The old adage, “What can be measured can be improved,” rings true in many areas of business, but especially in marketing.
Customer experience metrics give you quantitative data about what’s working, what’s not, and how your team can improve.
Best of all, you can track most metrics without needing active customer feedback. Even if most of your customers are passive, you’ll still be able to see what’s going on through the numbers.
Here are the 10 most important metrics you can’t afford to ignore, plus examples of how each one can help you upgrade your customer support.
What are customer experience metrics?
Before we get into the specifics, let’s be clear about what we mean by customer experience (CX) metrics.
A metric is something you can measure. It’s quantitative (numbers and statistics) rather than qualitative (words and emotions). Precise data means that you can come up with precise solutions to customer issues.
CX metrics are also valuable because you can measure many of them without needing buy-in from customers.
Most customers aren’t going to tell you how they feel. The average business only hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers. And for every complaint, 26 other customers remain silent.
But the numbers about customer lifespan, customer churn rates, and customer retention rates speak for themselves.
Top 10 CX metrics to measure
Each of the metrics below can make a big difference to customer success. Measuring customer experience is the first step toward improving it.
1. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
The customer satisfaction score (CSAT) relies on asking customers for their feedback. But it’s useful because it translates that feedback into hard numbers.
The CSAT asks one question: “How would you rate your overall satisfaction with this company?” Then customers score their experience from 1 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).
Anything from 4–5 is good. If you’re scoring 4s and 5s across the board, that’s a 100% CSAT. But scores of 3 or below drag your CSAT down—and suggest it’s time to make changes.
Retailers often use CSAT questions in post-purchase surveys. If the CSAT score is low, they can ask follow-up questions to discover where the pain points were in the customer journey: while browsing, going to checkout, or during delivery.
2. Net promoter score (NPS)
The net Promoter score (NPS) is another way to translate customer sentiment into data. It asks customers: “How likely are you to recommend us to someone else?”
This time, the score is between 1 (not at all likely) and 10 (extremely likely). A score of 6 is a net positive: Your most loyal customers are the ones scoring 6 and above. They’re the most likely to send you referrals through word of mouth.
The NPS score is a standard survey question for almost every e-commerce business. It helps assess customer lifespan and value.
If your business is regularly scoring below 6, then it’s time to make changes in your checkout process or brand messaging.
3. Customer effort score (CES)
Customer effort score (CES) is the last CX metric on our list that comes from asking your existing customers about their experience.
The CES asks, “How easy or difficult was it for you to do what you wanted today?” Like the CSAT or NPS, customers answer on a numerical scale. The scale can range in size from 10 options to a simple choice between “easy,” “neutral,” and “difficult.”
The results give you crucial insight into the actual processes in the customer journey, separate from how customers might feel about your brand or customer service.
One easy way to reduce CES is to make it easier for customers to give you feedback. Creating short surveys, offering multiple formats, and using shortened links or QR Codes are all ways to reduce friction when you’re collecting data.
4. Customer churn rate
Customer churn rate is a metric where you don’t have to ask customers about their experience at all. You can see how they feel through the data.
If a high number of customers sign up for a service but quit shortly after, or buy a product but then return it, you have a problem with your customer churn rate.
You can calculate the churn rate as the percentage of new customers who quit a service within a set period of time. You’ll set the time period based on things like payment dates, trial periods, and how long onboarding them onto the service takes.
Social networks are a great example of monitoring and managing customer churn rates. If you set up a new profile on Instagram or TikTok today, they’ll prompt you to follow accounts and interests right away.
That’s because churn analysis shows that making connections fast improves customer retention rates. If you can figure out which trigger points make your customers more likely to stick around, you can reduce your churn rates too.
5. Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a metric that’s expressed in dollars and cents. It predicts how much a customer is worth to your brand in the long term, based on their behavior, customer data, and past purchases.
For example, when a car dealership makes a sale, it’s not just about the value of the automobile. They’ll also encourage customers to stay in touch, refer friends, buy the dealership’s recommended insurance, and return to the dealership when it’s time to replace the vehicle.
CLV is what makes customer loyalty programs and initiatives worthwhile. While you have to spend money on the loyalty program, it can pay for itself when customers keep coming back and spending more.
6. Conversion rate
Your conversion rate measures how effective the final steps of your sales and marketing process are. It’s the percentage of potential customers who make a purchase and convert into paying, satisfied customers.
The classic way to measure and improve conversion rates is through A/B testing. For example, an online retailer might test two different landing page designs. The page with a higher conversion rate wins and becomes the default.
Understanding your conversion rates can help bring down the cost of customer acquisition and improve your efficiency overall. That’s good for your bottom line and your customer support team.
