Keeping customers happy is as important as winning them. In a competitive business landscape, you must always put your customers first to ensure their satisfaction and minimize churn. Long-term business growth and sustainability is not just about acquiring customers; it’s about retaining and fostering existing ones so that they remain loyal and keep seeing the value in your product. 

However, the question comes up: How do you measure customer success? Every customer interaction generates a wealth of information, and when you can measure it effectively and get the necessary insights, you can transform your customer success. 

But this amount of data is easy to get lost in. Today, we will focus on the top 13 customer success metrics (or customer success manager performance metrics) you should track.

Why is it important to track customer success metrics?

Data is not just figures. If used right, it can work as a compass showing the optimal roadmap to better customer success. Ultimately, the information is necessary for informed decision-making and establishing efficient strategies. By tracking the customer success metrics, you can:

• Deepen your understanding of your customers, what they like, and what difficulties they face.
• Predict outcomes and plan early for customer needs using past data and patterns.
• Meet the needs by understanding your customers’ demands and preferences, thus maximizing their loyalty.
• Monitor the efficacy of your customer success strategies, analyze areas for improvement, and formulate new tactics for future enhancement.
• Accelerate innovation, drive businesses' performance, and generate the key metrics of a successful modern enterprise.

Which customer success metrics should you track?

Achieving customer success can be overwhelming without anything to direct you. There are simply too many things to track since every customer interaction will create lots of data. 

We’ve gathered 16 most common customer service performance metrics examples for you to know and track.

1. Churn rate

The churn rate is the ratio of customers departing from your company by halting the use or payment of your product within a certain period. This shows the ratio of customers who are dissatisfied and can make them switch to other vendors. The lower your churn rate, the better. 

Why should you track it?

The churn rate lets you see how many customers leave your business, which ultimately means you will understand how your overall customer happiness or satisfaction is going. Paying attention to the churn rate makes it easier to understand how satisfied or loyal your customers are and if problems need to be solved.

How to improve it?

Here are some practical actions for you to decrease your churn rate:

• Make your onboarding process easier and tidier, which will help customers eliminate their frustrations during registration.
• Ensure you have proactive customer service staff, tutorials, and FAQs to minimize client difficulties.
• Form your community and make the participation of your members your priority so that you can secure their loyalty and sense of belonging.

2. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score

The customer satisfaction (CSAT) score is used to assess the satisfaction level of the customers with your product. It would involve users in making their satisfaction score either numerically or qualitatively. A high CSAT score will show that customers are happy and eliminate the risk, but a low CSAT score will result in dissatisfaction and churn. 

Why should you track it?

This data thoroughly comprehends customers' happiness levels and loyalty and thus gives valuable insights into how to improve the whole ecosystem. Overall, the CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Survey) score suggests an advanced step so that you can improve customer experience by keeping clients happy all the time.

How to improve it?

To improve your CSAT score, you can:

• Take regular customer feedback to understand your customers’ needs better and wants.
• Answer questions and problems to the best of your ability, so they realize you care about their satisfaction and solving their issues.
• Give the customers a personalized experience and customized interactions and inclusions so that they will feel important.

3. Net promoter score (NPS)

Net promoter score (NPS) is one of the most common metrics that is used in customer experience tracking and shows customer loyalty by looking at their willingness to recommend your product. The score is created from a single survey question that asks your customers “How likely are you to recommend Flowla to a friend or colleague?” and gets the answer from 0-10 range. 

According to their answer, the customers will be categorized into promoters (score 9-10), passives (score 7-8), and detractors (score 0-6). The higher your NPS, the better. 

Why should you track it?

NPS will show you the overall sentiment and loyalty of your customer base and provide you insights into customer advocacy and brand perception. By checking the NPS trends, you may spot the places that require a more comprehensive approach, the matters that have to be prioritized, and the strategies that can be formulated to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and referral rates.

How to improve it?

Here are some tips to improve your NPS:

• Target on creating exceptional experiences for your brand fans and create loyalty.
• Regularly interact with promoters in order to produce referrals as an organic marketing instrument.
• Acknowledge the issues and concerns of detractors to hit the target and stop churn.

4. Customer health score

Customer health score will show you whether a customer is planning to stay with you or leave. It tracks overall satisfaction and focuses on as many influencing factors as possible, e.g. product usage, engagement rates, support tickets, and feedback metrics, to create a comprehensive customer health snapshot. A high score equals happy and engaged customers while a low one may mean unhappy customers or at-risk clients. 

Why should you track it?

As in the NPS, the customer health score gives you the overall satisfaction and well-being rate of your customer base and helps you to identify at-risk customers and take proactive measures to prevent churn. You can understand the changes in customer sentiment, prioritize retention efforts, and determine strategies to maximize your customer health score, hence, satisfaction.

How to improve it?

Here are some tips to increase the customer health score:

• Frequently monitor the customer success metrics to identify areas to improve.
• Reach out to your customers who are dissatisfied to understand their needs and provide personalized support and guidance.
• Constantly update your product and roadmap based on feedback and market trends.

