Metrics Reference

This page defines every metric available in Sift's analytics dashboards - what it measures, how it is calculated, and where it appears.

At a glance

Volume Metrics

• Total Items: The total number of posts, messages, or comments ingested from all connected sources in the selected time window. This is the raw count before any filtering or triage.

• Actionable Items: The subset of total items that Sift's AI flagged as requiring a response or follow-up. Calculated as the count of items with at least one actionable tag applied.

• New Actions: Actions created (either automatically by AI triage or manually by a team member) in the selected period.

• Closed Actions: Actions moved to a closed status in the period. An action is closed when a team member marks it resolved or when an automation closes it.

• Backlog: Open actions that have not been updated within the last 24 hours. High backlog indicates the queue is falling behind.

Response Metrics

• Response Rate: The percentage of actionable items that received at least one reply from your team. Calculated as (replied actions / total actionable actions) × 100.

• Responded vs. Not Responded: A breakdown of actionable items split by whether a reply was sent. Useful for identifying noise vs. genuine customer signal.

• Avg First Response Time (FRT): The average time between an action being created and the first outbound reply from your team, measured in minutes or hours depending on magnitude.

• Median First Response Time: The median FRT across all replied actions in the period. Median is less sensitive to outliers than average and is the preferred metric for SLA tracking.

• SLA Breaches: The count of actions where FRT exceeded your configured SLA target.

Sentiment Metrics

• Avg Sentiment: The average sentiment score of all items in the selected period, reported on a 1–5 scale (1 = Very Negative, 5 = Very Positive). Calculated as the mean of per-item sentiment scores.

• Sentiment Distribution: A breakdown of items by sentiment band: Very Negative (1), Negative (2), Neutral (3), Positive (4), Very Positive (5). Shows the full distribution rather than just the average.

• Sentiment Over Time: Avg sentiment trended by day, week, or month. Useful for spotting when a product release or incident caused a shift in customer tone.

CSAT Metrics

• CSAT Score: Customer Satisfaction score. Calculated as the average (or median, depending on the view) of the raw rating each respondent gave - not a percentage of "positive" responses. Only available when CSAT surveys are enabled.

• CSAT Completion Rate: The percentage of actions that received any CSAT rating at all, regardless of score - a survey-response-rate metric, distinct from the CSAT Score itself.

• CSAT Response Count: The total number of CSAT survey responses received in the period.

• CSAT by Queue: CSAT scores broken out per queue, allowing you to compare satisfaction across teams or topic areas.

Source and Channel Metrics

• Items by Source: Volume breakdown by platform (Discord, Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and more).

• Items by Channel: Volume broken down by individual channel or handle within a source.

• Top Queues by Volume: The queues that received the most actions in the period.

User and Team Metrics

• Actions Handled per Agent: The number of actions each team member replied to or closed. Useful for workload balancing.

• Avg Handle Time: The average time between an action being assigned to a team member and that member closing it.

• Team Response Rate: Response rate calculated per individual agent, rather than across the whole org.

Related