In customer-oriented businesses, it is important to track the time it takes to resolve customer complaints. This metric helps identify areas for improvement in customer service response times. In this tech blog post, we will explore how to calculate the average time to resolve customer complaints using the AVG function in SQL.

Understanding the Data

Before diving into the SQL query, let’s understand the data that we will be working with. We will assume that we have a table named complaints which contains the following columns:

• complaint_id: unique identifier for each complaint
• create_date: the date and time when the complaint was created
• resolve_date: the date and time when the complaint was resolved

The goal is to calculate the average time it takes to resolve a complaint.

Writing the SQL Query

To calculate the average time to resolve customer complaints, we can use the AVG function along with the DATEDIFF function in SQL. Here’s an example query that achieves this:

SELECT AVG(DATEDIFF(resolve_date, create_date)) AS average_resolve_time
FROM complaints;

In this query:

• DATEDIFF(resolve_date, create_date) calculates the difference in days between the resolve_date and create_date.
• AVG function takes the average of all the calculated differences.

The result of this query will be the average time (in days) it takes to resolve the customer complaints.

Optimizing the Query

If you have a large dataset, calculating the average time to resolve complaints for the entire table may be time-consuming. In such cases, you can optimize the query by filtering the complaints based on a specific time range or other relevant factors.

For example, to calculate the average resolve time for complaints created in the last 30 days, you can modify the query as follows:

SELECT AVG(DATEDIFF(resolve_date, create_date)) AS average_resolve_time
FROM complaints
WHERE create_date >= DATE_SUB(CURRENT_DATE(), INTERVAL 30 DAY);

This query filters the complaints to only include those created in the last 30 days.

Conclusion

Calculating the average time to resolve customer complaints is a valuable metric for evaluating customer service performance. By utilizing the AVG function along with the DATEDIFF function in SQL, businesses can track and analyze their response times to improve customer satisfaction.

#SQL #AverageTimeToResolveComplaints