A bipartisan, bicameral group of legislators on Wednesday introduced a bill that would add protections for minors to immigration courts, which currently have no distinct protocols to process

Bipartisan legislation seeks to create children’s immigration court

President Joe Biden is headed to Minnesota to visit a family-run farm south of Minneapolis and hold a fundraiser featuring many of the state’s top Democrats, aimed to

Biden’s Minnesota trip serves as a show of political force against primary challenger Dean Phillips

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders proclaimed October as Arkansas Farm to School Month. The proclamation was celebrated at Forest Park Elementary School in Little Rock as part of nationwide efforts to

CHS among 2023 Arkansas Grown School Garden of Year winners

The annual event will showcase the growth and success of the $323 million industry, which includes more than 60 wineries and vineyards spanning Sussex County to Cape May.

Raise a glass for the return of New Jersey Wine Week

Investors borrowed money to buy health-care institutions and enrich themselves.

What Financial Engineering Does to Hospitals

Farmer David Vipond and others believe White Earth Nation's aim is to stop conventional farming in general and may be focused on the R.D. Offutt farms, just on the east side of the reservation.

Minnesota farmers express concern over future of agriculture near White Earth Nation

The Carrollton High School boys and girls cross-country teams secured a resounding victory in the region championship on Tuesday afternoon at Bouckaert Farm in Fairburn.

CHS boys and girls cross-country claim region title

it will improve his opportunities to farm tomorrow, just like it will for countless other operations in our area and generations of farmers to come.” Also speaking at the event was Michael Van Otterloo, operations manager for CHS. He is excited that the ...

Work begins on CHS’ grain facility in Worthing

DES MOINES, IOWA, US — Chinese agricultural companies and US commodities exporters strengthened ties with the signing of 11 purchasing agreements/contracts worth billions of dollars at the China-US Sustainable Agricultural Trade Forum on Oct. 24.

China, US ag firms sign purchase deals

Get the most recent info and news about CHS on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

CHS Inc., an integrated agricultural company, engages in the provision of grains, foods, and energy resources to businesses and consumers worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Energy, Ag, and Nitrogen Production. It is involved in the operation of petroleum refineries and pipelines; supply, marketing, and distribution of refined fuels, including gasoline, diesel fuel, and other energy products; blending, sale, and distribution of lubricants; and the supply of propane, asphalt, and other natural gas liquids. The company also processes and sells crude oil into refined petroleum products under the Cenex brand name to member cooperatives and other independent retailers through a network of approximately 1,500 sites; and provides transportation services. In addition, it processes and markets grains and oilseeds; and offers seeds, crop nutrients, crop protection products, animal feed, animal health products, and refined and renewable fuels, as well as refined oils, meal, soy flour, and processed sunflower products. Further, the company produces and sells nitrogen-based products, including methanol, UAN and urea, and related products; and offers cooperatives with various loans that meet commercial agriculture needs and loans to individual producers, as well as consulting and commodity risk management services primarily in the grains, oilseeds, fertilizer, livestock, dairy, and energy markets. Additionally, it produces and distributes edible oil-based products. CHS Inc. was founded in 1931 and is headquartered in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota.

