Whether you're running an incubator, academy, accelerator, or boot camp, you're in a unique position. Like most organizations, you need to gauge your progress, but the usual business metrics might not cut it.

So what kinds of metrics should you focus on? From charitable organizations to for-profit businesses, most organizations prioritize learner success and retention. Here are a few data points to help keep your forward progress quantifiable — and some pointers on how to use them.

The following metrics aren't the end-all of customer satisfaction assessment. They're a good start, however, and they're flexible enough to adapt to most organizational missions.

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores reveal how satisfied your customers are. This metric puts qualitative benchmarks into quantitative terms that are easy to understand. In the process, you'll learn whether your products and services please users and to what degree.

CSAT relies on prompted learner feedback. In most cases, you'll gather info by providing surveys that pose a series of multiple-choice questions. The answer options will usually take the form of a numeric scale, such as 1 for very unsatisfied and 5 for very satisfied.

The nice thing about CSAT is that you can tailor it to your training method. You don't even need to use the same scale for all the questions as long as your instructions are clear.

To get started, you might ask:

How pleased were you with the course overall?

Did the learning materials supply enough information to fill in gaps in the lectures?

Were you able to get the instructor to answer your questions satisfactorily?

How confident are you that you could use your new skills on the job?

CSAT is a non-threatening way to collect statistics-ready numerical data. On the other hand, it does depend on self-reporting and may amplify biases. It also lacks nuance, so you might benefit from including a freeform comment section in your survey. Some potential questions to consider — for free responses and follow-ups alike — include:

What's the most useful thing you learned in the course?

Are there topics you felt the course missed out on?

If you gave us a low overall rating, please explain what you disliked.

Customer effort scores (CES) measure the amount of effort a customer has to expend to complete a task. These surveys often follow product returns and refunds, but they're not just for retail.

Most learning businesses involve a lot of logistics. Making life as easy as possible is vital, particularly when your students might be under lots of stress.

Conducting periodic, opt-in CES surveys can help you identify hidden pain points. This metric goes a long way toward smoothing critical processes like enrollment and payment processing. Consider asking:

Did our chat agent make it easy to correct billing problems?

How easy was it to sign up for courses?

Was our new learning software easier to use than the old version?

These questions also ask for responses on a scale. Unlike CSAT, however, they focus on highly specific tasks, processes, and touchpoints. It might be a good move to trigger automated CES surveys following critical interactions, like new student enrollments, payments, or help desk events.

The net promoter score (NPS) metric measures consumer loyalty. It usually asks respondents to provide 0–10 (not at all likely–extremely likely) ratings in response to different questions. Some examples might include:

Would you be likely to recommend the course to a friend?

If you had another course or test coming up, would you be likely to take one of our supplemental courses?

Would you be more likely to sign up for a future course if we used a different learning software system?

NPS scores are super flexible. They're great for forecasting future demand and providing insights into what you should do next. You can also expand these surveys with free-form responses to garner more detailed feedback.

How many of your students made it through your last course? Divide this by the number of total participants, and you'll get the completion rate.

Completion rates are a key measure of learning business success. If lots of people drop out before graduation, you might need to adjust your training methods or course material.

You can also measure completion rates on a per-task basis. For instance, you probably already do this if you proctor exams or assign homework. While it's natural to have a less-than-100-percent completion rate, you want to raise this stat over time.

Are you training people for a specific exam? Measuring student outcomes is a no-brainer.

The problem is that you'll often have to rely on self-reporting, which isn't always accurate. Alternatively, you can administer practice tests and mock exams, which students tend to appreciate anyway.

With this metric, it's best to look for progress, not just some arbitrary mean score. Try to measure whether students are actually improving during the class. As long as you're helping them grow, they'll feel well-served.

When gathering feedback, it's important to strike while the iron is hot. This doesn't mean the same thing for all metrics, however.

Consider CSAT and NPS surveys. It's best to conduct these assessments when the experience is still fresh in attendees' minds after a course's completion. With CES surveys, you'll typically launch the feedback session after help desk ticket closures or similar events. Completion rates are similar in that you only get the data after all is said and done.

Look for big milestones in the learning experience, such as tests, classroom labs, and projects. These deviations are ideal opportunities for metric gathering. As breaks from the routine, they're natural junctures for reflection.

Customer satisfaction is integral to learning business success. But to get the most out of it, you need to create a system that supports streamlined analysis. You can't afford to stop everything to set up surveys — your students want to learn, so your framework must facilitate feedback without a hitch.

Above all, be willing to adjust the questions you pose in your satisfaction surveys. In addition to your internal metrics, pay close attention to your members' needs, and measure what really matters to them. Learn how to put metrics to good use by checking out the Disco Learning Community Playbook.