How to Measure Customer Experience
While much of the focus in customer experience (CX) is on customer-facing elements like friendly service or engaging interfaces, behind-the-scenes metrics are equally crucial. These measurements provide a deeper understanding of how well internal operations support customer interactions, ensuring businesses deliver seamless, frustration-free experiences. Metrics such as resolution times, customer effort scores, and retention rates reveal the efficiency and effectiveness of a company’s processes in meeting customer expectations.
By tracking and improving these CX metrics, organizations can enhance satisfaction and loyalty while paving the way to achieve operational excellence. Focusing on customer experience metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) allows businesses to transform operational improvements into measurable customer outcomes.
Customer experience vs. customer service
Customer experience and customer service are closely related but distinctly different concepts that play unique roles in shaping how customers interact with a business.
Customer experience (CX)
Customer experience encompasses a customer’s entire journey with a business, from the first touchpoint to ongoing engagement. It’s a holistic view of every interaction, whether visiting a website, making a purchase, using a product, or reaching out for support. CX reflects the customer’s perception of the brand, shaped by elements like ease of use, personalization, consistency, and reliability across all channels.
Key characteristics of customer experience:
- Proactive: Focuses on designing seamless and positive experiences throughout the customer journey.
- Multi-touchpoint: Spans marketing, sales, onboarding, support, and post-purchase interactions.
- Data-driven: Relies on metrics like NPS, and CLV to assess overall satisfaction.
Customer service
Customer service, on the other hand, is a specific function within the customer journey. It refers to the support provided to customers when they have questions, need assistance, or encounter an issue. While customer service is an integral part of customer experience, it’s reactive by nature and typically focuses on resolving problems or answering inquiries.
Key characteristics of customer service:
- Reactive: Addresses immediate customer needs and concerns.
- Single touchpoint: This occurs during direct interactions, such as live chats, phone calls, or email support.
- Performance metrics: Relies on metrics like First Contact Resolution (FCR), Average Resolution Time, and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) to evaluate effectiveness.
What are customer experience metrics?
Customer experience metrics are quantifiable data points that assess the quality of customer interactions with a business. These metrics provide insights into performance areas influencing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
By focusing on behind-the-scenes CX metrics—such as response times, resolution rates, and customer effort—companies can optimize internal operations, proactively address issues, and ensure smoother customer journeys.
Customer experience metrics to focus on
Measuring customer success is the foundation for understanding satisfaction, optimizing operations, cutting costs, enhancing interactions, and improving retention. By understanding customer experience KPIs, businesses can make data-driven decisions that ensure every touchpoint delivers reliability, efficiency, and care.
Here are nine customer experience analytics to track:
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS is an excellent customer feedback tool. It measures the likelihood of customers recommending your business to others, providing a gauge of overall loyalty and customer sentiment.
How to calculate it:
NPS = (%Promoters – % Detractors)
How to improve it:
- Enhance service reliability and speed
- Use feedback loops to address detractor concerns
- Automate notifications for proactive issue resolution
- Run an NPS survey quarterly to track
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
CSAT evaluates how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, service, or product.
How to calculate it:
CSAT = (Satisfied Responders ÷ Total Responses) x 100
How to improve it:
- Monitor escalations to identify recurring pain points.
- Use real-time monitoring tools like PagerDuty to quickly resolve incidents.
- Improve workflows to minimize delays.
First Contact Resolution (FCR)
FCR measures the percentage of customer inquiries or issues resolved on the first interaction.
How to calculate it:
FCR = (Issues Resolved on First Contact ÷ Total Issues) x 100
How to improve it:
- Equip teams with accurate and accessible knowledge bases.
- Automate triaging to route tickets to the right teams immediately.
- Reduce silos between operational and customer-facing teams.
Average Resolution Time (AVR)
This metric tracks the average time taken to fully resolve customer issues—which can help customer retention rate in the long run.
How to calculate it:
AVR = Total Time to Resolve ÷ Total Cases
How to improve it:
- Leverage automation to address repetitive issues.
- Establish streamlined escalation paths for complex incidents.
- Regularly train teams to improve troubleshooting skills.
Time to Resolution
A broader metric that measures how long it takes to address a customer issue from start to finish.
How to calculate it:
Time to Resolution = Resolution End Time – Resolution Start Time
How to improve it:
- Use AI-powered monitoring to detect and fix issues proactively.
- Implement incident management workflows to reduce bottlenecks.
Customer Effort Score (CES)
CES assesses how easy it is for customers to resolve their issues or interact with your company.
How to calculate it:
CES = Sum of Customer Effort Ratings ÷ Total Responses
How to improve it:
- Simplify digital workflows for customers.
- Automate follow-ups to resolve pending issues.
- Provide self-service options for low-complexity problems.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
CLV estimates the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer over their entire relationship.
How to calculate it:
CLV = Avg. Purchase Value x Purchase Frequency x Customer Lifespan
How to improve it:
- Reduce churn by addressing operational inefficiencies.
- Use predictive analytics to offer personalized experiences.
- Invest in proactive issue management to build trust.
Customer retention & churn rate
Retention measures how many customers continue to engage with your brand, while churn measures the percentage of customers who leave.
How to improve it:
- Address recurring complaints using CX analytics.
- Improve resolution workflows to prevent repeat incidents.
- Use customer insights to anticipate and resolve issues proactively.
Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA) & Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR)
MTTA measures how long it takes to acknowledge an incident, while MTTR measures the time from incident detection to resolution.
How to improve these metrics:
- Use PagerDuty’s real-time incident alerts to reduce acknowledgment delays.
- Automate issue resolution for common recurring incidents.
For more on these metrics, visit our pages on MTTA and MTTR.
How PagerDuty can help measure customer experience KPI with CX Ops
PagerDuty enables businesses to improve customer experience metrics through CX Ops, a framework for operational excellence. By integrating real-time monitoring, automation, and intelligent workflows, PagerDuty helps:
- Improve incident response times through seamless communication and escalation paths.
- Automate repetitive processes to free teams for higher-value tasks.
- Provide actionable insights into a CX metric for continuous improvement.
With PagerDuty, your teams are empowered to address behind-the-scenes operational challenges that directly impact the customer experience. Start your free trial of our CX Ops solution.

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