The Basics of Debian GNU/Linux

So, what is VSCode? Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is a popular, free, and open-source code editor that offers a multitude of features to enhance your experience. If you're new to the Mac ecosystem and looking to set up a reliable development environment, installing VSCode should be your first move. coding Prerequisites macOS version 10.10 or later An Internet connection Administrative privileges for software installation Downloading the Installer Step 1: Visit the Official Website Open your web browser and navigate to the . Visual Studio Code website Step 2: Download for macOS You'll see a prominent "Download for Mac" button on the homepage. Click it, and a file will start downloading automatically. .zip Step 3: Locate the File Once the download completes, navigate to your 'Downloads' folder to locate the file. .zip Extracting and Installing the Application Step 4: Unzip the File Double-click the file to extract it. macOS will automatically create a new folder containing . This process may take a few seconds to a minute, depending on your system's performance. .zip the VSCode application Step 5: Drag and Drop to Applications Folder Open a new Finder window. Navigate to the folder, which is where installed applications reside. Applications Drag and drop the VSCode application from the new folder to the folder. Applications Verifying the Installation Step 6: Launch VSCode After installing, you can launch VSCode in several ways: : Open the folder and double-click on . Method 1 Applications Visual Studio Code : Use Spotlight Search by pressing and then typing 'Visual Studio Code'. Method 2 Cmd + Space Step 7: First Run Verification The first time you run the application, macOS will ask you to confirm that you want to open it. Click to proceed. Open Step 8: Welcome Screen Upon successful installation and verification, you will be greeted by VSCode's Welcome screen, indicating that the application is ready for use. Setting Up the Integrated Terminal Step 9: Open the Terminal Inside VSCode You can either navigate to from the top menu or press `Ctrl + `` to pull up the terminal panel at the bottom of the VSCode window. View > Terminal Step 10: Choose Your Preferred Shell macOS typically uses Bash or Zsh as the default shell. If you wish to change this, execute the following terminal command: chsh -s /bin/zsh Replace with the path to your preferred shell if it's different. /bin/zsh Step 11: Verify Terminal Functionality To make sure the terminal is functioning as expected, type and execute a simple command like: echo "Hello, World!" If you see "Hello, World!" printed in the terminal, it's working correctly. Installing Extensions Step 12: Navigate to the Extensions Marketplace Click on the square Extensions icon on the sidebar or press to open the . Cmd + Shift + X Extensions Marketplace inside VSCode Step 13: Search and Install Extensions Type the name of the extension you wish to install in the search bar. Click next to the desired extension. For instance, if you work with Python, you might want to install Microsoft's Python extension. To do this from the terminal, execute: Install code --install-extension ms-python.python You've successfully installed Visual Studio Code on your Mac and configured its integrated terminal.

New to Mac Coding? Here's a Quick Step-By-Step Guide For Installing Visual Studio Code on macOS

The funny thing about - working as a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer - is that it has been around for a long time, much longer than in modern . The term literally comes from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe writing where he talks about a paid army of ‘free lances’ back in the early eighteen hundreds. freelancing times I offered Richard the service of my Free Lances, and he refused them—I will lead them to Hull, seize on shipping, and embark for Flanders; thanks to the bustling times, a man of action will always find employment. Despite being written in the eighteen hundreds, the term also can be used retroactively in order to refer to medieval mercenaries that would fight for a nation based on who paid them the most or simply whichever nation you choose to give your alliance to. However, as the word began to get popularity, there were more uses for the word freelancer and it began to apply to more careers that allowed for people to have some degree of agency in their choices. It could be used to refer to a politician who went into office without any form of political affiliation (which is what we call an ) and later people who do any type of work on their own terms without any permanent or long-term commitment. independent That last definition is definitely what applies to the modern freelancer, and the modern freelancer has greatly affected the modern landscape of cybersecurity. According to Time Magazine - at least in the United States - there was a great increase in freelancers, and the need for freelancers in the United States government went up after the 9/11 terror attacks. As Bureau budgets surged in service to the War on Terror, the FBI, instead of hiring sufficient numbers of agents and staff who had relevant experience and lingual and cultural knowledge, turned time and again to CHSs, farming out difficult and dangerous work to like Billy Reilly.—Brett Forrest, , 7 June 2023 freelancers Time On top of all of that, the Internet and other technologies of the digital age emerged and opened up a whole bunch of great freelance opportunities while expanding all of the markets that were available to freelancers. Countries like India, for , saw a boost in freelance work locally and freelancers who could do remote work for foreign companies while bringing in more money for the nation. Online crowdsourcing even grew into a variety of different industries and a bunch of different marketplaces that exist in the modern world. example How has this affected the field of cybersecurity? It has allowed certain companies to hire cybersecurity experts on a job-by-job basis without needing to guarantee long-term employment and it also allows said companies to potentially hire people at more affordable rates. Larger companies might have an easy time hiring a cybersecurity team at market rates or above, but a smaller online business might have a harder time affording such a thing. This has also led to the creation of new job positions, like the freelance cybersecurity analyst job that is now a possibility.

