Trends and benchmarks
Trends and benchmarks help you read your bot’s results in context. Trends show whether performance changed compared with the previous period. Benchmarks show how your bot compares with other bots in the same field.
Use them when you need to understand whether a number is improving, declining, or broadly in line with your industry.
What they measure
Trends compare the current selected period with the previous period of equal length. Benchmarks compare your bot’s performance with other bots in the same industry or field.
- Is my bot improving over time?
- Did a recent change make performance better or worse?
- Is this score typical for my field?
- Which metric changed the most since the previous period?
- Should I focus on a one-time drop or a long-term pattern?
A score on its own tells you what happened in the selected period. A trend tells you how that result changed. A benchmark adds field-level context.
Trends
A trend shows the change between the current period and the previous period of the same length.
For example:
| Selected period | Compared with |
|---|---|
| December 1–7 | The previous 7 days |
| December 1–31 | The previous 31 days |
| A year | The previous year |
This makes the comparison fair. A week is compared with a week. A month is compared with a month.
Trends appear as an arrow or change value next to scores, summary statistics, charts, and issue counts.
How to read trend indicators
Trend indicators usually show whether a value went up, went down, or stayed the same.
| Indicator | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Up arrow | The value increased compared with the previous period. |
| Down arrow | The value decreased compared with the previous period. |
| Equals sign | The value stayed the same or changed only minimally. |
For example:
- a higher Inquio Score™ is good
- a higher number of conversations may simply mean more traffic
- a higher conversation length may mean better handling, or it may mean users are getting stuck
- a higher number of incidents is a warning sign
- a lower First Contact Resolution is usually a problem
Always read the trend together with the metric it belongs to.
First report card
Trends are most useful after you have more than one report card or comparison period for the same bot.
On the first report card, trends may be empty or less meaningful because there is no earlier dataset to compare against.
After you upload a new dataset for the same bot, Inquio can compare the new results with the previous period and show whether the bot improved, declined, or stayed roughly the same.
Where trends appear
- Bot Report Card — score dimensions and summary sections
- Issues and Recommendations — issue counts and severity changes
- Conversation metrics — summary statistics, workload, efficiency, abandonment, and empty conversations
- Defender — incident counts and changes over time
- Sales Radar — opportunities and churn risks over time
Trends are especially useful when you are checking the effect of a change. If you updated a dialog flow, added a missing answer, changed an escalation rule, or improved a safety guardrail, the next report card should show whether the affected metric moved in the right direction.
What trends can tell you
- a topic improved after you fixed a flow
- an issue became more common
- user traffic increased during a campaign
- abandonment rose after a widget or greeting change
- First Contact Resolution dropped in one topic
- incidents increased after users discovered a new attack pattern
A trend does not explain the cause by itself. It tells you where to look.
To understand why the trend changed, open the affected conversations and compare examples from the current period with examples from the previous one.
Benchmarks
Benchmarks compare your bot with other bots in the same industry or field.
This is why you choose an industry when you create a bot. The selected field gives Inquio the context it needs to compare your results with similar assistants, rather than with a generic ideal.
Use benchmarks to understand whether your bot is performing above, below, or around the field comparison point.
How to use benchmarks
Benchmarks are best used as context, not as the only basis for action.
- if your score is below the field comparison, open the weakest score dimension and review the related issues
- if your score is above the field comparison, review the strongest topics to understand what is working
- if one dimension is far below the comparison while others are strong, focus on that dimension first
- if your score improves over time, use the benchmark to see whether the bot is also becoming stronger in field context
The benchmark helps you understand where your bot stands. The issues, recommendations, and affected conversations show what to fix.
Trends vs. benchmarks
Trends and benchmarks answer different questions.
| Feature | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Trend | Is my bot doing better or worse than before? |
| Benchmark | How does my bot compare with others in the same field? |
Use trends when you are measuring change over time.
Use benchmarks when you need field context.
For daily optimization work, start with trends and issues. For a broader performance readout, use the benchmark comparison on the Bot Report Card.
How to use them together
- Open the Bot Report Card.
- Check the overall Inquio Score™ and dimension scores.
- Look at the trend arrows to see what changed.
- Check the benchmark comparison for field-level context.
- Open the weakest or fastest-declining dimension.
- Review the related Issues and Recommendations.
- Read the affected conversations before making changes.
- Upload a fresh dataset later and compare the next trend.
This keeps the workflow practical: benchmark for context, trend for movement, conversations for evidence.
Where to find them
- Bot Report Card — Inquio Score™, dimension trends, and benchmark comparison.
- Conversation metrics — trend indicators for traffic, workload, efficiency, abandonment, and empty conversations.
- Issues and Recommendations — issue counts, severity, and development over time.
- Defender — incident development over time.
- Sales Radar — opportunity and churn development over time.