Maintaining B2B Customer Relationships | | Published September 07, 2018

5 Metrics for Measuring Your Customer Health Score

A new term, customer health, is all about monitoring the customer relationship to ensure it remains in a vibrant state. Because not all businesses are receptive to proactive support or additional conversations, the concept of customer health has evolved because it allows a business to further understand the impact of their interactions.

Rather than spending time and money on proactive communication campaigns with customers that already love you or don’t want to be contacted, customer health analyses the information already present in past communications. This deep dive into existing data provides valuable insights into what customers have problems and what you need to do to diagnose these issues so you can get the relationship back on the right track.

Because each industry is unique, it’s important to choose a customer health software solution that lets you customize your monitoring to accurately identify the vital signs you should be keeping an eye on. Here are some of the most common customer health metrics that are often leveraged to accurately measure customer health:

Customer Duration – Simply put, this is how long a customer has been with your business. A large number here usually correlates to a higher chance of retention, but remember nothing is a guarantee in business. All companies make changes over time, including acquisition or bankruptcy, so don’t count on a single customer always being on your books.

Point of Contact Information – It’s essential to factor in who the key decision maker is in every customer relationship. If it’s a CEO, you’ll know it can be difficult for them to be overruled come renewal time. It’s also essential to understand how long a person has been in this role. If a new employee is the point of contact, it can be a red flag for customer health as they may prefer a competitor.

Number of Users/Orders – This data point is important because it can often be tied to revenue. Prioritizing the health of a software solution with 500 seats over a company with 5 seats is important because their needs are more complex and also more essential to your success. In addition, don’t forget to monitor when and how many orders or seats were added. Inactivity or a decrease here can indicate trouble.

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Nature of Support Requests – As expected, larger customers will have more requests, so that’s not necessarily the key focus here. What companies looking at customer health should monitor is not only the severity of the requests but also the tone in which these requests are being made. Leveraging a customer health solution with sentiment analysis capabilities can immediately tell you if a customer is feeling excessively “frustrated” or “sad” so you can address the problem.

Indirect Feedback – Sometimes customers don’t like to tell you how they feel about you directly. This non-confrontational style of feedback is becoming more common in business, so it’s important to factor in additional sources into the overall customer health. NPS (Net Promoter Score) ratings, customer reviews on third party listing sites, and more should all factor into monitoring how a customer truly feels about your business.

 

In short, the concept of customer health relies on using existing data to make informed decisions. By using a customer health solution, businesses can customize how they track key customer health metrics to improve communication and retention rates. Truly understanding and accurately tracking how a customer is feeling can be complex, but technology is a great aid to simplify the entire process to improve business relationships.