A Brief History of Freelancing and New Cybersecurity Opportunities

The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution

THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY

There are many good arguments for getting used to the command line interface (CLI). However, as a complete beginner, it can be difficult to start, and a new shell session can feel a bit intimidating: Let’s go through CLI basics! Where to Start The first thing you need is a terminal emulator: a program that emulates the text-only access to your machine. Any operating system (OS) will have a big choice of emulators: they are all pretty similar, and the main differences will be: the number of colors supported, available options for font types, sizes, or color schemas, key shortcuts for increasing the font size, etc. At the very beginning, you should be fine with what is available there in your OS or integrated development environment (IDE). Shells Shell is a program that interprets your commands and runs programs for you. It’s a different thing than the terminal simulator we talked about above. In a way, in your graphic interface, you open the terminal, and inside the terminal, you have a text-only interpreter of commands. There are many options available, with subtle differences that can alter the user experience a lot. Zsh Z shell, or Zsh, is a modern and popular command interpreter. Its interface is user-friendly, and there are community packages available that allow you to customize your shell experience: . I have used it for a few years, and most of my CLI habits are adapted from it. Oh My Zsh Bash Bash is a slightly older alternative to Zsh. It’s very common, so you can expect it to be available on many machines that you’ll encounter out there. Many shortcuts from Zsh work there too, but it’s using different configuration files, and the scripting language is a bit different. SH The standard shell. It’s part of the standard Unix commands, and it’s mostly guaranteed to be on any Unix-like machine you will find. Therefore, it’s a safe bet when it comes to writing scripts. The user interface lacks many modern improvements, so I wouldn’t use it for anything besides wiring scripts. What Is My Shell Anyway? You can check your shell with : echo $0 In my case, it’s zsh How to Change Your Shell Every shell is a program and can be run directly from another shell. For example: In this way, you can check what shells you have installed and test them quickly. To change the shell permanently, you can use the command (change shell), in both Linux and macOS: chsh If you lack the shell you want to use, you need to install it first—the exact command depends on your OS or Linux distribution. Building Blocks So, once you have your terminal up and running, how do you use it? Commands CLI allows you to run commands by typing their name in the terminal and pressing enter. Each command is a separate program that offers an extensive interface, and each comes with its own documentation. Likewise, each OS brings its own set of commands, but they share similarities—especially with systems inspired by Unix, macOS, and Linux. On Windows, the standard command line has a very different set of commands, but there are many options available to get a similar interface there as well: cmd Native Windows Subsystem for Linux Git BASH provided by Git for Windows Unix was an OS that became publicly available in 1973, and it influenced plenty of things that came later. Its current specification defines , but luckily you only need a handful of them to benefit from CLI. 161 commands Example of commands: list files in a folder—by default, it shows the contents of the current folder: ls shows the current path in which you are running your commands: pwd changes the directory—by default it goes to the home directory ( recording or screenshot) cd https://asciinema.org/ Arguments Each command can take additional arguments. Arguments are space-separated values that come after the command name. The meaning of the arguments depends on the program. You can read about the different arguments in the command documentation: Options Many standard commands come with different options that allow you to modify the program's behavior. For example, is very often used with the following options: ls —to show all files, including ones that start with —a Unix convention for hidden files -a . —show files in the long format—providing more information -l A common convention is to allow options as separate parameters, , or combined into one parameter, . ls -a -l ls -la Parameters A parameter is an argument that provides a value to the command or one of its options. So for instance, with the example from above, you can provide a path to change the default behavior: —lists files in the workspace folder: ls workspace —changes the current directory to the workspace: cd workspace —shows the file content on the screen: cat file The meaning of parameters depends on the program—at first, you can expect to need to check the documentation a lot. Standard Output Standard output is the text that is added to the command line when you run the program. Its text is shown by the happy path of the execution. The examples we’ve seen so far have shown the standard output of different commands. When learning C++, one of the first things you learn is —the standard output. cout By default, the standard output is just shown on the screen, but you can easily redirect it to a file with the operator. Example: > Error Output Error output is where programs display information about issues encountered during execution. While running commands directly