5. Time to value

Time-to-value stands for the speed of a customer acquiring a desired result after the initiation of the use of your product. This illustrates how long it takes the customers to achieve the objectives that they want and benefit from your product. A fast and easy onboarding with a brief time-to-value is an efficient and effective customer experience that helps reduce customers' frustration and increase their satisfaction. 

Why should you track it?

The most important evaluation will be the assessment of the effectiveness of your onboarding process plus the speed at which customers start seeing the product value. The Time-to-Value metrics provide you with an opportunity to check if your workflow contains any blockers, address those, and transform time-to-success into a quicker process increasing the overall customer happiness and retention.

How to improve it?

Check out some ways to lower your time-to-value:

• The onboarding process may take a long time. Reduce the time and effort required for customers to activate the product by streamlining it.
• Assist clients through instructions, tutorials, and online resources that make it easy to understand your product and do what they want.
• Do not forget to deliver quick wins within the first stages of the customer's journey and show clear value to your customers so they will continue long-term interaction.

6. Retention rate

The retention rate is used to measure the number of your customers, who are still using a product or service by the end of the particular period. It implies the level of effectiveness of the customer retention practices and gives the opportunity to evaluate the level of satisfaction and loyalty of your current customers. A high retention rate indicates meaningful relationships and ongoing growth, while a low rate can mean dissatisfaction or churn problems.

Why should you track it?

The retention rate shows the loyalty, customer experience achievements, value gaining of your customers, sustainable base of your product, and how healthy your customer relationships are. Through periodical retention rate reviews, you detect patterns, forecast churn risk, and turn customers into your die-hard loyal clients with the ultimate warranty to become VIPs. Moreover, the data not only represents the outcome but also shows how attractive and effective the retention initiatives are and serves as a guide for improvements to increase customer loyalty and continued business growth.

How to improve it?

The higher the retention rate, the better and to achieve this you can:

• Identify pain points in the current system and develop solutions to address them by collecting and reviewing the feedback.
• Implement the strategies to increase engagement as individual communication or exclusive promo campaigns.
• Maintain the time value and reassurance to your customers by providing customer service throughout their journey.

7. Customer effort score (CES)

The customer effort score (CES) focuses on the convenience of customers when they are either using your product or dealing with your support team. The effort required to solve the issues or end the task affects this score. The lower score signifies that people were able to finish their tasks or resolve their problems with little hurdle. Increasing customer satisfaction and efficiency while decreasing efforts are the 3 main components. 

Why should you track it?

Tracking the CES allows you to go beyond ratings and measure product or service user experience the way the user does. Moreover, you get to measure to what extent the efforts to incentivize customers who are about to leave help retain them as paying loyal customers and optimize the income over the customer life cycle. This will allow you to make strategic decisions and better allocate resources to ensure long-term success.

How to improve it?

To increase the CES score:

• Simplify forms and methods to do automatic tasks and simplify steps so that consumers will not need to take more steps to get desired outcomes.
• Ensure that customers can find the answers on their own. Besides, make the instructions simple, even for less tech-savvy people.
• Provide a proactive hand to detect and solve issues before they arise and make customers feel that they are well-guided and free of frustration or efforts.

8. Product adoption rate

Product adoption rate evaluates the relative success of your product by the number of customers that you have adopted and actively use it. It is the gauge that tells how well you have been able to do the work of market acceptance and usage. Increasing the rate of product adoption means creating a situation when prospects want to try and adapt your solution to their workflows or daily activities.

Why should you track it?

Tracking product adoption rate can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the product launch and adoption initiatives that you have implemented. Furthermore, if you track adoption rates continuously, you can determine obstacles to adoption, improve your marketing effort, and encourage followers and users to a higher level which will result in more user satisfaction and loyalty.

How to improve it?

To achieve higher product adoption, you can:

• Offer intensive training and well-rounded information so that customers would be aware of the essence of your product or service.
• Provide some rewards or discounts to the first users who try it and offer their opinions about it.
• Get feedback and repeat based on what the users like and want to increase usability and user value.

9. Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value (CLV) measures the total revenue expected to be generated over time by a customer interacting with your company. It covers all of your relationship with your customer including purchases, sales, and long-term revenue of the said customers. Increasing CLV mainly comes through making the most out of the available revenue sources. Besides this, client loyalty is crucial as it allows to extend customer relationships in terms of time and value. 

Why should you track it?

Monitoring customer lifetime value lets you evaluate the profitability and sustainability of your clientele as a whole. By looking at CLV metrics over the time frame, you can see trends, segment customers according to value, and allocate budget wisely to get the highest long-term revenue and profit.

How to improve it?

Here are some tips for you to increase the CLV:

• Recognize the key customer groups and give them exclusive suggestions as well as experiences that address their specific necessities and preferences.
• Develop retention initiatives that would lower the churn rate and grow the duration of customer relationships.
• Boost repeat purchases, upsells, and cross-sells through curated promotions and personalized suggestions.

