Promise kept rate (PTP kept)
The promise kept rate is the percentage of promises to pay where the debtor actually paid the promised amount by the promised date.
How it is calculated
PTP stands for promise to pay. Each promise is recorded with a date and an amount. Once the date arrives, someone checks whether the payment came in.
The formula: the number of kept promises divided by the number of promises that fell due during the period.
An illustrative example: in a week 200 promises fell due, and for 130 of them the payment arrived on time. The promise kept rate is 65%.
Decide in advance what counts as kept: the full amount or any payment, exactly on the date or with a one-day tolerance.
Why it matters
The number of promises collected is easy to inflate. A client will say “I’ll pay on Friday” just to end the conversation. The kept rate shows how real those promises are.
For a manager it is a mirror of each agent’s work. If someone collects many promises but few are kept, they are probably not agreeing on a realistic date and amount. They are simply ticking a box.
What to do
Record a promise only with a specific date and amount. Send a reminder the day before and check on the day. Review a broken promise immediately and set the next step.
Compare the rate across agents, segments and channels. Where promises are kept more often, study how those conversations are run and carry that into the script.
A common mistake is paying bonuses for the number of promises. Reward the ones that are kept.
More in Signals
- Sales team motivation: what to pay for when sales happen in chatSales motivation works when the variable pay is tied to money actually paid, not to activity: message counts and time online are easy to inflate. You need a clear formula, a fair way of assigning clients and every rep seeing their own results. Non-cash motivation in chat means recognizing specific conversations, not saying generic words.
- Call center KPIs for messaging apps: what to measure when agents type instead of talkIn messaging apps, classic call center KPIs change meaning: average handle time loses weight, while first response time, service level, missed conversations and resolution in a single conversation move to the front. New metrics appear that calls never had: concurrent conversations and promises kept. Measure them in working hours and together, never one at a time.