To really understand how your business is doing, you need to look at it from various perspectives and measure the right things. Otherwise, you’ll drown in a sea of meaningless numbers. Customer metrics are incredibly valuable, especially for subscription businesses that must have a customer-centered approach to maintain a strong life cycle, and that often requires you to look at some of the more lesser-known metrics, too.
Not sure which metrics to look at? In this blog, we discuss 6 overlooked customer metrics that could help your business grow.
What are customer metrics?
Customer metrics are key performance indicators (KPIs) used by businesses to measure various aspects of customer behavior and engagement. Some of the more common customer metrics include sales conversion rate, website traffic, email opt-in rate, customer lifetime value, average order value, and customer acquisition cost. These metrics help businesses better understand their customers and make data-driven decisions to improve their online performance.
However, while the aforementioned metrics are widely used by many of today’s businesses, there are many valuable KPIs that often get overlooked. Let’s explore some of these.
What customer metrics should you be tracking?
1. Customer Effort Score (CES)
A Customer Effort Score reflects the amount of effort a customer had to exert to use a product or service, find the information they needed, or get an issue resolved. Your service should be simple and provide the support that customers need. Failure to do so could result in customers using an alternative service that’s much easier to use.
To measure CES, you’ll need to create a feedback form where your customers can rate different areas of your services. For example, a company that offers photo editing software might include a statement like:
“Rate how much you agree with the following: The service allows me to complete all photo editing tasks required of my work or hobby with ease”. You would then provide a 1-5 scale, where 1 is “strongly disagree” and 7 is “strongly agree”.
The responses will give you a good indication of whether your product is fit for purpose, and whether the customer is likely to continue using the product.
2. Coupon and discount redemption
Offering discounts and coupons can be a great way of attracting new customers or retaining existing customers while upgrading their current package. However, they can also cause revenue leakage. Either way, it’s a good idea to monitor how your discounts are being redeemed.
Investing in a good billing system can help you understand this better. Chargebee, for example (an alternative to Stripe), offers real-time reporting so you can derive intelligent insights about your subscription business, including over 150 advanced metrics and reports. When it comes to coupons and discounts, remember that a few pounds off here and there can quickly add up.
This also feeds into your customer churn. Are customers only using your service for a short period of time to claim the discount and then leaving? Don’t overlook how your discounts are being used!
3. Email marketing views (by device)
Audience growth is one of the most basic but critical metrics for understanding your audience and your relationship with them — that includes how your marketing emails are doing.
According to Mailchimp, looking at the open rate, click rate, and how many people unsubscribe from your emails can provide a good indication of how your emails are performing each time. But, another important thing to look out for is which device your emails are being opened on, mobile or desktop.
If you’re designing your emails for desktop but most people are opening them on a mobile device, this can instantly decrease the number of actions taken. Looking into these metrics means you can make the right changes to your email marketing strategy, such as making your subject lines shorter and punchier for mobile devices, or including mobile-ready landing pages in your email.
4. Product usage
How a customer uses a product influences every aspect of a business. Product usage is at the heart of every significant decision, from how the tool is designed to what pitches the sales team uses. But, as important as it is, sometimes this can be overlooked.
When you use assumptions or guesses to make product decisions, you create something your audience feels disconnected from or doesn’t enjoy using, so let the metrics talk. Product usage analytics give insights into how frequently your users are active, how many users are working from mobile devices, and what features your users find most useful. With that information, you can make strategic business decisions.
Consider the following factors:
- How long has your user engaged with your product?
- What pages, features, or tools do you interact with using your product?
- How often do they use your product?
- The location, device, and time your user engaged with the product.
The biggest benefit of tracking product usage is that it eliminates guesswork so you can make better decisions.
5. First response time
How you manage your customer service can make a huge difference in whether a customer stays, how loyal they are, and their overall satisfaction. One way of determining this a little better is to look at your first response metric, which is the amount of time a customer is wasting for a response from the time they first send a message.
Many SaaS customers expect quicker responses from their service providers. As a result, reports show that 48% of support teams keep their first response time below 1 hour. Only 6% of businesses have an average response time of over 24 hours. Whatever your score is, it can always be improved.
Perhaps you need to train your customer service team better or implement software that will speed up your response time. Relying on a customer service email address sometimes isn’t enough, but things like live chat or chatbots can help. Companies that really care about their customers have quick first response times and provide the best customer service possible.
6. Referral rate
This metric tracks the percentage of customers who refer your product to others. It can be used to track how well your product is resonating with customers and to identify areas for improvement. To improve referral rate, focus on providing excellent customer service, addressing any issues that may be causing dissatisfaction, and creating a user-friendly interface.
You can also conduct A/B testing, such as offering coupons to certain customer segments, trying out different CTA copy with some groups, and more. Having your customers refer your service to others can help you reduce your customer acquisition time and save money!
If you’re trying to improve a particular area of your business, sometimes the answer is right in front of you! Take a look at these often overlooked metrics today and get a 360 degree view of your business.
