Customer experience (CX) has emerged as a crucial factor that distinguishes thriving businesses from those struggling to succeed. A PwC report reveals that 73% of customers believe having a consistent experience across all channels is extremely important. Additionally, delivering consistent CX can boost customer loyalty and advocacy by up to 70%.
With the abundance of customer data available, the initial challenge is knowing where to begin. Equally important is finding effective ways to measure the quality of the customer experience.
In this blog, we have explained some of the best customer experience (CX) metrics that you need to measure while measuring customer experience, why they matter, and how to calculate and use them.
✨ Key Takeaways
- Customer experience (CX) metrics are key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure customer perceptions, loyalty, and satisfaction with a brand.
- Essential CX metrics are NPS, CSAT, monthly active users, first response time, customer happiness index, and customer sentiment score.
- The CX measurement framework includes defining business goals, assigning relevant metrics, providing automatic feedback, and centralizing and acting on insights.
What are customer experience (CX) metrics?
Customer experience (CX) metrics are the measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) that assess the quality of customer interactions with a product, brand, or service throughout the entire customer journey. These metrics are used to determine customer loyalty and satisfaction, which reflect their relationships with a business and help drive future business growth.
SaaS and VoIP companies need CX metrics to establish a linkage between customer experience and their business growth, retention, and profit. These metrics help determine what customers like about your business, such as products, features, workflows, and issues customers face. Some of the key metrics are churn rate, uptime, call quality, NPS, and others.
Essential CX metrics for quick insights
Some of the key customer experience metrics that businesses need, along with their key purposes, are given below:
| Metric | What it is | Key Purpose |
| Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) | Measures how happy customers are with a product or service. | Capture short-term satisfaction |
| Net Promoter Score (NPS) | Loyalty metrics that ask customers how likely they are to recommend the brand on a 0-10 scale. | Guide loyalty strategies and identify promoters, passives, and detractors. |
| Customer Effort Score (CES) | Tracks how easy it is for customers to complete tasks or resolve issues. | Uncover friction in the customer journey and improve ease of use. |
| Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) | Predicts the total from a customer over their relationship. | Prioritize high-value customers and optimize long-term growth. |
| Monthly Active Users (MAU)/ Engagement Metrics | Count of unique users engaging with a product or platform monthly. | Track adoption, engagement trends, and overall product stickiness. |
| Average Resolution Time (ART) | Average time to resolve an issue from start to finish. | Measure support team effectiveness and efficiency. |
| First Contact Resolution (FCR) Rate | Percentage of issues resolved on the first interaction. | To assess the quality of the service. |
| Customer Churn & Retention Rate | Percentage of customers lost vs retained over time. | Monitors the customer quality. |
| Customer Referral Rate | Frequency of customers referring others | Evaluates the customer advocacy. |
| First Response Time (FRT) | Average time to reply to a customer inquiry. | To evaluate responsiveness. |
| Customer Sentiment Score (Text/Voice Analytics) | A score that analyzes the emotional tone of customer feedback. | Understand overall emotional trends in feedback. |
| Emotional Intensity/ Customer Happiness Index | Measures the strength of a customer’s emotion. | Prioritizes issues that trigger strong feelings. |
12 Key CX metrics to track
To achieve a positive customer experience, you must focus on building loyalty, enhancing your brand reputation, and improving customer satisfaction. For that, you need the measurement of CX metrics, but numerous metrics need to be tracked.
Here are some of the key metrics that are important to track, measure, and improve customer interactions:
1. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Customer satisfaction score measures how happy a customer is with your product, service, or company. You can collect CSAT by conducting a short survey after a customer transaction or interaction with them.
Why it matters
CSAT shows whether your product, service, or support meets your customers’ expectations or not. It provides immediate feedback on customer experience, identifies service gaps, and areas for improvement.
How to calculate CSAT:
You can measure it by asking questions via a CSAT survey, like “How do you like the service of our company?”. Provide a response scale on a 1-5 or 1-10.
CSAT (%) = (Number of satisfied customer / Total responses) x 100
For example, a coffee shop wants to measure customer satisfaction after a recent store renovation. They send a short survey asking: “How satisfied are you with your visit today?” on a scale of 1 to 5.
Out of 50 responses, 35 were positive responses. Then,
CSAT = (35 ÷ 50) x 100 = 70%
2. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a straightforward customer relationship metric that measures customer loyalty, specifically the likelihood of a customer recommending your business, product, or service to others.
Why it matters
The NPS highlights the brand loyalty strength and reveals customer sentiment beyond transactions. Then, here promoters grow through word of mouth, and detractors detect the harm to their reputation.
How to calculate NPS:
NPS = %Promoters – %Detractors
For example, a streaming service surveys 400 users on a 0–10 scale:
220 respond with 9–10 (Promoters 55%)
100 respond with 7–8 (Passives 25%)
80 respond with 0–6 (Detractors 20%)
NPS = 55 − 20 = 35
3. Customer Effort Score (CES)
Customer effort score is a CX metric that measures the amount of effort a customer puts into resolving an issue, fulfilling a request, or completing a task. You can assess it by asking customers a survey question to rate their effort on a scale, where a low score indicates higher loyalty.