from the terminal, error output and standard output are treated the same—they’re just displayed on the screen. For example, when I try to a non-existing file: ls The difference becomes obvious when you redirect the output to a file: Standard Input In a normal workflow, standard input is what you type into your program. The commands we’ve seen so far are not typically used in an interactive mode. A simple example can be a page that allows for scrolling: man For those with C++ experience, you’ve heard this term for : cin cin >> variable; For many common commands, the standard input becomes especially important because of the pipe operator. Pipe Pipes are ways of connecting the standard output of one program with the standard input of another. This is how CLI achieves the interoperability I mentioned in my . previous article Using pipes allows you to combine different commands in plenty of creative ways—I’ll be showing some examples later in this series. For now, a simple example is: Where: —reads files and returns their content in standard output, cat … —gets the value from standard input, and makes it fit the screen less Similarly, by using the search utility : grep Where: —as above cat … —gets the value from standard input, and filters it to only the lines that contain . grep 1 1 Writing to Files We have already mentioned the operator used to write the standard output of a command to a file. This operator the file with the output we provide. If you would like to it to an existing file, you can use instead. > overrides append >> Working Directory Everything that happens in the command line is done in the context of a specific disk location—a working directory. When you specify relative file paths—for reading or writing—they are resolved from the working directory. Usually, you set your working directory to a top folder of the project you are working on. When you start a new session, usually the working directory is set to your home directory. Running Commands Shell interpreters offer you many shortcuts to speed up your work. With time, you’ll start using them intuitively, without thinking about them. Often, when I screen-share with beginners, I’m reminded that those shortcuts are nothing but obvious—below, I’ll show you a few productivity tricks for working with the command line. I’m using Zsh myself, and these shortcuts work there. At least some of them should work in Bash, too, but it can depend on the exact version and configuration. Don't Type Twice—Use Arrows The main trick to being fast with CLI is not typing everything all the time. The most basic case is to get back a command you’ve run a few lines before. You can do so by pressing the up arrow key. With arrow up and arrow down, you can scroll through the recent commands, and once you find one similar to what you want to run now, you can edit it. This speeds up the whole process a lot because you often run similar commands, with some tiny differences in arguments. Search Older Commands Manual scrolling is fine for getting one of or a handful of the most recent commands. If you want to get something further from the past, however, you can use the search functionality. By default, the command you can use is CTRL + R to begin a search in your command history: Use to Autofill You don’t have to type the entire commands you would like to run. Both Zsh and Bash support the tab key as a way of asking for autofill—they will fill up the command or file name if they are unique or show you all the available options if what you type matches many possibilities. Zsh provides autofill for command options as well. The autofill is a great feature on two levels: it helps you save time on typing, and it reduces mistakes. As you learn CLI, you should make sure to get into the habit of using autocomplete as much as possible. File Names Wildcards You can speed up typing even more by using wildcards to match the names of multiple files: Pager—Less Often, when a program has so much output that it doesn't fit into the screen, it uses another program as a pager—a tool that lets you navigate the output and scroll up and down. Most often, the program used for that is . There are a few things worth noting when you use it. less Simple Scrolling First and foremost, don’t scroll with the scrollbar provided by your terminal emulator. redraws the whole screen of text at the end of the output. less If you scroll up inside the terminal emulator, you will see what was returned by other programs before, not the contents of the file you want to read. Instead of scrolling with the scroll bar (scroll wheel), use arrows up and down to move around the file. Exit Another common point of confusion—how do I leave now? You can leave the full-screen mode of ‘less’ by pressing . It’s often styled as because other programs (for example ) use to start a command. q :q vim : Searching In the command line, everything is text, and text is straightforward to search through. You can search inside the content shown by less by typing , and navigate through results by typing and : /<search term> n N Fancy Scrolling supports other navigation commands similar to what you can find in : less vim —scroll down one line j —scroll up one line k —scroll to the beginning of the file gg —scroll to the end of the file G —down/up half screen d/u Those shortcuts will help you navigate quickly through the file. Are You Interested in Learning More? That’s great! The command line is a great tool to boost your efficiency while programming. You can sign up to get updates from me as I publish other command line-related materials. here Also published here

