The Definitive Engagement Score Guide

Engagement score metrics help businesses measure how involved and committed leads, customers and employees are.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, knowing the right software and formulas can help you pinpoint the information you need to determine yours.

In this post, you’ll learn how to calculate and leverage three types of engagement scores to close more deals, improve customer satisfaction and solve critical workforce issues.

What is an engagement score?

An engagement score is a metric companies use to measure the involvement and interaction of leads, customers and employees. Every business calculates this metric differently depending on its focus, industry, product and team.

For example, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company may calculate customer engagement scores based on login frequency, feature usage and support interactions.

On the other hand, a sales team may use email responses, social media messages and meeting attendance to work out lead or customer engagement.

While there are many different types of engagement scores, this post will cover three of the most common in business:

• Lead/deal engagement score. Measures how much leads engage with salespeople and indicates how likely they are to convert into a customer

• Customer/user engagement score. A SaaS metric that reflects how engaged customers are with a product or service

• Employee engagement score. Tracks team involvement, satisfaction and motivation at work

Understanding these scores can provide critical insights into your business’s health and growth potential.

Why should you calculate engagement scores?

Engagement scores can help you target problem-solving and improvement areas.

Here are four ways calculating them can help.

1. Improved decision-making

Engagement scores provide clear, data-driven insights that help you prioritize where to focus your efforts. This clarity allows you to allocate resources more effectively, create accurate action plans and drive better results.

For example:

• Sales reps can use lead engagement scores to target high-potential prospects and close more deals

• Customer success managers can identify top users for upselling to drive revenue

• Human resources (HR) can recognize highly engaged employees for leadership opportunities to provide career growth pathways and reduce turnover

2. Proactive problem-solving

Tracking engagement scores enables you to detect early signs of declining interest and take action before it’s too late.

For example, if a lead stops opening emails, you can adjust your approach with a personalized follow-up. If customers disengage with your product, you can offer onboarding or new feature refreshers.

A drop in employee engagement can also prompt workload discussions or highlight morale issues to prevent more significant problems later.

3. Personalized strategies

Every lead, customer and employee is different. Engagement scores help you tailor your strategies to suit their needs.

For example:

• Salespeople can design pitches based on each lead’s interests

• Customer experience teams can recommend relevant product features based on the user preferences your data reveals

• Managers can customize recognition or development plans for employees based on survey answers when calculating scores

These personalized approaches make people feel seen and valued, leading to more genuine, long-lasting relationships.

4. Enhanced performance metrics

Scores provide measurable benchmarks that show whether your engagement strategies are working.

For example, you can track how lead scores correlate with closed deals, how engagement affects customer retention or how employee engagement impacts churn rate.

With these actionable insights, you can make more informed decisions, address challenges earlier and build stronger connections with the people who matter most to your business.

How to calculate lead engagement scores using Pipedrive

Before leads become customers, tracking how likely a deal is to close can help sales teams focus their efforts effectively.

Pipedrive’s customer relationship management (CRM) software streamlines sales processes by helping reps organize and optimize their deals. One standout feature is the AI engagement score, designed to simplify prioritization.

This functionality analyzes sales data and provides a likelihood score based on patterns from previously won or lost deals.

AI engagement score evaluates deals using factors like:

• Email interaction history. The number and timing of emails sent, received or exchanged

• Deal characteristics. The value, pipeline stage and time since the deal’s creation or last stage change

• Activity metrics. Sales activities (e.g., calls or meetings) logged and completed

• Contact history. Patterns in past interactions with the person or organization associated with the deal

Pipedrive combines these factors to generate an engagement score indicating whether the deal has a high, medium or low likelihood of success.

Within Pipedrive’s deal view, you’ll find a dedicated section for AI engagement scores. This area also includes a high-level summary of the deal’s engagement events (e.g., activity counts, email interactions and stage progress).

Your team should immediately address deals with high engagement scores (as they’re most likely to close). On the other hand, deals with medium or low engagement may require additional outreach or tailored strategies to get them over the line.

Regularly updating your deal activities and interactions will give you the most reliable insights to guide decision-making.

How to calculate customer engagement scores (CES)

Customer engagement scores (CES) can provide valuable insights into how users interact with your product or service.

You can calculate CES using customer surveys or specialized tools like Mixpanel or Pendo. Alternatively, you can create a manual scoring system tailored to your needs.

Here’s how to do it in four steps:

Step 1: Choose your engagement metrics or events

Start by identifying the customer interactions, actions or behaviors that define engagement for your business.

Tracking the metrics that truly reflect how customers use your product or service will help you focus on what drives loyalty and growth.

Let’s say you offer project management software. Your user engagement metrics might include:

• Login frequency. How often users log in to your platform

• Feature adoption. The number of key features a customer has used (e.g., task management, in-app messaging, note-taking, RAID logs)

• Session duration. The average time a customer spends on your platform during a session

• Churn indicators. Events like reduced activity or extended periods of inactivity

• Net promoter score (NPS). A percentage score that suggests how loyal customers feel about your company

These metrics capture positive and negative engagement behaviors to provide a comprehensive overview of your scores.

