The Wackiest & Most Bizarre Metrics Companies Are Tracking For Their Customers’ Sake
The world of customer service is changing, and companies have to get with the times in order to stay competitive.
One way they’re doing this is by focusing on metrics that help them better understand their customers’ needs and wants.
Many of these so-called “new” metrics are actually old hats — you might even call them “old hats in new clothes.”
Some examples:
The number of times a user gets stuck on the same page
We’ve all got our own methods for staying productive, but one thing’s for sure: if you’re a person who spends more time going up and down the same steps than you do actually doing work, then this metric might be something worth tracking.
According to a study done by HubSpot, people who are stuck on their pages are less engaged with their tasks and struggle to get back on track when they do.
The research also found that users tend to repeat themselves more often when working through repetitive steps in an app or website — which is why tracking how many times users get stuck might be useful in helping businesses identify areas where they could improve customer service (or design).
The average number of complaints for each customer success rep
- Calculate the average number of complaints for each customer success rep.
- Use this metric to improve your customer service and the way you hire for roles like this one. A good rule of thumb is to have 1 complaint per every 10 calls or emails answered, but it’s up to you!
- You can also use this metric as a way to measure how well your employees are doing at handling calls/emails from customers who need help with something specific — like billing issues or this week’s coupons (we won’t judge). If there’s less than an average of 2 complaints per employee in that department, then they’re doing great!
How quickly customers are brought to the next milestone?
Customer journeys are a big deal for any company. They can help you improve your product and service, but they also serve as valuable marketing tools.
If you’re tracking this metric, it might be because you want to figure out what makes customers happy or dissatisfied with your product or service — and then do something about it.
But there’s more than one way of measuring whether someone is “on the right path” toward becoming a loyal customer:
You can track how fast people move through certain stages of the process (e.g., from signing up for an account to buying something),
or look at how long it takes them before moving on from one stage into another (e.g., using their new app).
The percentage of responses that rate your company as “great”
How do you measure it?
One way is to ask customers to rate their experience with your company on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is “the best ever” and 1 is “the absolute worst.”
For example, if 20 per cent of respondents rated their experience at 8 or above (which would be considered an excellent rating), then that percentage would be 2/3rds!
And if only 5% gave it a 6 or below (which would be considered an unsatisfactory rating), then that means 95% gave it an 8 or higher!
The average time it takes to react to a customer issue
You might be surprised to learn that the average time it takes to resolve a customer issue is just under two hours.
That’s right, two hours! How can this be? Well, let’s take a moment and look at what happened:
- A customer calls in and says they’re having trouble with their order or something else related to their purchase.
- The rep listens carefully and tries to find out what’s wrong so they can fix it for the person on the other end of the phone line.
- Once they have gathered enough information about why things went wrong (or didn’t), they decide which option would work best based on how much time they have and how many people are working on helping customers today — and then proceed accordingly!
How often a customer performs an action or uses a feature?
When it comes to metrics, you want to know how often a customer performs an action or uses a feature.
Actions: Are they accessing your website? Opening an email? Making a purchase?
Features: Do they have access to certain features of the product — like chat and social media integration, for example — and do those features allow them to complete tasks on their own without needing assistance from other users or support staff (a la customer service)?
Your company may track both of these things separately.
Or maybe some other metric will be more important than either one; we’re not saying which one is better than another here!
But whatever you decide on, make sure that each metric adds value for your business in some way so that it’s worth tracking all.
Micro conversion rate
Micro conversions are small, but important actions that a user takes on your website.
For example, signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
They’re not necessarily conversions — they don’t result in any money going through the company’s bank account (though they could be referred to as “transactions” if you’re feeling fancy).
Micro-conversions are also not necessarily what you think they are: sometimes micro-conversions can include things like liking or sharing content; other times it might only mean clicking on an “I agree” button at the bottom of an email campaign before agreeing to receive more updates from your brand.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) and A/B testing
A/B testing is a way to test different versions of a website and see which one performs better.
For example, you could be running an eCommerce store where you offer two types of shirts: plain white or screen printed with your logo on it.
You want to determine which one sells better by splitting the data between these two versions so that each version gets half its traffic coming from different sources — say 10% each.
Then you’ll see how they compare in terms of conversion rate and other metrics like average order value (AOV), average order size (AOS), etc., over time.
This type of research can tell us things about our customers’ preferences; for example what colours do people like best?
Does anyone care about customization options like hemming or sleeves? How often do customers use free shipping before making an order?
The answers help us form hypotheses about what features should be added next time around so we know exactly where our focus should lie when designing new products.
What other metrics do you think companies should be tracking?
In addition to the metrics listed above, there are a few other metrics that I think would be great to track.
Customer retention: How long do customers stay with your product?
Customer satisfaction: How happy are they with your company or product? Do they buy more from you because of their experience with it?
Customer loyalty: How long do customers continue to use your product after trying it for the first time? Does this lead to higher lifetime value for them as well as others in their network (if applicable)?
Customer lifetime value (LTV): The amount of money that customer spends on goods purchased from a business over time. LTV is calculated by multiplying monthly revenue by the average monthly number of active users divided by 365 days per year.”
Conclusion
You can see that many of the metrics we’ve discussed here are just ways for companies to keep track of how much work they’re doing, and how well they’re doing it.
This data can help them improve their service by identifying where there are opportunities for improvement, or by simply allowing them to see which parts of their business aren’t working as well as others do.
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about these fun ways that companies track their customers’ behaviours.