6 Customer Engagement Metrics to Track in 2024

6 Customer Engagement Metrics to Track

Here, I will show the metrics that you should track for your customer engagement. Let’s have a look in detail! 

1. Net Promoter Score

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is considered the gold standard measurement in customer engagement. It predicts how likely (or unlikely) your customers are going to recommend your brand to others. 

Typically, it is measured by collecting data from a single survey question that asks, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company’s product or service to a friend or a colleague?”.

After being presented with the question, respondents choose a rating between 0 (highly unlikely) and 10 (extremely likely).

Once all the responses have been gathered, they’re grouped into three categories:

• Promoters respond with a score of 9 or 10. 
• Passives respond with a score of 7 or 8. 
• Detractors respond with a score of 0 to 6. 

Based on this score, just subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters to find your NPS. The scores can range between -100 and 100, with scores above zero being considered good. 

2. Customer Satisfaction Score

CSAT, or customer satisfaction score, is a digital customer experience metric that directly measures how satisfied customers are with your online support. 

While the design of the CSAT scale can differ from brand to brand, here are some common formats you may find:

• Star Rating Scale: Displays a set of stars, usually from 1 star (strongly disagree) to 5 stars (strongly agree).

• Smiley Scale: Features a range of face emojis, from a frown (very dissatisfied) to a smile (very satisfied).
• Likert scale: Can be a five, seven, or ten point rating scale, with 1 signifying "strongly disagree" and the highest number being "strongly agree".

You can place these surveys strategically in any stage of the customer lifecycle—emails, phone calls, or in-app—to collect customer feedback.

Once the score is collected, divide all the satisfied responses by the total number of responses, then multiply by 100. The result shows you the overall percentage of satisfied customers at your business.

To smooth your workflow, you can also use tools like Mevrik CSAT, which can record every step of your customer's satisfaction journey. You can automatically deploy a rating metre in seconds after the contract ends, and later, use the data visualisation dashboard to analyse survey keywords and satisfaction scores.

3. Customer Effort Score

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how quickly a customer can connect with your business without any effort. These days, your customer perception of ease has more to do with accessibility, availability, and flexibility—in other words, the degree to which they can interact with your company however they choose. This can be in person, through the phone, by using email or social media (Facebook, Instagram, X) channels, or even through live chat.

To get your CES number, start by sending out surveys that ask customers to score how smooth their interaction was with your brand on a scale of “very easy” to “very difficult.” 

There are several ways to present your CES surveys, but the two most common ones are numbered surveys and emoticon scales.

• Numbered surveys ask customers to rate their interaction on a numerical scale of 1–5. 1 being the easiest and 5 being the most difficult. 
• Emoticon scale, on the other hand, asks customers to rate how an interaction made them feel using emoticons. These questions are the fastest way to gather feedback because customers often don’t want to read questions.

After gathering CES data, it's time to calculate your actual customer effort score. Each response should be assigned a point; for example, a negative response would receive one point, while a positive would be equal to five points. 

Here's how you can calculate the CES from that information:

If you’re using an emoticon scale, first use the above formula to calculate both positive and negative percentages. Make sure to ignore any neutral answers. 

As an example, let's say your company sent out a survey that 800 people responded to. Out of these responses, 600 are satisfied, and 200 are dissatisfied. Using the above formula would give 75% satisfied customers and 25% dissatisfied customers. Now, subtract the dissatisfied percentage from the satisfied percentage. This will put your CES at approximately 50%.

This metric ultimately provides a way for your business to present an omnichannel experience. Today’s customers expect every company they interact with to be accessible and fluent in the channels they prefer. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t nudge them toward specific interaction channels; it's just that it should be done on their terms and create a sense of ease.

4. Retention Rate

Retention rate is the number of customers you manage to keep in a given period, as compared to the number you started with. For example, if your business begins the year with 100 customers and 10 leaves, your retention rate would be 90%.

