The ultimate list of customer engagement metrics to monitor

The success of your business depends on how well you engage your customers. Highly engaged customers are more likely to buy from you and stay loyal to your brand. So you should stay on top of your customer engagement metrics to improve various aspects of your performance. This includes everything from the content you create to the customer care you provide.

This post breaks down some of the key metrics you need to track to understand customer engagement. Use this to find out the metrics that matter and how you can measure them.

What are customer engagement metrics?

Customer engagement metrics are the metrics for measuring how engaged your customers are. They help you measure how customers interact with your brand and how they respond to your marketing strategies. As such, they give you a better understanding of how connected they feel to your brand and how certain strategies resonate.

You can measure these metrics for specific campaigns or even for your larger business operation. For example, you could use customer engagement KPIs like Instagram likes and comments for a social media campaign. Additionally, you could measure customer service impact using churn rate and customer satisfaction.

The advantages of tracking customer engagement metrics

The benefits of measuring customer engagement extend beyond social media and influence your business as a whole. Here are some of the main advantages of tracking your customer engagement KPIs:

• Measuring customer engagement helps you track patterns in customer behavior. This gives you an understanding of their needs and preferences so you can adapt accordingly. For instance, if you notice a high drop-off during checkout, you could optimize the checkout page to improve conversions.
• Tracking your customer engagement metrics helps you improve your return on investment. You can use these metrics to identify the best channels and campaigns for your brand. This lets you focus your efforts and resources to maximize returns from channels and campaigns that have the biggest impact.
• Metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and customer satisfaction score (CSAT) help you measure the customer experience. Tracking these metrics will show you how to address pain points and improve your customer experience strategy.
• You can also use customer engagement metrics to inform your customer journey mapping. They help you identify inefficiencies, pain points and content gaps so you can optimize each customer touchpoint.
• Another key benefit of measuring engagement metrics is improving customer retention. Customer lifetime value (CLV) and churn rates can show you which customers are at risk. This lets you put together targeted retention strategies that ultimately boost loyalty.

10 customer engagement metrics to track

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score or NPS tracks how likely people are to recommend your business to others. This makes it an excellent measure of customer loyalty and brand advocacy. It not only gives you an idea of how satisfied customers are with your brand but also whether they’re likely to stay.

Even better, it shows you whether your business can grow organically through word-of-mouth.

NPS surveys classify your customers into three groups based on their responses:

• Promoters: Those who answered 9 or 10
• Passives: Those who answered 7 or 8
• Detractors: Those who answered between 0 and 6

You can use the following formula to calculate your NPS:

NPS = % of promoters – % of detractors

Survey Monkey has an NPS Calculator to easily calculate your score.

Source: SurveyMonkey

2. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

This customer engagement metric measures how satisfied customers are with your business. So it’s a great way to gauge customer experience and find opportunities for improvement.

Most businesses use CSAT surveys as part of their customer service strategy. That’s why you’ll often get surveys at the end of a customer service chat or call, asking whether you’re satisfied with the interaction.

Usually measured on a scale of 0-5, a rating of 4 or above falls under a positive response. Meanwhile, a rating of 3 is neutral, and a rating of 2 or below is a negative response. You can use the following formula to calculate your CSAT:

CSAT = (Positive responses/Total responses) x 100

Use tools like the CSAT Calculator from SmartSurvey to simplify the calculation.

Source: SmartSurvey

Some businesses also give an option to write additional feedback in addition to the number-based scores. This helps you collect qualitative feedback on how to improve the customer experience and boost your CSAT.

3. Customer effort score (CES)

Your customer effort score or CES tracks the ease of interacting with your business. This makes it a vital measure of the overall customer experience.

In fact, your CES influences other aspects of your customer engagement and business performance. Gartner reports that low-effort companies see a 65-point higher NPS than high-effort companies. CES is also 40% more accurate than CSAT at predicting customer loyalty.

On top of this, 94% of customers with low-effort interactions are more likely to make another purchase. This makes sense because when it’s easy to buy something with a company, you’ll likely be happy with that interaction. And there’s a good chance you’ll go back for another purchase.

A CES survey asks a question that users have to score on a scale of 1 to 7. You can then calculate the score using the following formula:

CES = Sum or responses/Total number of responses

Tools like SmartSurvey’s CES Calculator also help to simplify the process.

Source: SmartSurvey

4. Customer churn rate

Churn rate measures the number of people who stop using your products or services over a given period. So it’s an excellent indicator of customer dissatisfaction.

An increase in customer churn is a sign that people aren’t happy with your brand, usually because of a bad experience. According to Zendesk, even a single bad experience would push 52% of customers to switch to another brand.

Sometimes, you may see higher churn when a new competitor enters the market. Either way, it indicates a need to review your customer engagement strategies. You’ll also want to stay on top of the latest customer service trends to remain competitive.

