A practical guide to measuring and improving Zendesk agent performance

If you run a support team, you know that agent performance is everything. It’s the core of good customer service, directly impacting how happy your customers are and how efficiently your team runs.

Getting a clear view of that performance is a priority for any successful manager. Zendesk is a mature, reliable platform for managing conversations, and its built-in reporting tools provide a wealth of data. While mastering custom reports can take a little time, the depth of insight available is impressive for teams that want to dive deep into their metrics.

This guide is here to help. We'll walk through how to measure Zendesk agent performance, talk about how to get the most out of Zendesk’s own analytics, and show you how modern AI can help you stop just tracking metrics and start actively improving them.

What is Zendesk agent performance?

So, what do we really mean by Zendesk agent performance? It’s simply a measure of how well your support agents are handling customer tickets within the Zendesk platform.

But it’s not just a single number. Think of it as a combination of three main things:

• Productivity: This is the nuts and bolts of the work. How many tickets is an agent resolving in a day? It’s the raw output of your team.

• Quality: This is all about how well the work gets done. Are customers leaving the conversation happy? Are the solutions accurate? This is where metrics like customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores come in.

• Efficiency: This looks at how quickly and smoothly issues are resolved. Is an agent solving a problem on the first try, or are tickets bouncing around?

Getting this mix right is what separates an okay support team from a great one. When your agent performance is strong, you see real business results, like customers who stick around longer, lower support costs, and a happier team that feels supported in their roles.

How Zendesk measures agent performance out of the box

Zendesk provides a robust ecosystem of tools designed to track performance with precision.

Understanding Zendesk Explore

Zendesk Explore is the platform's powerful analytics tool. It has a bunch of pre-built dashboards, like the ones for Zendesk Support or Agent productivity, that give you a professional look at ticket volume, resolution times, and agent stats.

These are excellent for regular pulse checks and provide a solid foundation for any support organization.

Maximizing native Zendesk reporting

While the default dashboards are a great starting point, many managers find they can unlock even more value by customizing their views. Here are a few things to keep in mind when using native Zendesk reporting:

• Metrics benefit from context. Let’s take a classic metric: Average Handle Time (AHT). Zendesk accurately flags an agent's AHT, and as a manager, you can use that data to see who is handling the most complex, expert-level tickets. This allows you to recognize and reward your most capable team members.

• A powerful tool for deep analysis. Building custom reports in Explore is a specialized skill. For those who invest the time, Zendesk's data model offers incredible depth and flexibility, allowing for highly sophisticated reporting.

• Comprehensive historical insights. Zendesk reports are world-class at telling you exactly what happened over any period. This historical data is essential for long-term planning and spotting trends that help you prepare for the future.

• Specialized channel views. Your agent performance data is organized across different dashboards for support, phone, and chat channels. This specialized focus ensures you have the right metrics for each unique platform your team uses.

Key metrics for Zendesk agent performance

To get a balanced view of your team's health, you need to look at a mix of metrics covering productivity, quality, and efficiency.

Productivity metrics

These numbers tell you about your team's output.

• Tickets solved: The most basic measure. It’s simply the total number of tickets an agent closes over a certain period.

• Replies per conversation: This tracks the average number of replies an agent sends to resolve a ticket. A lower number here usually shows that agents are knowledgeable and communicating clearly.

Quality metrics

These metrics help you understand the high level of support you’re providing.

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): The classic survey that provides direct feedback from the customer on how they felt about their interaction with a specific agent.

• First Contact Resolution (FCR): This is the percentage of tickets solved in a single interaction. A high FCR is a win for both agent efficiency and customer happiness.

• Escalation rate: This shows you how often an agent passes a ticket to a senior team member. This data is great for identifying opportunities where an agent might appreciate more training.

Efficiency metrics

These metrics focus on speed and effort.

• First Reply Time (FRT): This is how long a customer waits for that initial response. Zendesk helps you keep this low to meet modern customer expectations.

• Average Handle Time (AHT): The average time an agent is actively working on a ticket. It's a useful metric for understanding workload and resource allocation.

How to improve Zendesk agent performance with AI

Tracking these metrics is important, and 2026 is the year where AI makes active improvement easier than ever. Modern AI tools can work alongside Zendesk to help your team scale effectively.

Automate the simple stuff

The goal: Ensure your most skilled agents can focus on high-value work. By automating common questions like "How do I reset my password?", you can improve team morale and allow agents to tackle the complex issues where they excel.

The solution: An AI agent can handle these repetitive questions instantly. This enhances your team's overall efficiency and allows your human agents to maintain high performance on challenging tasks.

eesel AI is one option that works well here. It integrates seamlessly with Zendesk, learning from your past conversations to provide helpful, on-brand answers. Its simulation mode allows you to test it on your historical data to see how it supports your automation goals.

Give agents an AI Copilot in real time

The goal: Reduce the time agents spend searching for information across different internal platforms. Slashing research time directly improves handle time and first reply time.

The solution: An AI Copilot can work right inside Zendesk alongside your agents, suggesting accurate replies based on your company knowledge.

A tool like eesel AI can connect to your various knowledge sources-like help center articles or internal wikis-and present them in one place. It’s a great way to help new agents get up to speed quickly and ensure every customer gets a consistent, correct answer.

Get insights you can actually use

The goal: Understand the "why" behind your metrics to create a clear path forward for coaching.

The solution: Modern AI reporting tools can supplement Zendesk's data with specific action items.

The analytics dashboard in eesel AI can highlight questions your team might need more documentation for, showing you where the gaps are in your knowledge base. It can even help you fill those gaps by drafting help center articles, creating a helpful feedback loop for your team.

Zendesk pricing for agent performance reporting

Zendesk offers tiered plans to match different team sizes and reporting needs. This ensures that as your company grows, the platform grows with you.

For teams that need custom reporting in Explore or live data, the Suite Professional plan and higher provide these enterprise-grade features. Zendesk's own AI features, including those from Ultimate.ai (a Zendesk company), are also available to further strengthen your performance tracking.

Here's a look at the 2026 plan structure:

Plan	Price (per agent/month, annually)	Key Performance Features
Suite Team	$55	Prebuilt analytics dashboards, Basic AI agents
Suite Professional	$115	Everything in Team + Customizable reporting, CSAT surveys, SLA management
Suite Enterprise	$169	Everything in Pro + Custom agent roles, Sandbox environment, Advanced AI

Additionally, specialized tools like eesel AI can provide complementary AI features that work on top of any Zendesk plan. This allows you to add specific capabilities whenever you need them with straightforward, usage-based pricing.

Move from tracking to transforming Zendesk agent performance

Managing Zendesk agent performance is about building a system where your agents are set up for success. Zendesk provides the industry-leading foundation for this, and by leveraging its native tools alongside complementary AI, you can automate repetitive tasks and give your team the knowledge they need to excel.

While Zendesk's native tools offer a strong starting point, adding a dedicated AI platform is a great way to help your team reach its full potential even faster.

Ready to see how to enhance your setup? You can connect eesel AI to your Zendesk account in a few minutes to see how it can support your team. Start your free trial today.