5 Important Customer Experience Metrics For Happy Customers

Measuring your customer service with metrics is an important part of understanding how effective your customer experience strategy is. Customer experience metrics will tell you how well your CX strategy is working and help your business identify opportunities for improvement. 

But with so many different metrics to track, which ones are the most important? Here are five important metrics to help you measure your customer experience:

Your customer effort score (CES) measures the amount of work your customers must put in to engage with your business. This can include the amount of effort it takes to: 

• purchase a product or service
• use a product or service 
• fix a problem 
• receive a refund 
• find information on your website 

To measure customer effort score, you must utilize a survey. This is best done immediately after an interaction, such as making a purchase, interacting with customer service or having a service-related experience. 

The most common way to deliver your CES survey is through a Likert scale, which asks customers to rate how easy their interaction is using a 5 or 7-point scale. Another popular method for collecting CES data is an emoticon rating where customers choose from a happy, sad or neutral face to rate how easy their experience was. 

To calculate CES, you want to find the average of all your scores. To do this, add all of your scores and divide it by the number of responses. 

Customer satisfaction score measures how well your product, service and overall experience meets your customer’s expectations. 

Again, to measure this metric you’ll need to send out a survey. But instead of asking how easy the experience was, you want to ask your customer to rate how satisfied they are with their experience. 

5 to 7-point Likert scales are also effective for this type of question, such as “On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being very dissatisfied and 5 being very satisfied, how satisfied with your [product, service or experience]?”

To boost the value of your data, combine this type of question with an open-ended survey question that lets your customer explain why they made the choice they did. This will help you make better decisions about improving your customer experience. 

To calculate CSAT, divide the number of satisfied customers by the total number of responses. The numbers that represent satisfied customers will depend on how many points customers can choose from. For example, on a 5-point scale, 4 and 5 would be satisfied customers. On a 7-point scale it would be 5, 6 or 7. 

#3 - Net Promoter Score (NPS) 

Your net promoter score (NPS) helps measure customer sentiment and how loyal customers are to your brand. To determine your NPS, you will want to ask a 10-point Likert survey question on the lines of: 

“How likely are you to recommend this [product, service or company] to a friend or colleague?” 

In this question, 10 would be very likely and 1 would be unlikely. 

The response to this question will help you measure: 

• customer satisfaction levels 
• future growth 
• perceptions of your brand 

To calculate NPS, you’ll want to subtract the percentage of detractors from the number of promoters. Promoters are those who select 9 or 10. Those who select 7 or 8 are neutral and the remainder are detractors. 

Customer retention rate is the number of existing customers who remain customers over a specific time period. This number is expressed as a percentage and measures how successful your company is at acquiring new customers and maintaining existing customers. 

To calculate your customer retention rate, determine the number of customers at the beginning of your time period. Next, determine the total number of customers at the end of your time period. Lastly, collect the number of new customers you gained throughout the entire time period. 

Once you have this information, subtract the number of new customers from the number of customers at the end of the period. Divide the result by the number of customers at the beginning of the period. 

Multiply the result by 100 to get your customer retention rate percentage. 

Your customer churn rate tells you the number of customers that cease doing business with you over a specified period of time. Like customer retention rate, customer churn rate is measured as a percentage. This is an important metric because it tells you how many customers you are losing. While some churn can be expected, if your churn rate is high, it can have a substantial impact on your profits. 

To calculate customer churn rate, you need to know: 

• how many customers you had at the beginning of the period 
• how many customers you had at the end of the period

Once you have these numbers, you need to subtract the end amount from the beginning amount and then divide the result by the number of customers at the beginning of the month. Multiply the result by 100 and you will have your customer churn rate. 

These are just some of the many metrics you can use to measure customer experience. The rates that you’re looking for will depend on your industry and other factors. But even without benchmarks, improvements in your metrics can help you determine whether your customer experience strategy is working. 

For more information on customer service metrics and how they can help you increase success, contact us today.