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How to measure customer loyalty

4 min read
Loyalty is an emotion, which makes it a little tricky to measure. But by using X (Experience) and O (Operation) data metrics in tandem, your business can track customers showing loyal behaviours, and turn that data into actionable insights.

Here are 5 metrics that can help you measure customer loyalty as part of a loyalty programme:

  1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
  2. Brand engagement
  3. Repurchasing levels
  4. Multiple product purchases
  5. Customer Loyalty Index (CLI)

Net Promoter Score

The classic example. NPS is used widely across all kinds of businesses to inform marketing strategy and monitor customer service and customer satisfaction. One of its key strengths is that most people know what it is and what constitutes a good score. This makes it very helpful for communicating outside your CX team.

It’s also conveniently short and sweet, consisting of a single question for customers to answer: “how likely are you to recommend us to family and friends?” Keeping track of your NPS – which records positive, negative and neutral responses to the question – helps you gauge how much of your customer base is likely to be loyal towards you.

Engagement with your brand

How often do your existing customers visit your website, leave reviews of their products and services, or interact with your social media channels? Engagement can indicate enthusiasm for your brand and products, and it also shows that the customer believes you are listening to them and that their engagement is valued.

Although it’s not an absolute predictor of loyalty – some repeat customers might buy faithfully for years but never write a review – it can be helpful to look at engagement alongside other loyalty metrics to build out the overall picture.

Repurchasing levels

How many of your customers are new, and how many are making a repeat purchase? By tracking the numbers of customers who are new vs your repeat customers over time, you can see how the retention rate rises and falls. It’s important to measure these figures as a proportion of the whole, rather than absolute numbers. Otherwise, a dip or rise in overall sales could present confusing results.

Learn about Qualtrics Customer Retention Software

Multiple product purchases

Someone buying a single product repeatedly over time is good news for your customer loyalty levels and your chances for customer retention. But if a returning customer is willing to branch out to other items in your range, it could be even better.

A repeat purchaser who buys multiple products is likely to have confidence in your business as a whole. They don’t just like that thing you make – they like the customer experience they had with you, and they’re keen to explore more. When you’re looking at repurchasing levels, keep an eye on how many of these customers are broadening their purchase range at the same time.

Customer Loyalty Index (CLI)

Like NPS, this is a standardised metric that’s derived from customer surveys and measures the strength of a customer’s loyalty towards your brand. However it has a couple more questions than NPS, as it also covers repeat purchases and multiple purchases.

However, it’s not a replacement for these measures, as it records the customer’s intent for the future, rather than their actual behaviour. Measuring of customer intention scores and comparing them to reality over the customer lifetime can help you build up a more useful picture.

Get our free Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey template