If I had to come up with a battle cry for all the number-crunching analysts out there, it would be “Data don’t stop!”. Customer metrics provide true insight into company growth, the effectiveness of various marketing strategies, and the changes your company can make to increase customer satisfaction and expand your company’s clientele. But with so many metrics to track, it can be difficult to narrow down your choices to the metrics that matter most. For this reason, we have compiled a list of the most useful customer metrics that can help your brand with its customer experience management and provide important feedback on marketing decisions.
1. Loyalty
Of course, here at Belly, we recognize the true value of measuring your customer loyalty. Being able to achieve high customer loyalty rates means that you are creating not just a strong clientele, but a community that is invested in the future of your brand. Many companies focus primarily on customer acquisition, but in reality, customer loyalty is a much more rewarding accomplishment; in fact, customers enrolled in a loyalty program have been found to spend 67% more than non-loyalty customers, so customer loyalty retention is also important for your company’s financial growth. Services like Blue by Belly, a loyalty platform for enterprise businesses, equip companies with the tools that they need to analyze their customer loyalty data in order to make important changes that will help turn new customers into loyal ones.
2. Interaction rate
Interaction rate is another important customer metric, especially when it comes to email campaigns. Interaction rates measure the number of times a customer has entered the frame of an ad or promotion impression. Belly’s Email Marketing tool, for example, allows you to track what emails have been opened by customers, versus those that were left unopened and likely deleted. This type of metric provides you with important feedback on what promotions and marketing techniques are working best, and which promotions aren’t resonating with your customers. This actionable data allows you to make smarter marketing decisions, not only on the content of your ads but also the frequency. For example, if many ads are being left unopened, you may be sending too many emails, or you may be sending them at the wrong time. With Belly’s campaign tool you can track these emails and identify success and failure rate trends corresponding to both timing and content.
3. Interaction time
Similar to interaction rate, this metric has to do with how customers interact with your ads, but interaction time gauges how long customers actively spend interacting with each impression. Very short interaction times can indicate that customers were not engaged with your ad, while long interaction times can indicate that they were interested in learning more.
4. Conversions
Conversion is the ultimate goal of all marketing efforts so it is of course an important customer metric to keep track of. With modern loyalty platforms like Blue by Belly, companies can track the conversion rates corresponding to various loyalty rewards or promotions in order to identify which strategies work best. For example, Belly can track which email campaigns drive in customers to visit your business. Analyzing this conversion metric can give you insight into the effectiveness of your loyalty program, which have generally been shown to boost conversion rates. However, if you notice that you are not achieving high conversions, this may be a good indicator that you should adjust your rewards or the structure of your loyalty program; in fact, about 58% of consumers do not remain engaged in loyalty programs because rewards are irrelevant, difficult to understand, or not easy to redeem. Luckily, Belly’s modern loyalty platform is designed with utmost flexibility and agility, giving you the power to quickly make changes to the architecture and goals of your loyalty program.
5. Churn Rate
Churn rate is important to track because it indicates the rate at which customers are leaving your company. Churn rate is an especially challenging metric to stay ahead of, but it is an important insight that can help you make smarter marketing decisions. If you notice a high churn rate, your company can revaluate its rewards, prices, competition, and other factors in order to improve customer retention.
6. Acquisition vs. Retention
In order to truly understand your customers, it is important to understand how many new clients you have vs repeat and loyal customers. Both acquisition and retention are important metrics to keep in mind, and being able to segment your clients based on this information enables you to send targeted promotions and ads. By tracking this data, you can reward loyal customers for being advocates of your brand, and thank new customers for joining the community.
7. Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction should be a top priority for any company, but it can sometimes be challenging to get an accurate overview of the satisfaction of your clients. Offering incentives for filling out customer satisfaction surveys can be a great way to hear back from different types of customers. With Belly’s loyalty platform for enterprise business, you can make changes to your reward system in real-time based on customer satisfaction feedback in order and keep up with ever-changing customer demand. It is also important to maintain a positive digital presence and brand image by responding to social media feedback. Social media can be a powerful tool for companies to interact with their clients, but it is also important to address customer concerns. Tracking social media response as a customer metric can provide you with insight on how your company is connecting socially with its customers.
8. Referrals
Tracking referrals allows you to measure whether or not your customers feel strongly enough about your brand to recommend it to others. Customers can shift between being occasional customers and loyal customers, but your most valuable customers are actually advocates for your brand. Loyalty reward programs have been proven to increase the number of advocate customers for companies, as reward recipients have been reported to be twice as likely to refer a new customer immediately upon receiving their reward.
By tracking these important customer metrics, your brand can have a better understanding of its clients, and the decisions that you can make for future success.