Step 2: Assign numerical values to each

Assign weights to each metric based on its importance to customer success and retention. Doing so ensures that the final score reflects the most critical aspects of engagement.

For example:

In this example case, your most engaged customers would have a maximum score of 150 points.

Step 3: Calculate your scores

Combine the weighted values into a single engagement score for each customer. Add all totals and divide by the number of customers to find your average score.

At this stage, you should also create a range for high, medium and low scores to help you categorize responses clearly and quickly interpret the results. For example, 100–150 (high), 50–100 (medium) and 0–50 (low).

Let’s say one of your customers:

• Logs in weekly

• Uses three key features

• Spends 30 minutes per session

• Provides an NPS score of 9

• Has one unresolved support ticket

That customer’s engagement score might look like this:

With a score of 90, this customer is at the higher end of the medium engagement range.

Step 4: Analyze the data

Once you’ve calculated all your scores, you can use the insights to uncover trends, identify gaps and guide improvements.

For example, you may want to:

• Celebrate loyal customers with higher scores and look for upsell opportunities (e.g., offer plans with a free API for greater customization)

• Re-engage those with medium scores with targeted campaigns or offer personalized feature and integration training

• Identify at-risk customers with low scores and intervene with tailored outreach (e.g., pricing discounts or check-ins)

Your engagement scoring system can give you a deeper understanding of customer satisfaction and loyalty levels. These insights allow you to strengthen relationships and improve retention over time.

How to calculate employee engagement scores

Employee engagement scores measure how connected and motivated your team members feel.

You can calculate these real-time scores using tools like SurveyMonkey and Culture Amp. You can also create and analyze your own surveys manually.

Here’s how to do it yourself in four steps:

Step 1: Create a survey

You want to design a survey that covers the most crucial aspects of employee engagement. Gathering your team’s feelings about their work, environment and growth opportunities helps you identify meaningful improvement areas.

For example, write down areas you’d like to cover and questions or statements that relate to each:

• Job satisfaction (e.g., “My job provides me with a sense of accomplishment”)

• Enthusiasm for daily tasks (e.g., “I feel motivated to do my best work every day”)

• Alignment with the company’s mission (e.g., “My work contributes meaningfully to the company’s goals”)

• Relationships with team members and managers (e.g., “I feel supported by my manager in my professional growth”)

• Opportunities for growth and development (e.g., “I see a clear path for advancement in my career within this company”)

Using a Likert scale (1–5 response options from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”) makes it easy to quantify responses.

Here’s what a Likert scale looks like.

You can also offer space for additional comments for each question. These extra insights won’t help you calculate engagement scores but can help you spot shared pain points.

Step 2: Collect responses

Distribute your engagement survey to employees through your chosen tool or platform. Emphasize the importance of honest feedback and ensure anonymity to encourage transparency.

You can encourage your team to participate by:

• Clearly communicating the survey’s purpose and how the results will benefit them

• Making the survey short and easy to complete (e.g., under 10 minutes)

• Emphasizing confidentiality to build trust

• Offering incentives (e.g., a small reward or recognition) for completing the survey

• Setting a deadline and sending friendly reminders as it approaches

The higher the response rate, the more accurate your overall picture of engagement levels will be.

Step 3: Calculate your scores

To calculate your employee engagement score, assign points to each answer, add them up and divide the total by the number of survey questions.

This formula will give you each employee’s score:

Let’s say you used the five-point Likert scale. A “Strongly agree” response counts as five points, while “Strongly disagree” is one point.

If an employee’s total score is 42 and your survey has 10 questions, their engagement score is 4.2.

For this survey, you may determine a score of 0–2 is low, 2–4 is medium and 4–5 is high. You can also calculate the average engagement score across the team or company by averaging individual scores.

Step 4: Analyze the data

Once you have your scores, look for trends and patterns in the responses.

For example:

• High scores indicate your team strongly aligns with company goals or is satisfied with growth opportunities

• Medium scores suggest there are aspects you could improve with minor adjustments (e.g., communication frequency or team bonding activities)

• Low scores require you to pinpoint and solve critical issues (e.g., a lack of recognition or poor work-life balance) using urgent initiatives (e.g., introducing an employee recognition program or flexible work arrangements)

By segmenting scores by team, department or other demographics, you can also uncover specific groups needing attention.

You can also save your survey as a template to use again in the future and see how engagement scores compare.

Final thoughts

Tracking lead, customer and employee engagement scores is crucial to growing your business. These scores help you focus on the right deals, improve customer loyalty and motivate your team.

Try Pipedrive free for 14 days to input your customer data and learn how to quickly spot which leads are most likely to close. Start using engagement scores today to work smarter and grow faster.