KPIs for Evaluating the Impact of Onboarding Software

KPIs (key performance indicators) are a way to evaluate how well your onboarding program is working. They provide analytical data that can help you make better decisions.

Time-to-productivity is a key onboarding metric that measures the time it takes for new hires to reach their expected productivity levels. This metric can vary by role and seniority level, so it is essential to measure it accurately.

Customer Satisfaction Rate

Great onboarding software will help drive customer satisfaction and improve the customer acquisition cost (CAC). Satisfied customers are more likely to refer new business to your company, lowering marketing expenses.

Often measured through an NPS survey, this metric determines how satisfied your customers are with your product or service. Those who are considered Promoters (9 or 10 rating) are your happiest customers and will recommend your product to others. Passives (7 or 8 rating) are pleased with your brand but may not recommend it to others. Detractors (0-6 rating) are unhappy with your product and are at risk of churning or leaving negative reviews.

Another way to measure overall customer satisfaction is through the Customer Effort Score (CES). This metric uses a simple scale of “strongly agree “/”agree”/”disagree” to assess customer effort.

Retention Rate

It’s not enough to gain users as quickly as possible if they don’t stick around long enough to see the value of your product. This is why retention rates are critical for SaaS and subscription companies.

Retention rate is defined as the percentage of customers that continue to use a product over a given period. It’s calculated as (revenue churn) / starting customer count and is typically evaluated monthly, quarterly, or annually. Fast-moving SaaS products may even look at their retention data weekly or daily.

Bracketed retention rates are also helpful, as they measure retention within custom periods that align with your product’s usage cadence. 

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a critical metric for every business. It’s one of the strongest predictors of purchase intentions and customer loyalty. Companies that deliver high customer satisfaction also experience higher growth rates and revenue.

You can use various methods to measure customer satisfaction, including surveying and asking users for feedback. You can also use cohort analysis, where you observe groups of users for a specified period.

An excellent way to evaluate customer satisfaction is with the net promoter score (NPS). This well-known and highly reliable metric helps you identify your most loyal customers. It’s based on the idea that promoters are likelier to recommend your company to others than detractors. The more people you have as promoters, the better your NPS will be.

Customer Satisfaction Score

A great onboarding program will help your users get up to speed quickly. This translates into time to value (TTV) and customer retention.

A Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey is the best way to measure onboarding satisfaction. NPS asks customers how likely they are to recommend your brand to others.

Use this metric to identify areas for improvement in your support software. Using NPS can help you improve your product, grow brand loyalty, and boost customer retention. Another helpful metric is the Customer Effort Score (CES). A CES survey asks a single question about how easy or difficult it was for customers to act. This metric is typically deployed directly after a support or education interaction. It’s also a good idea to ask a CES question at quarterly intervals to track changes over time.

Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a critical part of product development, helping identify dissatisfied customers and providing a means to resolve their issues. Whether they submit a review on your website, call you with a question, or open the Messages tab in your product – gathering customer feedback is an essential process for Marketing and Design and every team in the organization.

Determining the metrics most relevant to your business goals and needs is essential – focusing on tracking the right things will ensure you get the most value out of your onboarding program. Tracking the wrong thing is the same as not tracking it at all – you’ll never know how to improve your onboarding flow unless you have the data to back up your decisions.