To calculate customer retention, you need three key pieces of information:

• Total number of customers at the end of a given period.
• The number of new customers added during that period.
• Total number of customers at the start of the period

Remember, you want to know the number of returning customers at the end of the period without having the newly acquired customers in the mix. So, the equation for this is as follows:

When calculating customer retention, the best practice is to start by identifying the specific period you want to measure. This can be annually, quarterly, monthly, or on a weekly basis.

A company’s ability to retain existing customers is important for a business's both short-term and long-term success. This is because adding new customers costs five times more than nurturing old ones. Returning customers are not only familiar with your services, but they also spend more, advocate more, and build a fan base by recommending others.

5. Churn Rate

Customer churn rate (also known as attrition rate) is simply the opposite of your customer retention rate. It measures the percentage of customers who stop doing business with your company over a period of time—a month, quarter, year, or weekly.

Knowing the churn rate is valuable for companies that operate on a subscription-based business model. This is because no matter how large your monthly subscribers are, in the long run if customers ghost you before you can recover the acquisition cost, your bottom line is in trouble.

The formula for this is a simple one:

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The general rule of thumb when it comes to churn rates is the lower, the better. If your churn rate is high, it means more customers stop buying from your business, thus reducing your overall bottom line. On the other hand, a lower churn rate indicates that more customers have been retained.

When it comes to choosing the time frame—the answer is it depends. Churn rate looks different for every company. For example, a customer experience platform might track their churn rate every month, while another B2B company may track it quarterly.

Pick a time frame that fits with your industry standard, customer interaction frequency, and your business model. That way, you can measure your numbers against market benchmarks and make data-driven decisions.

6. Average Session Duration

Average session duration is an engagement metric primarily available in Google Analytics. It measures the average time a user spends on a particular website, app, or platform during a single session.

Google Analytics starts calculating a session when a user opens a page on a platform and no previous session is currently active. If they stay active on that page for a certain amount of time, it’s considered an engaged session. 

Keeping an eye on how long a user stays on your site or app helps you identify the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts. If you have a multiple short average session duration, it means you need to take additional steps to pique the interest of your customers in your brand, products, or services.

Not surprising, if you have longer average session durations, it means the engagement efforts are providing value to customers.

Importance of Tracking Customer Engagement Metrics

Increase Loyalty and Advocacy

Creating a loyal customer base is no easy task; you often need to put in years of effort and nurturing to earn your customers' trust and build lasting relationships with them.

But, when you start tracking customer engagement metrics, you can accelerate the process. Tracking makes it easy for you to identify which customers are frequently communicating with your business and when.

Once you identify these high-value customers, you can offer them attractive loyalty programs, personalised offers, and exclusive perks—all of which can make them feel valued.

This heightened sense of gratitude for listening to their needs often promotes loyalty among customers and encourages them to become lasting advocates.

Identify At-Risk Customers

Monitoring engagement metrics helps you spot any early signs of disengagement. For example, a sudden drop in activity—such as reduced logins, fewer product interactions, or decreased email open rates—can signal that a customer is at risk of churning.

By identifying these at-risk customers early on, you can intervene with targeted campaigns or personalised support.

This proactive approach increases the chances of building long-lasting relationships with customers and preventing any unnecessary revenue loss.

Informed Marketing Strategies

Customer engagement metrics offer invaluable insights into customer behaviours, preferences, and pain points.

With this data, you can create more targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience. For instance, if a segment of your customers consistently engages with informative social media posts, your marketing efforts could be to create that type of content even more.

Final Thoughts

Whatever metrics you choose to measure, they should be perfectly aligned with your company’s strategic objectives. Be sure to have a thorough understanding of your customers, their touchpoints, and their overall journey in buying your product.

That being said, discussing and managing all these processes can sometimes make your eyes glaze over.

You can use AI-powered software like Mevrik that can automatically send surveys and display your customer engagement numbers from one platform. Sign up for a free trial today.

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