I recently stumbled upon a fascinating concept that made me think about how we can further improve relationships with our customers. It's about the customer's health. This term, which sounds like something out of a doctor's office, seeks to anticipate how your clients are feeling and take action before problems occur.⦁

What is customer health?

Imagine being able to predict if a customer will continue to trust your product or service before they decide to leave. Customer health is exactly that: a thermometer that measures the well-being of the relationship between the company and its customers. Unlike more traditional methods, this measurement integrates various data such as the use of the product, the quality of the relationship and the realization of the value perceived by the customer. It's a proactive approach that allows problems to be detected before they are irreversible.

Three dimensions for understanding health

To understand how customer health is measured, let's think about three fundamental pillars:

Relationship Quality: Is the customer satisfied? Would you recommend your product to others? Here metrics such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS) come into play, which reflect the client's willingness to advocate for your brand.
Product Use: It's not just about having the best product, but about making sure that customers actually use it and take advantage of its benefits. Tracking usage can reveal if customers are getting real value or if they need more support or training.
Value Realization: This is the core. Is the customer achieving their goals using your product? Whether it's in terms of cost savings, improved efficiency, or growth, the key is for the customer to feel that your solution is indispensable to their success.

Table showing how BigCommerce measures customer health indicators. The indicators are organized in three dimensions: quality of the relationship, use of the product and realization of value. Each metric has a relative weight assigned to it, such as long-term customer engagement (35.3%), customer sentiment (11.8%), and Net Promoter Score (5.9%). Additional metrics such as platform characteristics, business performance, and payments and billing stand out. — **Figure representative of BigCommerce customer health indicators. Source: (Hochstein et al., 2024**).

BigCommerce: Pioneers in Customer Health

An inspiring example comes from BigCommerce, an e-commerce platform that has implemented a customer health scoring system to improve customer retention. By adjusting their metrics to better reflect the needs of their customers, they were able to increase their customer retention from 95% to 99%. These types of results show the power to understand and take care of the health of your relationships.

A cycle of continuous improvement

The most fascinating thing about taking a customer health approach is the “flying effect” it creates. Once you start measuring and acting on this data, not only do you improve retention, but you also discover new opportunities for growth. It becomes a positive cycle: happier customers, stronger relationships, and a healthier business.

Keep the pulse of your relationships†

Measuring customer health isn't just about improving retention, but about making decisions based on real data that directly impact the success of your business. If you can identify early on who needs the most attention and who is satisfied, you'll have a clear advantage in a market where every relationship counts.

At woku, we are starting a project where you can monitor each of your clients. Soon we'll have news about this new feature.†

References

Hochstein, B., Voorhees, C., Johnson, R., McCoy, N., & Mehrotra, V. (2024). Towards healthier B2B relationships. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2024/07/toward-healthier-b2b-relationships ▸