• Abandonment Rate: Tracks the percentage of customers who leave — a high rate often signals long wait times or poor queue management, and shows your customer service level is unacceptable.

Of course, every business is different — you can define your own benchmarks for what qualifies as poor, good, or great customer service based on your goals and customer expectations.

How to Improve Customer Service Level

If you want to lead by example in customer service, start with your consultants. Measure their performance, invest in regular training, and give them a schedule that helps their productivity. To lighten their workload, consider using an AI chatbot to handle routine requests. You’ll reduce wait times, shorten resolution time, and boost your CSAT. 

What Is the Highest Level of Customer Service?

You’ll know you’re reaching the highest level when your customers turn into advocates, your NPS soars, and your competitors start looking up to you. The level of retention will be as high as ever, and even your sales will start climbing — with happy customers coming back to you time and again.

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