The Command Line: A Comprehensive Guide

La línea de comandos: una guía completa

La ligne de commande : un guide complet

कमांड लाइन: एक व्यापक गाइड

コマンドライン: 総合ガイド

A linha de comando: um guia abrangente

Dòng lệnh: Hướng dẫn toàn diện

命令行：综合指南

I have just recently improved my terminal setup after learning how to use Tmux. It gave me a way to move faster between projects and even kept my session saved after machine shutdowns. My goal here is to help you configure an environment that will be both beautiful and functional. Let's get to it. What we will set up : a top-down terminal that can be instantaneously opened with a keystroke. Guake : an extended Bourne Shell (sh) with many improvements, powerful command-line editing options, and support for plugins and themes. Zsh an open-source, community-driven framework for managing your Zsh configuration. Oh-My-Zsh: : a theme for Zsh with interface helpers, such as git current branch and execution time. Powerlevel10k : an open-source terminal multiplexer for Unix-like operating systems. It allows multiple terminal sessions to be accessed simultaneously in a single window. Tmux : a famous dark theme created by , a Brazilian developer. Dracula Theme Zeno Rocha Note: the following steps are done in Ubuntu. The same result can be achieved in MacOS with iTerm2 as the terminal. Install Guake When I worked with MacOS, I used , but now on Linux I am using as my default terminal. What I look for is to be able to open the command line in any monitor with a simple shortcut. iTerm2 Guake CTRL + SPACE So if you're on Ubuntu, just install it with . apt sudo apt install guake Choose your shortcut Go to Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts and choose your key to Toggle Guake Visibility. Change your theme to Dracula is one of the most famous themes out there. I use it both my terminal and VSCode. Guake already comes with it pre-installed, so go to Preferences → Appearance and choose Dracula as a Built-in scheme. Dracula Other configs You might also want to change the transparency and height of the window. Check out their documentation for . more Zsh & Oh My Zsh Now, let's install Z shell in Ubuntu. sudo apt install zsh For other platforms, please check . this guide Set it as your default shell. chsh -s $( zsh) which You will have to logout for the changes to take effect. Again, in Guake go to Preferences → Shell and set your default interpreter to . Restart it and you should see the message below. /usr/bin/zsh Choose option 0. We will be setting this up with Oh My Zsh. Installing Oh My Zsh is a framework to manage your Zsh configuration, themes, plugins, and much more. Oh My Zsh sh -c " " $(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh) After the successful installation, you should see the screen below. You are now ready to install autocomplete and multiple plugins that will make your life easier. Check out the available plugins in the . documentation I suggest you start with the following: makes suggestions based on commands you have already made. zsh-autosuggestions: enables highlighting of commands while they are typed. zsh-syntax-highlighting: Clone both plugins to your OhMyZsh custom folder. ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins
git https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions.git
git https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git cd clone clone Now, edit your file to include them. ~/.zshrc plugins=(
	git
	zsh-autosuggestions
	zsh-syntax-highlighting
) Restart your Zsh with . source ~/.zshrc Now, if you start typing, you will see the suggestions and can press the to quickly autocomplete. right arrow key Powerlevel10k is a theme for Zsh. It emphasizes speed, flexibility, and out-of-the-box experience. Powerlevel10k Install the required fonts MesloLGS NF Regular.ttf MesloLGS NF Bold.ttf MesloLGS NF Italic.ttf MesloLGS NF Bold Italic.ttf Configure Guake by opening Preferences → Apperance. Then, uncheck "Use the system fixed width font" and select MesloLGS NF Regular. For more details check their guide . here Clone the repository git --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git /themes/powerlevel10k clone ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom} Then, add powerlevel10k to ~/.zshrc ZSH_THEME= "powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k" Restart Zsh with and follow the configuration wizard. source ~/.zshrc Choose your preferred style on the following screens. Apply the changes to your and you're done. zshrc You will end up with a result like the one below. Tmux & Dracula Theme In this last section, we will be installing with . Tmux Dracula Theme sudo apt install tmux For other platforms, check . this guide Then run it. tmux new You will notice that we have lost the colors we had before. Let's bring them back with the next configs. Install to handle tmux plugins. tpm git https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tpm ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm clone Edit and put this at the bottom. ~/.tmux.conf -g @plugin -g @plugin run # List of plugins set 'tmux-plugins/tpm' set 'tmux-plugins/tmux-sensible' # Other examples: # set -g @plugin 'github_username/plugin_name' # set -g @plugin 'git@github.com:user/plugin' # set -g @plugin 'git@bitbucket.com:user/plugin' # Initialize TMUX plugin manager (keep this line at the very bottom of tmux.conf) '~/.tmux/plugins/tpm/tpm' Reload tmux environment tmux ~/.tmux.conf # type this in terminal if tmux is already running source Now, let's install Dracula Theme as a tpm plugin. Add the following to your file. ~/.tmux.conf -g @plugin -s default-terminal set 'dracula/tmux' # Set 256 colors set 'tmux-256color' Press (capital i) to install it. The default prefix is . <prefix> + I ctrl + b You can now quit tmux by typing and then create a new session with . You should now have Powerlevel10k running with Tmux and Dracula Theme. exit tmux new As an extra, install the following plugins to save and restore your tmux sessions at any time. -g @plugin -g @plugin set 'tmux-plugins/tmux-resurrect' set 'tmux-plugins/tmux-continuum' And now you should be ready to go! Quick commands: Split panes by pressing and . prefix + % prefix + " Kill panes by pressing . prefix + x Switch panes with . prefix + arrow Create new windows by pressing . prefix + c Switch windows by pressing . prefix + number Rename windows with prefix + , Zoom in and out a pane with prefix + z Detach with and reattach with . prefix + d tmux You can check out my configurations at: .tmux.conf .zshrc Please, leave a comment telling me what you think about this setup and if you know other ways I can improve it. :) Resources Guake: http://guake-project.org/ Oh My Zsh: https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh Powerlevel10k: https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k Tmux: https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki Dracula Theme: https://draculatheme.com/tmux Previously published at https://andrebrandao.me/articles/terminal-setup-with-zsh-tmux-dracula-theme/ Disclaimer: The author provides this code and software “AS IS”, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. In no event shall the author be liable for any claim, damages or other liability in connection with the software or code provided here

