The 20 Best Customer Experience Metrics For Your Business

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Customer experience is all about customers, but it’s backed up by numbers. Metrics showcase the progress of customer experience initiatives and pinpoint areas for improvement. KPIs are also often connected to finances and play a crucial role in gaining additional funding for customer experience programs and showing the ROI. There’s a huge world of data out there, but here are the 20 best customer experience metrics for your business to paint a complete picture of the progress of your CX strategy.

Net Promoter Score?

NPS shows the percentage of customers who would recommend your company to friends and family. It is the most commonly used customer experience metric because it is simple and relatively accurate. Customers are simply asked, “How likely are you to recommend this company to a friend or colleague?” on a scale of 1 to 10, which gives brands a good idea if their efforts are creating positive experiences.

Sales

This metric tracks the bottom line of a company and looks to see if the number of sales has increased over a certain time period or since a customer experience initiative began. Companies that focus on customer experience tend to make more sales, so this number should ideally increase with more emphasis placed on the customer experience.

Customer Loyalty

Loyal customers can be incredibly strong advocates for the brand. Track this metric by measuring how often customers return after their first purchase and prove their loyalty to the brand with regular purchases instead of going to the competition. Loyal customers have a proven track record of regular purchases.

Customer Engagement

Some customers just make purchases, and other customers are engaged with the brand with strong interactions. This metric tracks how engaged customers are by measuring things like how often they communicate with the brand, how long they spend on the website and how many clicks they make.

Customer Retention

This number measures how many customers come back for a second purchase. Strong customer experience can often entice customers to return, which can lower overall costs and create a strong group of return customers.

Employee Satisfaction?

A strong customer experience starts with satisfied employees. Tracking employee satisfaction can be as simple as asking employees if they are satisfied with their jobs or having them rate their satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10. In general, employees who are more satisfied with their jobs naturally provide better customer service.

Customer Effort Score?

CES measures how much work customers have to do through an interaction with the brand. It is usually measured by asking customers “How much effort did you have to put in to resolve the issue?” on a scale from Very Low Effort to Very High Effort. CES helps companies determine customer friction points and find ways to create a more seamless experience.

Customer Acquisition

Customer acquisition measures the cost of getting each new customer. This includes things like marketing, customer experience and data. The goal is to keep acquisition costs low without missing out on potential customers. If a business has a strong customer experience and is getting customers from referrals and its strong reputation, it can lower the customer acquisition cost.

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Customer Lifetime Value?

CLV is how much a customer is worth to the business over their lifetime. Customer lifetime value helps brands see what they are getting out of their investments in marketing, acquisition and customer experience.??

Customer Satisfaction?

CSAT measures the average satisfaction score of customers. In general, CSAT is used for specific interactions, such as calling the contact center or making a return. Customers are asked to rate their satisfaction on a scale from Very Satisfied to Not at All Satisfied. CSAT surveys are often given within a few hours of an event, which helps brands measure satisfaction in the moment.

Churn Rate

Churn rate tracks how many customers stopped doing business with a company over a certain period of time. The idea is that customers won’t leave if they’re having a good experience. Churn rate is calculated by dividing the number of customers lost during the timeframe by the number of customers at the beginning of the timeframe. The churn rate is essentially the opposite of the retention rate.

Average Time Resolution

This metric measures the total time it takes to resolve an issue from when it is first brought up by a customer to when it is fully resolved. To find the average, divide the sum of all resolution times by the number of cases solved in a certain time period. In general, customers are happier and have better experiences when their issues are resolved quickly.

First Contact Resolution?

FCR tracks how many customers have their issues resolved or questions completely answered on their first contact with the brand. It is viewed as a percentage of the total calls a company receives. FCR shows if customers can quickly get the help they need and if employees have the tools to solve issues on their own.

Visitor Intent

Visitor intent measures the reason customers came to a business’s website. It takes things further than simply measuring how long a customer spends on the site and tracks their reason for visiting in the first place. To track intent, give customers multiple options and ask which best describes their primary focus of their visit. Visitor intent can help businesses optimize their websites to best match what customers are actually looking for.

Task Completion?

Working with visitor intent, task completion measures if customers were able to successfully accomplish what they wanted to on the website. Did they get the answers they were looking for or make the purchase they intended to? Task completion helps divide successful visits from unsuccessful visits and is measured with a simple yes/no survey question of if customers were able to complete the purpose of their visit.

Stock Price

Customers are major stakeholders in a company, but they aren’t the only ones. Stock price not only considers a company’s growth and revenue, but also its projection for future growth and how it is viewed in the industry. Companies with strong customer experiences will likely be primed for more growth and have an increasing stock price.

Contact Volume By Channel

Brands need to pay attention to how customers are choosing to interact with them. Contact volume by channel tracks how many questions and issues come in through various channels like phone, email, chatbot or social media. This metric not only helps companies better understand their customers but can also assist in allocating resources and contact center agents to the right channels during busy times.

Social Listening

This metric tracks how often people are talking about you on social media and what they’re saying. Customers often have opinions about brands—good and bad—that they don’t share directly with the company but instead tell their family and friends. Social listening tracks the number of mentions on various channels and if they are positive or negative. It also allows brands to jump into the conversation if needed to repair a relationship.

Referral Rate

NPS tracks how willing customers are to refer family and friends to a brand, but referral rate measures if they actually do it. Referral rate can be measured a few different ways, such as using a specially designed referral program with unique links for each customer or using social listening to follow referral conversations.

Cart Abandonment Rate

If customers are filling their shopping carts but not actually making purchases, it could be a sign that the online experience is lacking. Loyal customers don’t leave their carts behind. Pay attention to the percentage of carts that are abandoned, especially as you strategically work to improve your web and mobile experience.

Data drives personalized relationships and strong customer experiences. Without tracking key metrics, companies don’t have the full picture of their customer experience progress. These 20 metrics can help any business better understand their customers and investments.

*Article first published on forbes.com

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