The best way to improve customer satisfaction–and get more happy customers—is by understanding your customers’ wants and needs at every stage of the user journey to optimize their entire product experience (PX).
But it can be hard to know which metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) will really help you track shifting customer experiences and expectations, and measure the success of your efforts to improve customer satisfaction.
We’ve written a guide on the nine key metrics you need to track to improve customer satisfaction and stay on top of what’s working and what’s not—and continually delight your customers with better products.
Summary
Tracking these nine metrics helps you analyze a range of user behavior patterns and trends so you can understand the impact of your product and website changes. And determine whether those changes are leading to customer delight.
The nine customer satisfaction metrics to track include:
Referral rate: measures the percentage of buyers who come to you via referral
Conversion rate: tracks the percentage of users who take a desired action
CSAT score: tracks whether users are satisfied with your offer
Engagement rate: measure how often users interact with your brand online
NPS® score: measures the likelihood of your customers recommending your product or service
Click-through rate: tells you how many people click to your website from places like social media, email, or ads
Exit rate: measures the percentage of users who leave pages on your site
Customer churn rate: tracks the percentage of customers who’ve stopped using or purchasing your product or service
Customer effort score: tracks how easy—or difficult—it is for customers to use your product or service
9 key metrics to track to boost customer satisfaction
Tracking these nine metrics helps you boost customer retention, improve satisfaction, and hopefully, increase your customer’s lifetime value. So you can ultimately increase your bottom line.
1. Referral rate
The number of referrals you get tells you how effective your product is at meeting your customers’ needs and expectations. A high referral rate means customers are willing to vouch for your product as an effective solution to their pain points.
There are different ways to keep track of your referrals. For example:
Web analytics tools: software like Google Analytics tells you how many times your site was accessed through another web page's referral link
Referral code or voucher: issue referral codes to loyal customers to send out to their networks and track how many times their code was used to access your website by a referred-in friend
Referral rate calculation
Calculate your referral rate by taking the number of referred purchases and dividing it by the number of total purchases.
Once you have a clear understanding of your referral rate, you’ll be able to see whether you’re successfully turning customers into brand champions and advocates, which is a good indicator they’re satisfied with your product.
2. Conversion rate
Conversion rate measures how many users completed a desired action on your website.
Tracking conversion rate tells you how successful you are at getting users to buy your product or, depending on your objectives, sign up for a trial or service or complete a form.
A low conversion rate means you’re likely not satisfying your customers’ needs and is a strong indicator that you need to make informed website, product, or marketing changes.
Conversion rate calculation
Divide the total number of conversions by the total number of site visitors and multiply by 100.
After calculating your conversion rate, you can use it to improve customer satisfaction:
Use experience analytics tools to go deeper and get a granular understanding of your customers’ experience on your site. For example, if you're an ecommerce company, watching real-time recordings on a product page with low performance might reveal that users are rage clicking on a broken ‘add to cart’ link—impacting their ability to convert.
After you've identified the problem with PX insights, take action to remove any blockers in the customer journey and quickly fix bugs to avoid frustration and dissatisfaction during the user experience (UX).
Use Contentsquare’s Session Replays to determine where your users are getting stuck
💡Pro tip: combine standard web analytics with Contentsquare’s experience analytics to discover the ‘why’ behind behavior trends and build a data-informed conversion rate optimization strategy. See where and how users move with Session Replay, and ask them about their customer experience with Exit-Intent Survey. This will give you clear insight for increasing conversion and satisfaction.
3. CSAT score
Satisfied customers are the backbone of your business. And to see just how satisfied people are, turn to the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).
CSAT surveys calculate user satisfaction and are gathered by asking customers a closed-ended question, like “Did our product meet your expectations?”
Tracking CSAT scores will alert you to any sudden drops in customer approval so you can quickly make the necessary changes to improve the overall experience customers have with your brand.
For example, CSAT scores could show a SaaS product team that customers are dissatisfied with their new product feature because the update takes longer to load and is prone to bugs. Without tracking CSAT scores, you are at-risk of losing these customers. But by asking customers about their user experience, and responding to spikes in dissatisfaction, teams can quickly roll out better products without negatively impacting customer satisfaction over time.
That’s why, to reach your customer satisfaction goals, dive deeper into why customers are satisfied or dissatisfied with your brand by asking them about their product experience (PX).
Customer satisfaction score calculation
Use Contentsquare’s Voice of Customer to create and administer customer satisfaction surveys to gauge how well you’re meeting customers’ needs and optimize your website or products accordingly.
Calculate your CSAT score by dividing the number of customers who are ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with the total number and multiplying by 100.
4. Engagement rate
Engagement rate measures how often users interact with your online brand and website by tracking certain actions—for example, watching a video, reading a blog post, or clicking and scrolling.
Engagement rates tell you how successful you are at captivating your audience with your website, content, and product offering.
Engagement rate calculation
Use Google Analytics to calculate your website’s engagement levels. Then go beyond standard analytics to gather qualitative information about why users are or aren’t engaged by visualizing their experience—so you know what product changes to make to keep them happy and meet their needs.
If you're a UX designer, for example, watch Contentsquare’s Session Replays to see users as they explore your site to help you create a more engaging and intuitive product experience with actionable insights into which web page elements draw customers in, and what isn’t catching their attention.
5. NPS score
Check your Net Promoter Score by asking customers how likely they are to recommend your product or service on a scale of 0-10.
Your NPS score helps you gauge customer satisfaction over time, understand customer loyalty across segments, and determine your ability to meet customer needs.
Use Contentsquare’s NPS Surveys to create targeted surveys and learn what impacts customer perception of your product to drive effective improvements.
