Customers hold the key to the success of your business. They can elevate collateral, drive a rise in revenue and contribute to the professional development of your company. Customer metrics exist which explore the experience your brand provides for customers when they interact with your products or services. Putting initiatives in place to maximise loyalty and popularity will impact customer success exponentially.
Metrics can be used to understand what's working and what isn't within the business. Using metrics specific to your industry will allow for the best strategies to be identified and nurtured while stripping away time-wasting initiatives which can be disempowering to the company.
This article breaks down the meaning and relevance of the top five generic customer success metrics, which matter the most.
Customer Health Score
At the heart of customer success metrics, a customer health score provides the business with an estimate of how invested a customer is in repeat purchasing or conversely, a reduction in their engagement with the brand. At the heart of customer loyalty, lies the value to them of your product or service. The likelihood of your customers revisiting your company to do repeat business reflects how efficiently and effectively you are working. If, time and again, new customers are failing to make follow on purchases, it is important to understand why.
Net Promoter Score
This metric relates directly to customer satisfaction. A happy customer who feels valued and is inclined to recommend and promote your business organically, is a powerful marketing tool. Through the use of numerical rating scores, ranging from 1 to 10, customers are asked to rate every element of their experience, from the actual product to the support provided throughout the purchasing process. Both quantitative and qualitative evidence is gathered, which is useful for measuring progress. Businesses develop their own specific questions, scored from 1 to 10, also leaving space for additional comments. Build your own specific tool with Hubspot.
Qualitative Customer Feedback
Empowering customers by giving them a voice is both constructive and useful for the analysis of your companies success. Encouraging feedback on a product or service projects a sense of confidence and incubates both a personable and collaborative relationship with the customer. Surveys and questionnaires are a great way of harvesting this information. Don't be afraid to ask questions which address areas of business you may think are less robust than others; Customers can prove very useful when offering advice about improvement strategies.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
To work out the MRR, multiply the total number of your active customers by the average spend per customer. This figure illustrates the amount of money per month a customer is investing in your business for products or services they purchase. Track these figures over time as a measure of how popular your products or services are proving; In addition, MRR demonstrates the amount customers are spending above or below their average monthly purchases. To track expansion or contraction, MRR total revenues harvested from non-recurring purchases are leveraged. These purchases are generally made via loyalty programs and add on buys.
Renewal dates
More and more businesses operate on a subscription basis. If your company offers software as a service, renewal rates are of paramount importance to keeping tabs on how successful your service is at retaining existing customers. High rates of subscription renewals equate to sustained profit and growth rates. Although constructive change helps a working culture grow, if renewals are high incubating the main factors which are driving customer satisfaction is imperative. If renewal rates are low, this gives a clear indication that the long term experience of customers is unsatisfactory. At this point, consider loyalty schemes and the implementation of qualitative customer feedback metrics tailored to your specific company. Look for opportunities to develop the product or service to cater to the needs of those who are already engaged with your product or service.
For non-SAAS businesses, keep a close eye on re-purchases of products, by your regular customers. Also use CRM to track if these re-purchases are sustained.
To measure your subscription renewal rate, calculate the number of customers who successfully renew their subscription by the number of users who fail to renew. Multiply this answer by 100 to estimate to your actual renewal rate.
