It is also true for customer experience or "CX", what gets measured gets done. As we will see the measurement is important for several departments and stakeholders of an organisation.
First of all at C-level, incorporating key figures of CX is critical for today's business models as it is providing a true and durable competitive advantage.
Customer Experience , or “CX”, is a multi-layered concept, and to truly understand customer experience at scale, you may need to track at least three key metrics. Together, these provide you insight on how to further improve your CX. These three measures are:
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
Customer Effort Score (CES)
Of course, there is a learning curve to discover how the big three apply to your business. Nonetheless, these customer metrics are robust and are used across industries. They are a corner stone of a strong “CX” program representing the voice of the customer.
How do we define Customer Experience?
Customer experience (CX) is how customers perceive their cumulated interactions with your company.
Important is to perceive that what customers remember is always different of what really (objectively) happened.That is also why you can say that their perception becomes a reality you have to deal with. Their memories will in turn determine if they will renewal their puchase or make positive word of mouth to others.
How do we measure Customer Experience?
Measuring customer experience (CX) requires a bottom up approach across all departments where the customer interacts with your organisation.
A good start is to make a high level survey and gathering data at key points on key questions including the 3 key metrics (Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES).)
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures to what degree the customer would promote the product or service. The customer scores the sum total of their experiences with your company, not just the most recent, making it a good indicator for repurchasing (and growth). Therefore it is often considered a “board level” metric.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) refers to the satisfaction level or ‘happiness’ of the customer at the interaction points. It can be the reflection of multiple questions combining several dimensions. You gain insight on which attributes of satisfaction are most critical to your customers and where rework is needed.
Customer Effort Score (CES) reflects how much effort was needed in the eyes of customer. A good customer experience should be “effortlessness” to avoid frustrated customers.
According to the Harvard Business Review, CES is a stronger predictor for repurchasing than CSAT.
Why do you need the 3 CX metrics work together?
Net Promoter Score delivers the big picture of customer loyalty and relationship over the long-term. CSAT & CES are transactional metrics. CSAT measures overall satisfaction on a number of attributes and CES takes a deep dive on one specific attribute, effort, which is a critical factor for smoothing the customer experience.
To improve customer experience you need to take an "As Is " picture representing the actual situation today.
The next step is to include customer experience in the strategy and reserve a budget for it (cost and future profits).
Improving CX is truly a company effort, investing in a long term relationship with your customers.
The metrics should also be used as an incentive towards the personnel and as a tool to align them across all the departments of your organisation. This will frequently also need a change management approach.
Yves Ovelacq ©
Customer Experience Architect