What is TikTok? TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy.

What is TikTok’s company mission/goal and a key metric? TikTok’s goal is to entertain users by making/watching short-form creative videos via their mobile. And as an entertainment platform- User engagement is a key metric.

What about TikTok’s Customer Service Platform? A good customer service experience would drive customer happiness and their loyalty to the platform, hence driving customer engagement.

The goal of TikTok’s customer service platform should be to better manage and improve customer experience by doing the following:

• Manage customer requests-collection
• Analyze and assist with cases
• Help with reporting cases

5 KPI for TikTok’s customer service platform would be:

1. Tickets handled per hour vs tickets resolved per hour
2. Average resolution time
3. Customer satisfaction score
4. First contact resolution (FCR). A customer service representative achieves first contact resolution when they resolve a service ticket during the first interaction with that customer.
5. First response time (FRT) is how long it takes a customer service representative to respond to a support ticket once a customer submits it.

Some of these KPI’s could be false positives for example. A short First response time (FRT)time doesn’t necessary indicate the effectiveness of the platform, customer service could be responding to cases quickly but not actually resolving them to a close.

TikTok’s customer service means when users want to register a complaint regarding unable to upload videos, unable to login, profanity etc. And the customer service provides a resolution within certain timelines.

With this understanding, let me recall the vision of TikTok which is create a community through viral videos and I can imagine that their goal is to have many users generating content, resulting in many users active on their app and in turn many advertisers generating revenue for TikTok.

That being said, let us look at the user groups on TikTok: Watchers, Creators, Advertisers, Sellers, Buyers

Now, I will think about what these users want from CS:

1. Watcher – Majority issues faced by watcher are slow loading, app shutting down, unable to login etc.
2. Creator – Unable to upload, unable to view analytics or seeing incorrect analytics etc
3. Advertisers – Incorrect billing, underperformance of ads etc
4. Sellers – People aren’t buying, recommendation is not working etc
5. Buyers – Unable to find things to buy, filters or tags are not working etc

Thus, the 5 key metrics from CS PoV such that it helps the goal are:

1. % Correct resolution in first time
2. % thumbs down per CS person
3. # same users raising the same issue
4. Resolution TAT
5. Attrition rate of CS team

When considering metrics for evaluating a customer service platform like TikTok’s, the goal is to measure performance in a way that improves customer satisfaction, increases efficiency, and encourages problem resolution. Here are five metrics that might be helpful:

1. First Response Time: This metric measures how long a user has to wait before they receive the initial response to their query. A lower first response time can increase customer satisfaction by demonstrating that TikTok is taking their concerns seriously and is committed to solving their issues as quickly as possible.
2. Resolution Rate: This measures the percentage of customer complaints or issues that were fully resolved. The higher this rate, the more effective the customer service. Unresolved issues can lead to dissatisfaction and potentially user attrition.
3. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): After a customer service interaction, users could be surveyed on their satisfaction with the process. The CSAT score provides direct feedback about the customer’s experience and can help identify areas where service could be improved.
4. Average Handle Time (AHT): This is the average time it takes for a customer service representative to handle a case from start to finish. This includes all the time spent communicating with the customer, resolving their issue, and completing any necessary follow-up tasks. A lower AHT often indicates a more efficient customer service process.
5. Net Promoter Score (NPS): This measures the likelihood of a customer recommending the service to others. While it’s not directly related to a specific customer service interaction, it gives an idea of the general perception of TikTok’s customer service. High NPS often correlates with good customer experiences.

Remember that these metrics should not be used in isolation as they all provide different perspectives on customer service performance. Balance is key, and it’s crucial to avoid focusing too heavily on a single metric at the expense of overall service quality.

How I would approach this question:

1. Understand the goal of the customer service platform:
   1. What is the main business goal of this company and how is the customer service platform serving the company goals?
      1. For this question, I’m assuming the user journey is that customers come to the customer service platform when they run into issues. Thus, ultimately the customer service platform is feeding into the top line business metric of customer retention. Do customers keep using TikTok even after hitting issues?
   2. Brainstorming other assumptions I have about the customer service platform goals:
      1. CS platform goals:
         1. Resolve customer issues
         2. Customer satisfaction with service (note, this would likely influence if customers are more likely to return to the product)
      2. Assuming there are no other issues with the CS platform funnel (ex what if suddenly the link to contact CS stopped working), overall it would be important to TikTok to have lower customer service requests meaning -> fewer bugs / issues.
2. Layout the user journey so I can identify key actions and metrics when customers interact with the customer service platform: 3. Customer hits an issue 4. Customer goes to the CS platform to ask for help 5. Customer waits for a response 6. Customer gets a response 1. Either the issue is resolved 2. Or the issue is put in the company backlog / left unresolved 7. Customer is satisfied with the service (or not) 8. Customer keeps using the product (or not)
3. Based on the goals I’ve defined and user journey, I’m now going to brainstorm metrics. I will save prioritization of metrics for the last step.
   1. # of incoming issues that come into the CS platform
   2. Response rate
   3. Handle time rate
   4. % of issues that get resolved
   5. CS quality rating / NPS
   6. Customer retention after interacting with CS
4. Prioritization:
   1. Customer retention after interacting with CS: This is the most correlated with our top line business metric and goal.
   2. # of issues that come into customer service: This can be a reflection of issues with the product itself (e.g. suddenly there’s a spike in bug reports).
   3. CS quality rating / NPS: Even if all issues got resolved, if customers aren’t happy, does it even matter?
   4. % of issues get resolved: This metric can be used to address bug resolution internally and product quality.
   5. Response rate: This can potentially be used to evaluate the quality of service your CS team is providing. However, if metrics a through c are doing well, this metric probably carries less weight even if it’s doing poorly.