Creating a truly customer-centric business strategy requires tracking the right metrics. Understanding specific key performance indicators related to consumer behavior can offer insights into what’s working and what is not, so your company can make the appropriate adjustments.
Below, 20 Fast Company Executive Board members explain which customer success metrics have provided their businesses with invaluable knowledge about their business efforts. With these measures in mind, you can make informed, strategic decisions and highlight areas that need improvement.
1. ‘VALUE UNLOCK’
The Growth Flywheel organizes value in four quadrants: growth, usage, retention, and efficiency. One of the most useful metrics is the “value unlock” metric, which connects specific product usage metrics to customer retention data. Using this, product teams can evaluate the potential value of any proposed incremental change to products as a leading indicator of ultimate customer satisfaction. – Shiren Vijiasingam, Instructure
2. DOLLAR RETENTION
Customers vote with their wallets, so ultimately the only customer support metric that matters is dollar retention. Since customers—particularly at product-led growth companies—are so heterogeneous, it’s critical to understand which customers retain best and direct your marketing, sales, and product spending toward them. – Jessica Gilmartin, Calendly
3. REPEAT REQUESTS
Every business has to identify which metric is most applicable to their business. For us, repeat requests from clients are a good indicator of success. Ideally, clients see value in working with us and look to us as future needs arise. – Jacob Kupietzky, HCT Executive Interim Management & Consulting
4. CONSUMPTION RATE
In the world of SaaS and consumption-driven economy, there is a key metric that provides significant insights into how the customer is getting value from the product or offering: consumption rate. It is all about the propensity of customers to use the product which determines the perceived value. It’s very similar to measuring the rate of SKU movement in retail. – Bharath Yadla, Workato
5. NUMBER OF REFERRALS
The number of referrals the customer has made to us is one of our key customer success metrics. Understanding what percentage of new business is the result of warm referrals versus “cold calls” has dramatically shifted our marketing and business development efforts. – Nathaniel Heller, Geneva Global
6. KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
It’s crucial to measure customer experience. By elevating the importance of a customer experience team, organizations can provide seamless and consistent execution of positive experiences at every touchpoint. Key metrics include KPIs to gauge satisfaction, measure loyalty, evaluate interactions, and track ROI. By delivering intuitive experiences, companies ensure a positive customer journey. – Andreas Pettersson, Arcules
7. AVERAGE REVIEW RATINGS OF EMPLOYEES
Our primary goal is to ensure customer satisfaction. To achieve this, we closely monitor the average review ratings of each employee on a weekly basis. This approach allows us to consistently provide great customer service and quickly make adjustments if we notice any decline in performance. Proactive monitoring is key to maintaining our commitment to excellence and keeping our customers happy. – Ryan Crownholm, Crown Capital Adventures Inc.
8. HEALTH SCORE
A key customer success metric has been a health score. Create a matrix of different metrics and roll that up into one general “health score” of the account. This includes not only data-driven, quantifiable metrics, such as the customer’s usage of your product but also their “sentiment”—were they generally happy or not happy on your last check-in call with them? – Toni Ann Careccio, PortPro Technologies, Inc.
9. LOCAL CUSTOMER REVIEWS
We have really been focusing on local customer reviews so we can understand the perspective of our customers in a variety of environments and locations. It is a really important way to gauge our customer experience at a comprehensive level as well as geographically. Published reviews give us insight into their experience and also drive SEO — and assist in closing additional business, an added bonus. – Jennifer Dixson Hoff, Colibri Real Estate
10. ORGANIC GROWTH AND REFERRALS
Knowing that our growth has purely been through organic growth and referrals speaks volumes and gives insight into our product, our service, and what we offer our clients collectively. Are your customers raving fans and would they recommend you to people they care about? – Ginni Saraswati, Ginni Media
11. NET REVENUE RETENTION
Our North Star is driving customer value, meaning we align with helping customers achieve their positive business outcomes. Net Revenue Retention (NRR)—which reflects how well we protect and grow revenue under management by capturing retained business, churn, and expansion—will show how much we’re helping customers be successful and achieve their goals. – Karen Budell, Totango
12. QUANTITATIVE FEEDBACK
Quantitative feedback, which typically comes in the form of feature requests, is most helpful in identifying opportunities and needs that impact multiple customers. There should be a process for sales and customer success teams to input and track this direct customer feedback, from which teams can begin to surface trends and concerns to address at the product level. – Steve Won, 1Password
13. TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP
There are many customer success metrics, but one that has provided our team with invaluable insights into our efforts is total cost of ownership, being valued and implemented as an extension of our customer’s team. It signifies trust and partnership, showing we’re not just providers but integral to their success. It reflects our customer-centric approach and the impact we make on their business. – Mike Field, The Raymond Corporation
14. TOTAL SALES GROWTH PER CLIENT
I am a big proponent of focusing on total sales growth by client. This is where the rubber meets the road. Sure, it’s nice to know that they give you a high net promoter score. But at the end of the day, making more purchases year over year shows they are an ideal customer for your business. – Steve Dion, Dion Leadership
15. CO-INNOVATION
Co-innovation—where customers bring their new ideas and seek to jointly innovate—is key for me. It’s a reflection of the trust and recognition of a forward-thinking relationship and the capability to take ideas to execution. This metric indicates the transition from being viewed as a vendor to becoming a trusted advisor, which is where real value is. – Alex Goryachev, The Robots Are Coming
16. LOW CHURN RATE AND HIGH RENEWAL RATE
Amidst market challenges, customers are cutting excess spending—which makes a low churn rate and a high renewal rate key indicators of business success. New data highlights a direct correlation between these KPIs and personalized outreach, which can be achieved with enablement. Notably, 91% of employees report enablement creates a better customer experience—translating to higher retention rates. – Irina Soriano, Seismic
17. CLIENT RETENTION RATE
The client retention rate is one of the most valuable insights. By monitoring this for all of your customers, you can identify where higher retention is happening, as well as which strategies made this possible. By knowing these metrics, you can then target your business efforts on those proven success strategies to continue increasing client retention well into the future. – Chalmers Brown, Due
18. WILLINGNESS TO INTRODUCE ANOTHER CLIENT
No metric can give you what a client’s willingness for a warm introduction to another client does. That introduction tells you that you’ve met and exceeded their expectations, they are getting enough of your time and attention, your rates are correct, and that you have a raving fan. Keep a close watch on those people and chat often to gauge how you’re doing. – Dawn Sizer, 3rd Element Consulting Inc.
19. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION RATINGS
As a strategy, content, and logistics agency, we get pretty focused on the outcomes. Taking a moment each week after our calls to send the customer a survey to rate us on a scale of 1 to 5 has helped us make sure our clients are satisfied with the working relationship, process, and progress. It takes less than five seconds for the client and provides us with critical information. – Jeff Morrison, Medical Leverage, a communications company
20. CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE
The customer success metric that helped our team realize how we are faring in our business effort is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). CLV details the total revenue a customer is expected to generate for a business over their purchase cycles throughout their lifetime. It enables us to prioritize efforts on customer acquisition by concentrating on customers with the highest potential lifetime value. – Christena Garduno, Media culture