The formula for measuring churn rate is as follows:

Churn rate = (Number of customers lost/Original number of customers) x 100

You can also use the WebEngage Churn Rate Calculator to calculate customer churn.

Source: WebEngage

5. Customer retention rate

A closely related metric to churn rate is customer retention rate. This metric tells you how many customers stay with your brand over a given period. In other words, it helps you measure your customer loyalty.

It’s an excellent indicator of how well your brand is engaging your customers. So it gives you an idea of whether you’re delivering the kind of experiences that make them want to stay.

Surveying your most loyal customers will help you understand what makes them stick with your brand. You can use these insights to inform how to improve the customer experience to further boost retention.

The formula to measure customer retention rate is:

Customer retention rate = [(Total customers – New customers)/Original number of customers at the start of the period] x 100

WebEngage’s Retention Rate Calculator helps you speed up the calculation.

Source: WebEngage

6. Average resolution time

How quickly are you resolving customer issues? Your average resolution time measures the speed at which you’re resolving customer support tickets.

So it plays an important role in customer satisfaction. Quickly resolving customer complaints improves your chances of satisfying them. But if you’re taking too long to resolve them, you’ll end up with frustrated customers.

This metric is crucial to understand your customer service performance. You can use it to see the efficiency of your customer support operations, including social media customer service.

If you have different customer service tiers, work on reducing resolution time across these tiers.

7. Social media engagement

Engagement metrics on social media help you understand the impact of your social media efforts. You can use them to track the performance of specific campaigns. Or you can use them to measure social media’s contribution to your overall business goals.

See which types of posts and campaigns resonate with your audience based on engagement. And track whether you’re building an engaged brand community based on your social media interactions.

Depending on your goal, you can use various metrics to measure engagement on social media. Some of the most popular social media metrics for measuring customer engagement are:

• Follower growth
• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Brand mentions
• Saves
• Post clicks
• Story retention
• Reply time
• Conversions

Most social media platforms offer native analytics to provide you with these engagement insights. Alternatively, you can also use third-party social media analytics tools to access more metrics.

8. Click-through rate (CTR)

Your click-through rate shows you how many people clicked on your links or ads. So you can use it to measure the effectiveness of your calls-to-action and marketing initiatives. It’s highly useful for tracking engagement for your ads, marketing emails and social media content.

The following formula lets you measure your click-through rate:

CTR = (Number of clicks/Number of impressions) x 100

Check out this CTR Calculator tool from WebFX to instantly find out your click-through rate.

Source: WebFX

9. Average session duration

Your average session duration tells you how long people are spending on a page. It’s a good indicator of how engaged they are with your content.

This makes it an important metric for tracking your content marketing performance. If a certain blog post has a higher-than-average session duration, it indicates that people find it valuable. So you could use this information to create content that addresses your target audience’s needs. You can even use it to come up with customer-centric marketing campaigns that resonate.

10. Bounce rate

Your bounce rate shows you the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing just one page. A high bounce rate is an indicator that your website or content isn’t engaging enough.

Ideally, you’d want to keep your bounce rate below 40%. Anything higher than this is a sign that you should review the page to make it more engaging. This may require improving the page load speed or optimizing certain elements. You may even need to improve the content itself to ensure that it’s effectively addressing your audience’s needs.

How to measure customer engagement

Here are some best practices to help you measure customer engagement successfully.

Clearly define your goals

Why do you want to measure customer engagement? Start with a clear purpose so you can better organize your efforts.

Perhaps you want to improve your customer care performance. Or maybe you want to track the effectiveness of a specific campaign. You might even perform customer engagement analytics to improve the omnichannel customer experience.

Your customer engagement metrics can inform various aspects of your business. Make sure you go in with a clear goal so you can extract the insights that matter.

Identify key engagement metrics

With so many engagement metrics available to track, it’s easy to lose sight of what you need to measure. Narrow down your efforts to focus on the right metrics for measuring customer engagement.

This will depend on the purpose of your analytics. For instance, if you’re looking to improve customer care, you’ll want to look at metrics like CSAT and response time. If your goal is to enhance the omnichannel experience, your CES will give you the insights you need.

Collect data from the right sources

The quality of your insights depends heavily on the sources you use. Collect data from multiple sources to get comprehensive insights. This will give you a deeper, more accurate understanding of your customer engagement.

Go beyond your website and native social media analytics. Make the most of third-party analytics tools to get the data you need. Surveys and customer support interactions can also provide you with valuable qualitative insights.

Measure, optimize and grow customer engagement

Measuring customer engagement metrics is only the first step. What matters is what you do next with those engagement insights. Ultimately, the goal is to use those metrics to inform and optimize your performance.

Take your engagement to the next level with Sprout Social’s powerful social customer service tools. Easily track the engagement metrics of your customer care team to measure their impact. And automatically capture feedback through NPS and CSAT surveys. Enhance your responses with AI Assist and watch your customer engagement grow.