How do you identify high-value customers using customer service metrics?

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is one of the key stats to track as part of a customer experience program. Customer lifetime value is a measurement of how valuable a customer is to your company, not just on a purchase-by-purchase basis but across entire customer relationships. It represents the total revenue a business expects to earn from a customer throughout their entire lifetime. Calculating CLTV helps SaaS companies understand the long-term value of acquiring and retaining customers. If the CLTV is high, it shows that the company is retaining customers and extracting value from the relationship. If it's low, they may need to focus more on improving customer retention or increase revenue from each customer.

Customer value is bigger than money of course. But revenue is required for survival. You want to retain the customers who pay the bills. Lifetime value is important, but you may also want to focus on those whose value has steadily increased (e.g., rising POTENTIAL life time value).

Is a metric used to measure how satisfied customers are with a product, service, or interaction. It is typically measured through surveys where customers are asked to rate their satisfaction on a scale, often ranging from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. While it does showcase a data point, this metric falls in the category of qualitative rather than quantitative. The customers will be comfortable to give a number on a range, but it shouldn’t stop there. It becomes important for CS teams to then engage in a discovery to gather more information around the feedback. This not only helps building a rapport with the clients but also makes the customer feel heard and get to the underlying sentiment with the account.

Is a metric that measures the likelihood of customers recommending a company's product or service to others. It provides insights into overall customer satisfaction and loyalty. Net Promoter Score (NPS) in the SaaS industry is crucial because it quantifies customer loyalty, predicts growth, and helps SaaS companies identify promoters who can drive positive word-of-mouth referrals.

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures the ease with which customers can achieve their goals when interacting with a product or a platform. It is also assessed through a survey asking customers how easy or difficult it was to accomplish a specific task. Responses are often on a scale, and the average score provides the CES. Lower scores indicate higher ease. In Customer Success, CES is utilised to identify friction points in the customer journey. A lower effort score suggests a smoother experience, correlating with higher satisfaction and loyalty.

Churn/attrition rate is the rate at which your customers stop doing business with you. Simple example is your existing customers not renewing their subscriptions within a given time period. Churn is normal to happen as long as it is capped per your industry standards, the lower the better but it is very important to set a benchmark and raise alarms if the % crosses that. It is also good to note, that churn is inevitable, how you and the business is equipped to – a. Predict its possibility b. Deal with the repercussions becomes important in SaaS based organisations, as Churn signifies a loss of revenue. And a loss of revenue needs to be taken in account in order to run a business profitably/successfully.