Use Contentsquare’s NPS Surveys to gauge customer satisfaction
NPS score calculation
Group survey responses into the following categories:
Detractors (0 to 6)
Passives (7 and 8)
Promoters (9 and 10)
Then, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
6. Click-through rate
Click-through rate (CTR) tells you how many users are clicking through to your website from an external link found in emails, advertisements, or images—or clicking on internal links within your CTAs, blogs, or other website content.
Tracking CTR helps you understand if you’re successfully driving traffic to your website with your marketing campaigns. Get a strong sense of customer satisfaction by tracking how many conversions you get once users click through and staying on top of your internal click-through rate.
Click-through rate calculation
Calculate your click-through rate by taking the number of clicks you get and dividing it by the number of times your content/CTA/advertisement is shown (also known as impressions).
Or measure your click-through rate with web analytics tools to see how well your campaigns and content compel users to engage. Track key conversion moments like landing pages, CTAs, advertisements, and blog posts to see how well they’re performing. Then, experiment with your UX design and product positioning to invite more user interest.
7. Exit rate
The point of exit is where a user exits or drops off your website. Tracking point of exit pages gives you valuable information about the customer journey and helps you identify which website touchpoints you should further optimize for your users.
Once you have a sense of your exit rates, analyze heatmaps to discover unpopular elements of your website that might be pushing people away, as well as popular elements that are capturing your users' special interest.
For example, a marketing team might view heatmaps of key landing pages and see that users aren’t scrolling below the fold and exiting before they reach the CTA. They can then use these insights to inform strategic marketing decisions. Like writing more persuasive copy, communicating with UX design to relocate CTAs, or creating a more engaging webpage experience with visual media or user testimonials.
Use Contentsquare’s Zone-Based Heatmaps to find out which CTAs your users are drawn to and which they ignore
And review cross-session customer journeys with Product Analytics tools to see how customers move across your site, app, and product, and what causes them to drop-off.
Exit-rate calculation
Track your exit rates for specific pages by dividing the total number of page exits by the total number of page visits.
8. Customer churn rate
Churn rate is the percentage of customers who’ve stopped using or purchasing your product or service. It’s a meaningful indicator of your ability to meet user needs by measuring how successful you are at retaining customers.
Customer churn rate calculation
Calculate customer churn by taking the total number of lost customers and dividing it by the total number of customers at a given time, and then multiplying it by 100. You can also track customer churn by segment using web analytics tools, which tell you if there are any trends or patterns in the types of customers that are churning.
Then get deeper insights into why they’re churning with exit-intent surveys that ask users about their customer experience as they’re leaving or canceling their subscription.
For example, Contentsquare’s Exit Intent Surveys might indicate that customers are churning because they don’t understand the full value of your product. Teams can then come up with customer activation solutions to boost satisfaction levels, like improving the onboarding process with useful tool tips and knowledge bases that help with product and feature adoption.
Contentsquare’s Exit Intent Surveys give you user-backed insights into the user experience
9. Customer effort score
Customer effort scores (CES) tell you how easy it is for customers to use your product or service. It’s a useful metric to understand whether customers are able to intuitively complete desired actions and find the information they’re looking for—which directly relates to their satisfaction levels.
CES scores are collected by surveying customers after they complete a particular action or interaction—like making a purchase or clicking on a video—on your site or product. For example, you may want to ask customers who’ve successfully checked out to rate how easy they found it to complete the checkout process or navigate your site to find the products they were looking for.
Send surveys with Contentsquare to better understand the customer experience you provide, and what you could change to increase satisfaction.
Customer effort score calculation
Calculate CES by adding together all your scores and dividing by the total number of responses.
Take action on metrics and KPIs to drive customer satisfaction
It’s important to find the right customer satisfaction metrics for your specific user and organizational needs. Start by selecting the key metrics that align most closely with your overall company or departmental KPIs, and track them consistently over time to reveal patterns and trends in customer behavior.
But the metrics alone won’t always tell the whole story or clarify the actions you need to take.
Maybe basic analytics show you that your conversions are low on one page, but user engagement is high—so you’re not sure which changes to make. To understand the ‘why’ behind customer patterns, talk to your users, watch replays of their full sessions, and understand why they’re engaging but not converting.
Use customer satisfaction metrics as a starting point to dive deeper and better empathize and understand your users. Asking users about their experiences directly and seeing exactly how they engage with your site and product pages give you actionable context on your customers’ satisfaction.
Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter ScoreSM and Net Promoter SystemSM are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.
FAQs about key metrics to track to improve customer satisfaction
What are some customer satisfaction metrics?
Some metrics you can track to gauge customer satisfaction include:
CSAT score
Number of referrals
Conversion rate
Engagement rate
NPS scores
Click-through rate
Point of exit
Customer churn rate
Customer effort score
These metrics shed light on customer behavior trends and patterns and point you in the right direction to understand where you could improve your customer's experience and satisfaction levels.
How do I keep track of my customer satisfaction metrics?
To track your customer satisfaction metrics, start with standard web analytics tools like Google Analytics. Then, get deeper insights into customer behavior by combining analytics tools with product experience insights tools like Contentsquare. This gives you a comprehensive understanding of the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ in your customers’ experiences and satisfaction rates.
What can I do to increase customer satisfaction levels on my website?
To increase customer satisfaction levels on your website, you’ll need to:
Gather data by running a customer survey or reviewing your website performance metrics.
Analyze the information you have on customer feedback or website performance.
Improve your product or service by coming up with an action plan aiming to resolve the issues presented by your customers or website performance.
Measure customer satisfaction regularly and follow up with your customers to see if your action plan is effective. If you keep your customers in the loop and show them you value their feedback, they’ll be more likely to engage and give you insights to inform your future decisions.