Support contact rate is the number of support tickets per 100 orders: tickets divided by orders, times 100. It shows how often customers need help.
Contact rate = Support tickets ÷ Orders × 100
On the sample data below, six months come to 44.79%.
Why it matters
Most contacts are about something that went wrong: a late delivery, a wrong item, a failed payment. A falling contact rate usually means fewer things are going wrong.
Worked example
The table shows the columns this metric needs from six months of a made-up subscription brand. Add each column up over the six months, then put the totals into the formula:
| Month | Orders | Support tickets |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-01 | 702 | 310 |
| 2026-02 | 748 | 335 |
| 2026-03 | 812 | 352 |
| 2026-04 | 771 | 368 |
| 2026-05 | 846 | 381 |
| 2026-06 | 917 | 402 |
| Total | 4,796 | 2,148 |
2,148 ÷ 4,796 × 100 = 44.79%
Add up first, then divide. Averaging the six monthly figures gives a slightly different answer, because it counts a small month the same as a large one.
Month by month
| Month | Support contact rate |
|---|---|
| 2026-01 | 44.16% |
| 2026-02 | 44.79% |
| 2026-03 | 43.35% |
| 2026-04 | 47.73% |
| 2026-05 | 45.04% |
| 2026-06 | 43.84% |
Support contact rate calculator
How to read it
Tag tickets by reason. "Where is my order" contacts point at delivery and tracking; product questions point at the product page.
Common mistakes
- One customer writing three times about the same order is one problem. Count conversations, not messages.
- Contacts before purchase (pre-sales questions) are good contacts; separate them.
- Orders and tickets are in different months for slow problems; look at a rolling period.
Calculate support contact rate in Excel, SQL or Python
The quickest version, for the sample sheet laid out as in the CSV (headers in row 1, months in rows 2 to 7):
=SUM(AO2:AO7) / SUM(N2:N7)- Support contact rate in Excel and Google Sheets — per-month formula and zero-safe version
- Support contact rate in SQL — query by month and for the period
- Support contact rate in Python (pandas) — pandas script with expected output
Related metrics
See all business metrics, or the statistics methods that sit behind them.
Questions people ask
- What is support contact rate?
- Support contact rate is the number of support tickets per 100 orders: tickets divided by orders, times 100. It shows how often customers need help.
- How do you calculate support contact rate?
- Contact rate = Support tickets ÷ Orders × 100. For example, with six months of sample data: 2,148 ÷ 4,796 × 100 = 44.79%.
- What is the support contact rate formula in Excel?
- With the sample data laid out as in the downloadable CSV, =SUM(AO2:AO7) / SUM(N2:N7) gives the figure for the whole period (format the cell as a percentage). For one month, use =AO2 / N2 and fill it down.
- What is a good support contact rate?
- There is no figure that is right for every business: it depends on your products, prices and channels. Tag tickets by reason. "Where is my order" contacts point at delivery and tracking; product questions point at the product page.
Check how stable it is
A metric moves for ordinary reasons as well as real ones. These methods separate the two: the spread shows what a normal month looks like, the moving average smooths it, the z-score flags a month that is out of line and the trend line shows the direction.
Guides
About the data on this page
The figures come from a small made-up dataset, printed above in full so you can check every number by hand. Download it as monthly.csv. The results are computed from those rows when the page is built, and the Excel formulas, SQL and Python on these pages are run against the same rows before publishing, so the code and the answers agree.
To get these numbers from your own data without writing formulas, try AnalyzeIt: ask in plain words and it shows the working behind every figure.
Legal entity
Devansh Yadav
Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh
Governing law: Courts at Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh
Phone: +91 8433475698
Legal: legal@analyzeit.in