Using tmux to Improve Your Terminal Experience

Measuring satisfaction – the very concept seems weird. It’s either there or not, what’s there to measure? Yet, it turns out that you can, in fact, measure customer satisfaction, and in more than one way. Why do you need to measure customer satisfaction? The most obvious reason is that customer is the central entity in most businesses, and whether the customer is happy with you or not is a key factor of your success. It is that point on which everything hinges, and while customers may be hard-pressed to define satisfaction, we know how to measure it. Why is customer satisfaction important? . If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it These words by Peter Drucker apply to customer satisfaction perfectly. Indeed, once you find a way to translate this ephemeral concept into facts and figures, you will know how to make it work to your advantage. By measuring, you learn how much your customers are satisfied and can compare this level to a certain benchmark. You will immediately see whether you are OK or whether some urgent measures are in order. In its turn, the increase of customer satisfaction will help you achieve quite a number of other goals: Churn prevention Customer churn is a key parameter that all businesses are afraid of and thus monitor very closely. Churn occurs when your existing customers abandon you. When you notice that your customer churn accelerates, this should trigger very loud alarm bells. The reason is that retaining customers is far less expensive than getting new ones. In fact, customer acquisition costs about as much as retention. Thus, you should try to prevent churn as much as you can, and here measuring the satisfaction and monitoring the trend will help tremendously. six to seven times Increase of customer retention, engagement, and loyalty Satisfied customers are loyal customers. When you are happy with the product or service, you will hardly start looking for a different provider. The importance of customer satisfaction in this respect is difficult to overestimate. A high level of customer satisfaction means high loyalty and retention. On the contrary, poor satisfaction can lead to customer engagement dropping. And when customers become disengaged, they leave. Word-of-mouth marketing and referrals Word-of-mouth marketing, viral marketing – this is something many businesses will kill for. On the one hand, word-of-mouth marketing is insanely effective, on the other hand – it is cheap. Your customers are advertising your business by their own free will with no effort on your side. Well, almost… For viral marketing to work, your product must be worth telling others about. Otherwise, viral marketing might backfire with unpredictable consequences. Obviously, when your customers are satisfied, they are more inclined to share their experience of your business. This is another reason for you to analyze customer satisfaction metrics – you can steer the word-of-mouth marketing and encourage customers to refer your business to their friends, but only when you are sure that they are happy with you. Upsell generation and profit increase Upsell and customer satisfaction are like the chicken and egg – one causes the other, and vice versa. A satisfied customer is more likely to consider an additional service, a premium version, or a complementary product. On the other hand, upsells create better customer experiences and, thus, increase satisfaction. The circle closes. A high level of customer satisfaction opens wider opportunities for upselling, this is why it is critical to measure it. Upsells, in their turn, lead to higher profit – and isn’t it what you started your business for? 7 metrics to measure customer satisfaction Theory should always be supported by practice, and this is what we are going to do now. How do you measure customer satisfaction? The answer is simple – you ask. That’s it, to gather the data you need, you survey customers. However, there is a catch – you need to ask the right questions. Now, customer satisfaction is a complex concept consisting of a whole line of different metrics that allow you to evaluate the general level of your service as viewed by your customers. For each metrics, you need a special customer satisfaction survey. By interpreting its results, you will get the knowledge you need to improve your performance. Let’s look at the key metrics used to measure customer satisfaction and how to gather them. #1 Customer Service Satisfaction (CSS) Customer service satisfaction shows exactly what the name suggests – how the customers are satisfied with your service. CSS can be measured by displaying a chat rating form after each interaction between the customer and the service. For example, enable a satisfaction form in your asking customers to rate their customer service experience on a scale from “Great” to “Poor”. live chat software You can measure CSS on an ongoing basis and observe the trends and patterns. As you gather data over time, you will see where improvements are in order. Usually, CSS surveys also provide an overall score showing how your customers rate your service. If, for example, 90% or more customers rated you as “Great”, there is, probably, nothing to worry about. However, if your score drops to 60-70%, that’s an indicator that you should take some measures. The great thing about CSS is that you can measure it on a regular basis without preparing and launching a special survey. On the flip side, however, CSS does not give you a complete picture of your product and the customer’s satisfaction with it. It only shows how happy the customer is with the particular interaction. Still, this is valuable knowledge that can help you in your strategic planning. #2 Net Promoter Score (NPS) The Net Promoter Score shows how willing your customers are to recommend you. NPS is great in the way that it brings knowledge on more than