The Most Important Metrics for CSMs

Customer success teams have a wide scope of responsibilities, which often varies from company to company. The specific metrics that each success team uses will thus vary depending on the business and company context. That being said, it's important to monitor a number of different metrics to get a holistic picture of customer health. Here are some metrics to consider monitoring.

1. Churn Rate: This measures the percentage of customers who cancel or stop using the product or service. CSMs can be an important lever to manage churn rates.

2. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): CSAT is a customer feedback metric that measures overall satisfaction with a product or service. It is usually measured through surveys or post-interaction feedback.

3. Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS measures customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend your product or service to others.

4. Customer Health Score: A composite metric that takes into account various aspects of the customer's engagement and experience, such as product usage, support tickets, and feedback. To calculate a customer health score, consider which specific data points are most impactful to the customer experience.

5. Renewal Rate: This metric focuses on the percentage of customers who renew their subscriptions or contracts. It's particularly relevant for subscription-based businesses.

6. Expansion Revenue: Measures the revenue generated from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, or additional purchases.

7. Product Adoption and Usage: Track how actively and effectively customers are using the product, as it directly correlates with their long-term success.

8. Time-to-Value: How quickly customers see value from your product or service after onboarding. Shortening this time can lead to higher satisfaction and retention.

9. Customer Retention Rate: This is similar to churn but looks at the percentage of customers retained over a specific period, often on a monthly or annual basis.

10. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV): Measures the total revenue a customer generates throughout their entire relationship with your company. It helps assess the long-term value of a customer.

11. Customer Effort Score (CES): Measures how easy it is for customers to get their issues resolved or achieve their goals when using your product or service.

12. Customer Onboarding and Training Completion: Tracks whether customers have completed onboarding and training programs, which can be indicators of their readiness to use the product effectively.

13. Customer Feedback and Feature Requests: Gathering and analyzing customer feedback to drive product improvements and enhancements.

14. Customer Advocacy: Encouraging customers to become advocates for your brand, such as through testimonials, case studies, or referrals.

15. Response and Resolution Times: Measures the speed at which CSMs respond to customer inquiries and the time it takes to resolve issues.

16. Customer Segmentation and Portfolio Management: Effectively segmenting customers based on their needs and assigning appropriate resources to manage each segment.

17. Revenue Retention: Measures the percentage of revenue retained from existing customers over a specific period.

18. Customer Referrals and References: Tracking and incentivizing customers to refer new business or provide references to potential customers.

19. Customer Engagement Metrics: This includes metrics like login frequency, feature usage, and session duration, which provide insights into how engaged customers are with the product.

20. Customer Communication and Touchpoints: Measuring the frequency and quality of interactions between CSMs and customers.

These metrics are important in evaluating how the business overall, as well as customer success teams, are functioning. However, they only tell part of the story. CSMs should not be evaluated solely on quantitative metrics; qualitative assessments of their relationship-building, communication skills, and customer advocacy efforts are also crucial for a holistic evaluation of their performance.

‍