10. Onboarding completion rate

The onboarding completion rate tells us the number of customers who successfully go through the onboarding process and start using your product. It looks like a mirror of the efficiency and ease of the onboarding process, and how easy it is for users to get started. You need to decrease your onboarding completion rate to be successful at the customer success.

Why should you track it?

Knowledge of onboarding completion rates enables you to evaluate how efficient and effective your onboarding process is. Tracking completion rates over time helps you to recognize pain points, enhance that process for the future, ensure customer satisfaction, and prevent them from giving up.

How to improve it?

• Simplify the onboarding process, from decreasing the complexity to improving the ease of access.
• Give detailed instructions, tutorials, and resources for help during every stage of the onboarding.
• Provide assistance and guidance to resolve any problems that may arise during the onboarding.

11. Renewal rate

Renewal rate stands for the percentage of the number of clients, who continue to prolong such as their subscriptions or commitment with your company. It is a measure of the quality of your customer retention tactic and, obviously, the degree of satisfaction and brand perception of your product. Improving the renewal rate has to do with the process of continuing the communication with clients reminding them of the value of your product and matching it to their current requirements.

Why should you track it?

When you keep a check on renewal rate, you can calculate the result of your retention plans, as well as the degree of customer loyalty and satisfaction. Tracking renewal metrics in real-time makes it possible to evaluate reasons influencing the renewal decision-making process, devise strategic programs that will boost retention, and ultimately, foster long-term revenue growth and profitability.

How to improve it?

To improve your renewal rate, you can:

• Engage with customers regularly during their subscriptions or contract terms to demonstrate the value and resolve any inquiries.
• Give rewards, discounts, or other incentives upon early renewals and long-term commitments to prolong the retainer.
• Utilize personalized recommendations or upgrades considering customer use and liking.

12. Customer referral rate

Customer referral rate reflects the ratio of customers who mention your product positively to others. It is an indicator of how happy and loyal your customers are and how likely they are to refer or recommend your offer to their friends, buddies, or workmates. Promoting loyal customer referrals calls for the creation of a goodwill-oriented word of mouth and motivating customers to become brand ambassadors.

Why should you track it?

By monitoring customer referral rate, you can justify the success of customer advocacy initiatives, and determine the extent to which the organization benefits from word-of-mouth marketing. Through the tracking of referral statistics, you can appreciate the advocates, reward redeems, and encourage opportunities for organic growth as well as acquisition.

How to improve it?

You can get more organic referrals by doing this:

• Create a referral system that pays customers for referring new clients to your firm to encourage them.
• Let the reviews of grateful customers do the talking, maintain your social media presence, and review platforms for you.
• Keep customers always excited by offering something special and go above and beyond to satisfy their needs.

13. Product stickiness

The product stickiness affects customer loyalty, so if it goes high the customer will hesitate to change provider. It depicts the level of involvement, entertainment, and benefits received by your consumer.

Why should you track it?

Tracking product stickiness ensures that you can estimate the strength of customer loyalty and preference for your product. By tracking stickiness metrics throughout that time, you can find ways to make the user experience even better hence increasing retention and maximizing the customer's lifetime value. While this, tracking stickiness enables you to differentiate your product from competitors and strengthen your position in the market.

How to improve it?

To increase the product stickiness:

• Constantly innovate and improve your product to match the dynamic taste of your clients.
• Provide integrations or interoperability with other tools and plugins to increase convenience.
• Build a community or ecosystem around your product that brings together users to engage and assist them.

Common tips to improve metric outcomes

Even though there are lots of metrics for you to track, the actions to optimize them are common. While you can find separate and personalized tips for each customer metrics example, we’ve gathered the most common tips to apply to your business to be successful in customer success.

• Improve your product and roadmap with the desires of your customers and the market trends. Show them that you heard and give value to them.
• Create a personalized onboarding, usage, and support process for your customers. Aware that everyone is unique as well as their needs.
• Generate a community where you directly communicate with your customers without any barriers between you. This ecosystem brings you and your customers together as well as other happy customers.
• Keep your customers happy and excited by giving them little surprises such as interesting offerings, rewards, discounts, etc. This will keep them happy and increase their loyalty.
• Constantly communicate with your customers through surveys or messages. Beware of not to bore them much but also do not leave them far from you.
• Make sure to build effective onboarding and support processes to not overwhelm your customers.

Harness the power of data for customer success

Understanding and tracking these metrics serves as a foundational step rather than a final destination. It's crucial to not only measure your CS outcomes but also proactively address issues, refine processes, and adapt to customer needs.

Simply put, the goal of monitoring customer success metrics extends beyond mere data collection; it's about leveraging that data strategically to generate value for both the customer and the business concurrently. This approach lays the groundwork for establishing a sustainable competitive advantage in an ever-changing market landscape.