1 · CSAT
The single best lagging indicator of customer experience. If CSAT is moving, something already changed; the question is what and how recently. Forepost reads the trend (month-on-month delta) more than the absolute value, a 91% holding flat tells a different story than an 88% climbing.2 · Weekly volume
The denominator of everything else. CSAT on 50 tickets is noise; CSAT on 5,000 is signal. Volume also drives the capacity model, every projection downstream of Horizon starts here.3 · First response time
The earliest visible signal of strain. When a team is overloaded, response time degrades before CSAT does, because customers tolerate slow-but-good for a while before churning. Forepost watches it as a leading indicator of CSAT decay.4 · AI deflection rate
The economic shape of your function. Going from 50% to 70% deflection without dropping CSAT is the difference between hiring and not. Watching the rate over time reveals whether your AI investments are working, or plateauing.5 · Open tickets
The instantaneous queue depth. Useful as a “right now” signal that complements weekly volume. Sudden spikes flag incidents; persistent depth flags structural backlog.6 · Agent utilisation
How close your team is to its ceiling. 60% is comfortable; 85% is the cliff. The Headcount calculator uses this directly to project capacity-breach week.7 · Backlog age
Days since the oldest unresolved ticket. The metric that catches forgotten issues. Anything older than 21 days is a problem, it’s been re-prioritised down the queue every day until it disappeared from view. Forepost surfaces this directly in the Daily Brief.8 · One-touch resolution
The cleanest measure of agent efficiency. High one-touch means the team is closing things on first reply, fewer back-and-forth threads, lower per-ticket cost. Low one-touch means tickets are bouncing around. The brief uses this to read efficiency; the Headcount calc uses it indirectly via deflection.Plus four derived signals
Computed from the eight, surfaced on the Watchlist:- Capacity headroom: weeks to breach
- Volume velocity: % week-on-week
- CSAT trajectory: pp/month
- Agent review queue: count of flagged agents
What we don’t watch (and why)
The opinion is the product. Every addition costs attention.