Why do we need to track public relation metrics? Before answering this question, let me put you in a moment to think. Well, how the relationship is being built between individuals? How to sense it? How to feel it? How to preserve it? And how to respond it? Of course, based on the way the communication and response is being established, face expressions, and eye to eye contact. So, pretty much evident.

Now, let me answer the question. In a business we have no chance to communicate personally to each customer. Of course, we are not supposed to have an eye contact. Perhaps, people will see you in red. Then, how to understand the customer? How to measure customer behavior? Eventually, business should gauge and retrospect themselves to grab maximum market share. Yes, you are right that is why a business need public relation metrics. Well, public is customers, eventually, your customers are subset of public.

Here are the metrics to measure, measure to understand, understand to implement, and implement to grab. Do not forget to set up new metrics once you reach the goal 🙂 otherwise, your metrics will remains as tricks for you. I would suggest to calculate the metrics for every 3 months.

Customer retention rate

Customer retention rate indicates that how many customers are vouching the product or service. Why does the retention rate is needed? It helps to understand the strengths of your product and useful for converting them into loyal customers. Here is the formula to calculate.

Assume initial customer base = 50

Number of customers added = 20

Number of customer dropped = 10

Total number of customers after 3 months = 50+20-1 = 60

Your retention rate = ((Total number + Initial base) – Total base / Initial base)* 100

Customer addition rate

Adding customers to a business is direct growth, customer addition rate is useful for figuring out the best practices and processes that the business is following. Eventually, they can set them up as standards to keep the customer growth retained. How to calculate the metric?

Initial customer base = 50

Newly added customer base = 20

Addition rate = (Newly added base/Initial base)/100

Duration of customer bonding

How long the business is retaining the customers which is a useful metric to understand the competition, product/service lifetime, quality, value for money, density of the population in the location, demand supply, and customer care. Very important metric to define numerous parameters. Here is the formula. Assume

10 customers stayed for 10 days

Increase in loyal customers

((Number of customers * Number of days)/90) *100

Total duration = Average of all durations

Decrease in loyal customers

Decrease in loyal customer indicates the bad quality, customer service, location, demand & supply, competition, lack of deals, offers, and special deals. So, calculating metrics for decrease of loyal customer is imperative. The formula is pretty straight forward.

Referral rate

Referral rate directly indicates the performance of a business. The best mode of advertisement is referral or word of mouth. So, offer referral bonus to boost the business. The difference between customer base with and without referral indicates that why to invest in referral bonus, customer care and quality. The formula is pretty straight forward.

Customer behavior with deals

A metric that will provide insights for where to invest? How to invest? When to invest and how much to invest. Indeed, there is a change in customer behavior based on offering deals. However, deals work for first buy from the customer, increase the footfall in the store, and increase the traffic online. To keep the sales consistent customer care and quality are the drivers.

Customer complaints

Increasing in customer complaints is a panic indicator, time to make quick changes in the business. Indeed, it is the most important metric to measure. First priority for any business is to fix the customer complaints. It may looks as a small hole but shrinks a big ship over a period. Never ever ignore customer complaints.

Customer behavior online vs offline

Customer behavior online vs offline is an interesting metric to change the direction of a business. When majority of the customers are interested to buy online, investing in offline doesn’t make any sense. It is the metric which will indicate to switch from traditional approach to digital approach. Business needs to change it’s hat based on the season otherwise, it will lose the existence in the race.

Another good read

The art of the deal