one level. On the one hand, it shows the viral marketing opportunities. On the other hand, it allows estimating your business growth. To measure NPS, you need to ask just one question: On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague? The results fall into three groups: Detractors (0-6). These respondents are unlikely to become your promoters or even loyal customers. They may even play an adverse role by spreading negative comments about your business. Passives (7-8). People who rated their willingness to recommend you as 7 or 8 are, in fact, hardly likely to do so. However, they will not discourage others from using your product, either. Promoters (9-10). These customers are your loyal supporters that can refer others to you and promote your brand and product. You can run this survey any way you want it – in a chat, by email, on your website. To calculate your NPS, subtract the share of detractors from the share of promoters. Image credit: New Breed Blog What does your NPS tell you? Of course, the higher the better, but there are subtle nuances that you should take into account. First, , department stores getting the highest score. Thus, if you do not get the highest figure, it may be a common trend for your industry. NPS varies greatly between industries Second, while you should aim as high as possible, an NPS score of 60-70 is quite OK. An NPS of 100 means that every single customer is highly willing to recommend you. Does not look realistic, does it? There is one aspect where NPS falls short. While it tells you that you are not performing as you should, it does not tell you why. However, there is a way to find this out, too. Just add a follow-up question to your NPS survey: For detractors and passives: What can we do to improve?For promoters: Thank you! What do you like about our product to rate it so highly? This survey is also a great opportunity to gauge the Product-Market Fit – see whether there is a market for your product and whether your product satisfies this market. You can do it by adding one more question: How would you feel if you could no longer use our product? If you get or more people saying they are going to be very disappointed if your product disappears, this means there is a strong market for you and you can plan growth. 40% #3 Customer Effort Score (CES) Customer Effort Score determines how easy it is for a customer to use a product or service. Again, to measure CES, you need to ask a question. In this case, it is going to look as follows: Overall, how easy was it to..? Depending on what you offer, finish the question with “…have your issue resolved”, “…install our application”, “…have a product returned”, and so on. Let customers rate their experience on a scale from very easy to very difficult. You can even use emojis as ratings if you wish. Image credit: Usabilla blog Your CES scale can have 5, 7 or 10 values, 1 always representing “Extremely easy” and the highest number representing “Extremely difficult”. Your CES will be the average of all your responses. Obviously, the lower the better. Alternatively, you can have only 3 values – . In this case, subtract the percentage of responses from the percentage of and discard the and aim for higher scores. “Easy”, “Neither”, “Difficult” “Difficult” “Easy” “Neither” Why do you need CES? CES gives you an idea of your customers’ loyalty to your brand and allows evaluating opportunities for word-of-mouth marketing. Still, CES has its limitations – it only measures customer effort in connection with a single product or service without forming a complete picture of your business. But don’t worry, this is why we recommend using several metrics for measuring customer satisfaction. #4 Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) The Customer Satisfaction Score is one of the key metrics as it is a rather straightforward way to find out whether your customers are happy with you or not. It is measured with a question that is equally straightforward: How would you rate your overall satisfaction with our product/service? The CSAT is rated on a 1-5, 1-7, or 1-10 scale, 1 usually being the worst experience the customer ever had. Most often, a CSAT survey is offered to complete the customer experience of your product or service. This way, you can get the most relevant customer feedback immediately. The CSAT is calculated as a percentage of satisfied customers in the total number of respondents. A CSAT of 70% or higher is considered good for the business. On the , CSAT usually varies from 60 to 80% depending on the industry. US market The greatest advantage of the CSAT is that it is simple and intuitive. Moreover, since you usually offer a CSAT survey immediately following an interaction with the customer, they are still “in the context” of their experience and, therefore, can give the most realistic answer. On the other hand, customers whose experience was unsatisfactory might simply refuse to answer the survey. This way, you may get results that show a higher percentage of satisfied customers while, in fact, their number is lower. Image credit: Nice in Contact blog #5 Customer Health Score (CHS) Customer Health indicates whether your customer is going to remain with you or is about to churn. Unlike other types of customer satisfaction metrics, CHS does not use customer surveys. It is based on the observation of customer behavior over time. Customer Health uses lots of different factors. For example, you can process the following metrics to measure CHS: How long the customer uses your productWhether they are using one or several productsWhether they are using a free version or a premium oneThe number of upsells, if anyThe amount of money they spent with youHow often they contact your support serviceHow willing they are to participate in other surveysFor B2B products and services – whether top executives are users of your product Of course, for each business, the methodology of calculating and analyzing their CHS will be different with a different weight assigned to particular metrics. What’s important is that at the end of the day you should be able to place your customers into three main groups: healthy, at-risk, poor. It is critical not only to define CHS for each customer but to observe it over time. A healthy customer showing a steady decline in their health score definitely requires close attention. #6 Online ratings/reviews Adding an online review option to your product or service is a great technique of increasing your customer base and boosting your sales. value online reviews higher than product descriptions by brands. 