7. Social media sentiment
Social media sentiment might not sound like something quantifiable—but now, with the power of language processing AI, it can be done.
Sentiment analysis tools can show how people feel about you and whether they’re trending more or less positive over time. Once you’ve identified a trend, you can follow up on specific keywords and posts to figure out what’s making a difference.
For example, an e-commerce business might notice that social media chatter about them is becoming negative. Then they could monitor keywords to figure out that the negativity centers on a particular flaw in a product. When they fix the flaw, they’ll see an improvement in social media sentiment.
8. Average resolution time (ART)
Average resolution time is a metric that doesn’t measure your customers, but your company. It shows how long it takes for a customer service issue to be resolved.
ART is an important contributor to other customer experience metrics. The lower your average resolution time is, the higher your customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are likely to be.
The gold standard is first contact resolution (FCR), which is when you can fix a problem right away. FCR gives you a chance to show efficiency and convenience, even if a customer’s earlier experience wasn’t positive.
To achieve FCR, you’ll need:
- A smooth, effective ticketing system that sends requests to the right place.
- Enough customer support staff to handle the rate of requests.
- Staff who are empowered to resolve issues on their own.
9. First response time
First response time is closely related to average resolution time and first contact resolution. It measures how long it takes for customer service to respond to someone who’s having a problem with your business.
Just like those other metrics, it’s a vital contributor to customer satisfaction. Because let’s face it: When a business takes too long to respond, most people will write it off altogether. And the average customer defines “too long to respond” as a very short length of time.
You can speed up your First Response Time by:
- Setting up automated responses for common queries.
- Allocating support tickets effectively.
- Monitoring the level of support requests and staffing your team to keep up.
10. Customer health score
Customer health score measures how engaged someone is with your business. It’s also a valuable predictor of future behavior, customer lifetime value, and customer satisfaction.
It’s based on factors such as:
- CSAT surveys
- NPS surveys
- Risk of churn
- Email and message open rates
- Total number or frequency of customer interactions.
The exact definition of customer health will vary from brand to brand. You’ll need to set up your own metrics and decide what score puts someone in the danger zone.
For example, a B2B software company might score the health of its corporate customers. If a score drops below a certain level, then there’s a risk that the customer won’t renew their software subscription.
As soon as the score drops, it can trigger a series of actions in the company’s CRM—reminding them to reach out to the customer or offer a renewal discount.
Common mistakes to avoid when measuring CX metrics
CX metrics can inform your sales strategy, streamline your processes, and bring costs down.
But the numbers can’t work magic on their own. If you’re making any of the mistakes below, then your data will be a lot less useful.
Using only quantitative data
CX metrics are appealing—and effective—because they answer abstract questions with real numbers. But there’s still a place for qualitative customer feedback.
Qualitative surveys ask open questions and encourage people to talk about their experiences. They can help you identify the “why” behind quantitative metrics.
If you don’t use qualitative and quantitative data together, then there’s a risk that you’ll misunderstand the metrics.
Not acting on feedback
There’s no point in collecting data if you don’t plan to act on it. CX metrics don’t have any power themselves. They can only suggest what you might do next.
As well as tracking and reporting on key performance indicators, you’ll need a defined procedure for actually making changes. Decide who owns CX metrics in your company and who can test out changes based on the data.
Focusing only on detractors
It’s an easy trap to fall into. When you’re looking at metrics all day, you start expecting positive numbers—and you focus more attention on what’s going wrong.
But this is a mistake. First off, concentrating on the negatives can be demoralizing for your customer support team. Second, not every metric is within your control!
For example, some customers will just never want to promote your brand. That doesn’t mean they’re not valuable to the business over time. But it does mean that your NPS will always be just a little below 100%.
Ignoring the context of the metrics
Every CX metric exists in context.
For example:
- A brand that sells personal or intimate products might have a lower NPS because customers feel shy talking about it.
- Social media conversations can be complex, so sentiment analysis won’t always give you clear answers.
- Average resolution time can vary seasonally or when new products are released.
In other words, there are a million reasons why metrics might fluctuate or perform differently than you expected. You’ll need all that context, as well as qualitative feedback, to understand what’s going on with the numbers.
Build stronger customer relationships by monitoring customer experience KPIs
The CX metrics in this list are key performance indicators for every business.
Whatever you’re selling, you need to understand how your customers feel, what experience they’re having, and whether your business is responding the right way.
Share customer surveys and track metrics more easily with Bitly QR Codes, short URLs, and Bitly Analytics. Get started for free to start improving your customer experience today.
