Deflection Rate

Deflection rate counts work the system finished end to end. It is the cleanest evidence that a deployment created capacity rather than merely adding a step, and it is usually the number a business review is built around.

Worked example: a support agent deflecting 42% of tickets returns real hours; the same agent “assisting” on 90% of tickets while a human still handles every one has changed nothing measurable. Gotcha: deflection reported without a quality number is a trap — deflecting more by answering worse is easy, so always pair it with eval results and escalation correctness over the same period.