User engagement is a metric that captures how a user interacts with a product, feature or service, which can be utilized as a leading indicator to demonstrate how a customer is feeling about a product. This type of data could include duration, frequency and the depth of product interaction.
While other feedback mechanisms, such as NPS surveys or in-app feedback, capture how a customer responds to questions measuring their impressions of a product and how much they utilize it during their workflows, user engagement metrics use data derived from your platform as features and tools are used when a user is logged in.
As the data is consolidated from your platform and organized using a customer success platform, user engagement is often organized into categories such as:
- Frequency: How often a user utilizes your product, service or a specific feature
- Volume: How long a user is active in your product including the number of features or tools used
- Longevity: The length of time a user has utilized your product or service, measured in days, weeks, months or years
- Depth: How deep within a tool or feature a user goes, utilizing the different available configurations or options
- Breadth: How many different features or tools a user interacts with across the range of available options
Why is user engagement important?
Measuring user engagement and tracking it with user engagement metrics, complements other customer analytics, such as user experience, to grasp a more comprehensive look at how a customer feels about your product and their likelihood to become a long-term user.
While user engagement seems similar to customer satisfaction, the two are really quite different and do not necessarily equate to high scores in both. For example, a customer could enjoy using your product, but they have not yet integrated it into their normal workflows, or vice versa, where a highly engaged user has high interaction, but may begrudgingly use it.
Data from both measures can be an important way to monitor how customers feel about your product and how specific user engagement strategies are influencing their behavior over time.
What are some ways to boost user engagement?
Looking for some unique or effective user engagement strategies to boost your chances of locking in loyal customers? Here are some best practices to consider:
- Utilize In-App Engagement: Products that use in-app engagement, such as a guide, survey or notification, see at least a threefold increase in engagement and four times more conversion following an in-app event.
- Ensure Smooth Response Times: It’s subtle, but even a one-second lag in load time can harm user engagement.
- Consider That Less Is More: An overwhelming interface or layout can lead to not only confusion or missed opportunities but also higher bounce rates from those early in their adoption phase. Embrace white space and readable fonts.
- Organize Features: Take the time to organize links, content and features into logical categories based on similar functionality or workflow sequence.
- Showcase Customer Support: Do not hide opportunities to solicit user feedback or offer learning resources, which can improve self-service and deeper knowledge of your product.
- Personalize In-App Communications: Display customizable messages to new users welcoming them or highlighting key features. Highlight new updates to existing users.
