“From my experience working with technology companies—especially in B2B settings—the benefits of combining Customer Success and Customer Experience metrics are immense.”
What if the secret to skyrocketing your revenue lies in understanding not just what your customers do, but how they feel? In a world where every interaction counts, successful companies aren’t merely focused on closing deals—they’re laser-focused on keeping customers happy, loyal, and engaged. It’s no longer enough to simply deliver products; companies must craft seamless, meaningful customer journeys that lead to long-term success.
To achieve this, businesses must go beyond traditional, siloed approaches and explore both Customer Success (CS) and Customer Experience (CX) metrics. CS ensures customers reach their desired outcomes and adopt the product successfully, while CX captures the emotional and experiential aspects of the entire journey with your brand. Combining these perspectives offers a holistic view that drives growth, reduces churn, and fosters deeper customer loyalty. 
This article explores how integrating CS and CX metrics can transform customer strategies, boost adoption, and lead to measurable, data-driven business success. Additionally, I’ll share my personal experience working with technology companies and how this approach is particularly beneficial in today’s rapidly evolving landscape.
The Power of Combining CS and CX Metrics: A Personal Perspective
From my experience working with technology companies—especially in B2B settings—the benefits of combining Customer Success and Customer Experience metrics are immense. With the rise of cloud-based solutions, SaaS products, and subscription models, adoption is now a critical revenue driver, whether measured through Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), or overall growth.
The more product adoption we achieve, the more revenue grows. That’s why I always emphasize blending CS and CX metrics when working with teams, such as those at Samsung. This integrated approach leads to clearer insights and stronger outcomes.
During a conversation with industry leader Sue Nabeth Moore and online insights from Nick Mehta and his books, I’ve come to firmly believe that companies successfully merging these two sets of metrics not only gain deeper clarity into customer behaviors but also unlock new growth opportunities. Data analytics, when aligned with this approach, provides the actionable intelligence needed to refine strategies and enhance both Customer Success and Customer Experience outcomes.
Introduction: Customer Success vs. Customer Experience
Before diving into specific metrics, it’s important to differentiate between Customer Success and Customer Experience:
- Customer Success (CS) ensures customers achieve their desired outcomes using a product or service. This includes proactive efforts like on-boarding, training, and engagement to drive adoption, loyalty, and renewals.
- Customer Experience (CX) focuses on the overall perception customers have after interacting with your brand. CX includes the emotional and psychological responses customers have across various touchpoints, such as ease of use, support quality, and overall satisfaction.
Combining these two areas enables a more unified strategy that addresses both customer outcomes and emotional satisfaction, helping companies retain customers, reduce churn, and improve Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
Key Metrics for Customer Success (CS)
- Churn Rate
Measures the percentage of customers discontinuing use over a given period.
How it complements CX: Combining churn rate with CX feedback helps identify emotional and experiential triggers behind customer exits. - Customer Health Score (CHS)
A composite metric evaluating customer engagement, usage frequency, and satisfaction.
How it complements CX: A low CHS often correlates with a poor customer experience, highlighting the need to address emotional factors driving disengagement. - Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
Measures revenue retained from existing customers, factoring in expansions and contractions.
How it complements CX: NRR provides insight into the value derived from a product, while CX metrics reveal which experiences drive retention. - Service/Product Adoption Rate
Tracks the percentage of customers actively using key features or the product overall.
How it complements CX: Successful adoption depends on effective onboarding and usability, illuminated by CX metrics through customer feedback. - Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The total revenue a customer generates over their relationship with the company.
How it complements CX: A positive CX boosts CLV by fostering longer customer relationships and higher spending. - Time to Value (TTV)
The time it takes for customers to realize value from a product.
How it complements CX: Faster TTV enhances satisfaction, especially when onboarding is seamless and positive. - Expansion Revenue
Revenue growth from up selling or cross-selling to existing customers.
How it complements CX: CX improvements can drive up sell success and increase expansion revenue. - Customer Engagement Score (CES)
Measures how frequently and meaningfully customers engage with the product.
How it complements CX: CS metrics focus on engagement volume, while CX metrics provide insight into engagement quality.
Key Metrics for Customer Experience (CX)
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
Gauges overall satisfaction with a product or service.
How it complements CS: CSAT helps determine whether CS efforts, such as onboarding and training, are effective. - Customer Effort Score (CES)
Measures the effort required to resolve an issue or complete a task.
How it complements CS: High effort correlates with lower adoption and higher churn, both of which CS teams aim to reduce. - First Contact Resolution (FCR)
Tracks the percentage of issues resolved in a single interaction.
How it complements CS: A high FCR improves customer satisfaction, helping CS teams ensure the product is easily used. - Customer Journey Analytics (not a metric)
Examines customer interactions across touch-points.
How it complements CS: Understanding the journey helps CS teams identify obstacles to success. - Emotional Value Index (EVI)
Measures the emotional impact of customer interactions.
How it complements CS: Positive emotions foster long-term success and encourage higher product engagement. - Social Media Sentiment
Tracks sentiment expressed about your brand on social platforms.
How it complements CS: Real-time insights help CS teams respond quickly to customer concerns. - Customer Retention Rate
Measures the percentage of customers retained over time.
How it complements CS: High retention is often driven by strong CS efforts, and CX data ensures emotional satisfaction contributes to retention. - Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Measures customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend the product.
How it complements CS: A low NPS may indicate underlying CS issues, signaling customers are not achieving desired outcomes.
How Combining Metrics Enhances Outcomes
- Holistic View of the Customer
Combining CS and CX metrics offers a 360-degree view of the customer. Tracking churn rate alongside NPS can identify whether customers leave due to product dissatisfaction or experience issues. - Predicting and Reducing Churn
A combination of Customer Health Score and Customer Satisfaction metrics allows for more accurate churn predictions, highlighting usability or experience gaps. - Improved Product Adoption
Analyzing Adoption Rate with Customer Effort Score helps determine whether feature usability affects adoption, providing insights to improve both metrics. - Revenue Growth
Expansion Revenue and Customer Journey Analytics together reveal key upsell and cross-sell opportunities, driving revenue growth. - Data-Driven Personalization
Pairing CS metrics like Engagement Score with CX metrics like Emotional Value Index helps create personalized experiences, fostering long-term success and deeper loyalty.
Conclusion
Integrating Customer Success (CS) and Customer Experience (CX) metrics enables companies to move beyond fragmented insights and achieve a data-driven, strategic understanding of their customers. This approach allows businesses to not only measure outcomes but shape them, ensuring operational success aligns with emotional engagement. Merging these perspectives enables proactive customer management, driving long-term loyalty and sustainable growth.
With data analytics as the foundation, this integrated model supports informed decision-making, predictive insights, and personalized customer experiences. As a result, companies can continuously refine their offerings, optimize every interaction, and ensure product value and customer satisfaction evolve together—leading to stronger competitive positioning and lasting customer relationships.
What are your thoughts on the importance of blending CS and CX metrics in your business strategy? Have you seen similar results, or do you plan to implement this integrated approach? Let me know in the comments!
Connect with me on LinkedIn here: Ricardo
Photo by Google DeepMind on Unsplash