90% of customers We always look for those stars next to the product name and will hardly buy something with just one or two stars. In the context of online reviews, we have two recommendations: Make sure your product is good enough to encourage positive reviewsProvide an option for customers to rate your product and to write a review However, the most objective reviews are usually found on dedicated platforms, such as or . There are even special review websites for where you can rate software products and look up their ratings – or . Trustpilot Yelp Capterra G2 Crowd No matter where you look, the general concept is the same – the higher the better. If your rating is 4.6-5, you are totally OK. The rating of 4-4.5 is also good but suggests that there is room for improvement. If, however, your rating drops below 4, there is definitely something wrong with your product and you need to plan urgent measures. Online ratings allow monitoring your market position in real time and your standing against your competitors. On the flip side, online ratings can sometimes be a bit far from objective as some companies create high ratings artificially while others do not even bother to remind their customers to rate the service. #7 Customer Churn Rate (CCR) Churn rate is the percentage of customers you lost over a certain period. As we mentioned already, getting new customers is much more expensive than retaining the existing ones. Thus, it is important to monitor your churn, too, in order not to miss a negative trend. To calculate the churn rate, you need to determine the period for which you are going to calculate it. Then subtract the number of customers at the end of the period from their number at the beginning of the period. Divide the result by the number of customers at the beginning, and you will get your churn rate. Image credit: Grow blog CCR is a rather comprehensive metric that shows whether there is a problem. Then it’s up to you to find reasons for customers dropping out and take measures – adding new services or adjusting the existing ones, introducing reminder messages, etc. #8 Bonus: Other customer satisfaction and service metrics Customer satisfaction is a multi-layered concept that can be measured from lots of different angles. In a support service, it may be a good idea to monitor such special metrics as first response time and time to close. Customers appreciate it when you value their time, thus, include time-related metrics into your analytical toolset. how long it takes for your agents to pick up a call or chat. Customers do not like to wait on hold, thus keep the first response time as short as possible. If you find that your customer service takes too long to respond, it may mean that you need more agents on board. Alternatively, think of introducing additional training courses for your agents, so that they handle customer requests quicker. First response time shows how long you take to resolve a customer issue. Again, this knowledge is important in the context of customers valuing their time and wanting their issues to be cleared as fast as possible. Time to close shows Most customer communication tools include the options for monitoring and You can follow the trends and patterns and see where improvement may be in order. the first response time time to close. Of course, there are other that you can use to measure customer satisfaction and your overall performance . customer service metrics Decide which are relevant for your business and set them up according to your specifics – and you will have a complete picture of your customer satisfaction level. How to improve your customer satisfaction metrics? Now that you have measured your customer satisfaction, the logical question is what to do with the knowledge you obtained. Make it work for your benefit – use it to improve the quality of your service. Here’s the action plan for customer satisfaction improvement: Choose the types of customer satisfaction metrics that are right for you. Analyze the results to see the points of improvement – you may find that customers have issues with your product, have difficulties in communicating with your support, or consider your pricing strategy far from optimal. Take measures to improve the shortcomings that you identified. Keep gathering the metrics to see whether the steps you took have the desired effect. Bottom line By now, you may feel a bit overwhelmed with the number of metrics and the various methodologies of measuring them. Indeed, measuring customer satisfaction may be a complex task. However, there is a way of making it easier – use customer communication software that has built-in analytical tools. This way, you will only need to set up your communication platform in accordance with your business goals, and it will return the metrics you require in any form you wish – on a visual graphic dashboard or in a separate report. Try , and you will see how much useful information it can bring. HelpCrunch Disclaimer: This post was originally published on the HelpCrunch blog by Daniil Kopilevych, Head of Growth at HelpCrunch. Previously published at https://helpcrunch.com/blog/customer-satisfaction-metrics/

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