Why it matters
CES reduces customer churn rate and its efforts, which leads to improved satisfaction and loyalty. It highlights process or product inefficiencies and supports proactive CX improvements.
How to calculate CES:
CES = (Number of easy responses /Total number of responses) x 100
Here, having a low CES indicates that the interaction was easier to manage.
For example, after a product return, an online retailer asks: “How easy was it to complete your return?” on a scale of 1–5 (4–5 = easy).
Where, out of 80 responses, 50 customers rated 4 or 5. Then,
CES = (50 ÷ 80) × 100 = 62.5%
4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
CLV is a predictive metric that measures the total revenue of a business that can be expected from a single customer over their entire customer journey.
Why it matters
CLV identifies high-value customers and performs the optimization of acquisition costs. Additionally, it helps in the allocation of marketing and retention budgets by providing personalized CX initiatives.
How to calculate CLV:
CLV = Average Purchase Value x Purchase Frequecy x Customer Lifespan
For example, a gym charges a $50 monthly membership. A member stays for 3 years. Here,
Average purchase value: $50
Purchase frequency: 12 times per year
Average lifespan: 3 years
CLV = $50 × 12 × 3 = $1,800
5. Monthly Active Users (MAU) / Engagement Metrics
Monthly active users, also known as engagement metrics, measure the number of unique users that interact with your product or service within a month. These metrics usually track customer logins, clicks, and usage time.
Why it matters
Engagement metrics track the product adoption and identify retention issues in your business. They optimize a product or feature and marketing campaigns.
How to calculate MAU:
You can calculate MAU by counting the number of unique users who performed any action (e.g., login, feature use) in a given month.
For example, a fitness tracking app checks user activity for August.
8,500 unique users opened the app at least once during the month. Then, its MAU for August is 8,500.
6. Average Resolution Time (ART)
An operational CX metric, average resolution time (ART), also known as mean time to resolution (MTTR), measures the average time taken by a customer support team to resolve customer issues. It is necessary to assess the efficiency of the contact center.
Why it matters
It is one of the most important contact center performance metrics that identifies bottlenecks in support processes and indicates operational efficiency. It also guides staffing and resource planning.
How to calculate ART:
ART = Total resolution time for all tickets / Number of tickets resolved
For example, a call center team handles 30 tickets in a day, taking a total of 900 minutes to resolve them.
ART = 900 ÷ 30 = 30 minutes
7. First Contact Resolution (FCR) Rate
First contact resolution, or first call resolution (FCR) rate, is the percentage of customer calls that are resolved on the first contact, without requiring any follow-up from the customer or the support team.
Why it matters
FCR matters because it helps to reduce effort and operational costs and identifies knowledge or training gaps. Having high FCR improves team efficiency and morale, which results in enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty.
How to calculate FCR
FCR = (Issues resolved on first contact / Total number of issues) x 100
For example, an ISP support team manages 200 customer requests in a week. 160 of those requests are resolved on the first contact. Then,
FCR = (160 ÷ 200) × 100 = 80%
8. Customer Churn & Retention Rate
Churn and retention rates are just two opposite metrics used to measure customer loyalty over a specific time period. Churn rate measures the percentage of customers lost over time, while retention rate determines the percentage of customers retained over time.
Why it matters
Both customer churn and retention rates are important to keep existing customers, as they reduce the acquisition cost. They help reveal product and service satisfaction, focusing on retention strategies.
How to calculate churn rate and retention rate
Churn rate = (Number of customers lost at the time period /Total numbers of customers at start of that time period) x100
Retention rate =((Number of customers at the end – Number of customers added) / Number of customers at the start) x100
For example, an online class service starts in April with 2,000 subscribers. During the month, 300 canceled and 400 new users joined, ending with 2,100.
Churn rate = (300 ÷ 2,000) × 100 = 15%
Retention rate = ((2,100 − 400) ÷ 2,000) × 100 = 85%
9. Customer Referral Rate
The customer referral rate indicates the percentage of customers who successfully refer your business to at least one new customer through a focused referral program within a defined timeframe. Increasing this rate can significantly grow your customer base through trusted word-of-mouth recommendations.
Why it matters
Referral rates indicate high customer satisfaction and advocacy, often bringing high-quality leads at low cost. They also highlight the brand promoters and provide insight into referral programs.
How to calculate referral rate:
Referral rate (%) = (Numbers of referral made by existing customers/ Total number of customers) x100
For example, a SaaS platform has 5,000 users. In the past month, 150 users referred a friend who signed up.
Referral rate = (150 ÷ 5,000) × 100 = 3%
10. First Response Time (FRT)
First response time (FRT) is a contact center metric that measures the average time taken by a customer support agent to respond to a customer’s first query. It is said that the lower your FRT, the better the customer experience.
Why it matters
It matters because it reduces the frustration and churn. They set the tone for the customer experience, which leads to prompt responses that enhance satisfaction and demonstrate respect for customers’ time.
How to calculate FRT:
FRT = Sum of time from query to first response / Number of queries
For example, a helpdesk receives 60 chat requests in one day. The combined time to send the first response to all chats is 180 minutes.
Average FRT = 180 ÷ 60 = 3 minutes
11. Customer Sentiment Score (Text/Voice Analytics)
The customer sentiment score is a quantitative measure that reflects customers’ emotions and attitudes toward your product, service, or brand. This score ranges from 0 to 100, which shows how positive, negative, or neutral your customer reviews are.
Why it matters
The customer sentiment scores are important as they show the hidden dissatisfaction of customers and help to improve product and service adjustments. They provide qualitative insights on business strategy and brand health.
How to calculate it
It ranges from 0 to 100, and it’s calculated by subtracting the percentage of negative responses (detractors) to the percentage of positive responses (promoters).
12. Emotional Intensity / Customer Happiness Index
Customer emotional intensity or customer happiness index (CHI) is a metric that reflects the depth of how much your customers are satisfied or happy after engaging with your business. There are several metrics that contribute to CHI, including NPS, CSAT, online reviews, and others.
Why it matters
One of the major reasons behind measuring CHI is that it captures deeper emotional engagement beyond satisfaction, predicts loyalty, and advocacy. Also helps to identify stress points in the customer journey and guides personalization of CX strategies.
How to calculate CHI:
CHI = (Average of customer feedback scores /Maximum possible score) 100
For example, a company surveys 50 customers on a 10-point scale. Where,
Average feedback score = 8.2
Maximum possible score = 10
CHI = (8.2 ÷ 10) × 100 = 82%
How to measure customer experience metric across channels
To measure customer experience metrics across channels, start by gathering various metric scores. These scores are gathered from various structured and unstructured sources, including customer interactions and sentiments, and are obtained using a range of methods and tools.
- Surveys & feedback forms: Start collecting the post-purchase or interaction data ratings via SMS, email, review sites, and surveys. It helps to identify trends at specific times and improve customer experiences.
- Call center interaction metrics: Use analytic tools to track call center metrics like FRT, NPS, FCR, CSAT, and customer sentiments. This will showcase customer pain points and issues, and monitor agent performance.
- WhatsApp, virtual numbers, and SMS interactions: You can measure response times, CSAT score, and resolution rates through WhatsApp, virtual numbers, or SMS interactions. These channels capture leads faster and provide real-time feedback.
- Social listening & online reviews: Keep monitoring mentions, ratings, and reviews on social media platforms and analyze customer sentiments. It will lead to uncovering the emerging issues, understanding public emotions, and developing brand perception.
- Integration with CRM & dashboards: Consolidate data from all communication channels to visualize all metrics in the customer experience dashboard in real-time. This allows for performance comparisons across channels and facilitates informed, proactive decision-making.
4-Step CX measurement framework for SaaS & VoIP
Measuring customer experience for SaaS and VoIP is not such a difficult task. Simply, follow this framework to get customer experience:
Step 1: Define business goals & map the customer journey
Begin with the alignment of your customer experience (CX) measurement with your business goals, whether you are planning to reduce operational cost, churn rate, boost upsell, or want to improve customer efficiency.
Then, map the entire customer journey, starting from onboarding, purchase, product usage, and renewals. This will help us understand customer perceptions and identify key touchpoints that matter most to them.
Step 2: Assign relevant metrics to each touchpoint
For each stage of CX measurement, select the suitable metrics. For instance, use customer effort score (CES) for measuring support interactions, CSAT for onboarding, CLV for long-term value, and NPS for loyalty. This will help to collect the right score at the right time.
Step 3: Automate feedback collection & use AI insights
In SaaS/VoIP, use automation for collecting customer feedback, set up automated emails, or leverage in-app surveys. You can also set up an IVR solution to provide feedback. Apart from these analytics tools, they also help in the review of call transcripts, sentiment analysis, and messages to identify the hidden patterns.
Step 4: Centralize, visualize, analyze, and act
Integrate CRM with all of your CX data to centralize all of your data in a single dashboard. With this, you can visualize and analyze all of the trends, track all KPS, and easily segment customers. Use these findings to act on proactive customer engagement, for training agents, and for improvements of your product.
Analyze your CX data instantly with KrispCall
When it comes to understanding customer experience, clarity beats complexity.
Rather than tracking dozens of disconnected customer experience (CX) metrics, focus on one customer journey at a time, identify the key signals that matter most along the way, and bring them together in a unified view with KrispCall.
With all your customer calls, messages, and interactions managed in one place, KrispCall makes it easier to analyze, act, and build stronger, more meaningful relationships at every touchpoint.
Start simplifying your CX today with KrispCall!
