Customer experience research is probably the activity that customer experience teams spend the most amount of their time and energy doing.
Asking customers for their honest, open and candid feedback is also one the most exciting parts of the job. You never know what you are going to get, until you analyze your customer feedback and especially when you read through your open-ended customer verbatim comments.
Like all research there is a science to it, in how we collect quantitative and qualitative data, in the methodologies used and metrics collected.
So let’s look at the Top 3 Customer Experience Metrics Most Used in Business Today.
- Customer Satisfaction
- Customer Effort Score
- Net Promoter Score
1. Customer Satisfaction or CSAT
The first metric is the oldest, has been in use for decades and is Customer Satisfaction or CSAT. It measures the ‘here and now’ customer reaction to an individual interaction with your company, product experience or recent event.
To measure your CSAT you survey your customers and ask the following question,
How satisfied were you with your recent interaction with this company?
The quantitative scale used in CSAT is a 5-point Likert scale, where 1 is very dissatisfied and 5 is very satisfied.
CSAT is a very versatile metric and can be used in a variety of different situations. It provides insights into how your customers rate their experience, their likes and dislikes or where there is room for improvement. CSAT can also highlight where staff may need additional training or where you may need to apply more operational support and resources.
2. Customer Effort Score or CES
The second metric is Customer Effort Score (CES) and can sometimes be called ‘Easy Score’, as it asks your customers to what extent do they agree or disagree with the following statement, that…
‘This company made it easy for me to do business with you?
The quantitative scale used in measuring Customer Effort Score is a 7-point Likert scale, where 1 is strongly disagree and 7 is strongly agree with the statement that your company made it easy for me to do business with you.
Customer Effort Score can be used to measure how much effort was involved in different customer touch-points and interactions.
Measuring customer effort is important, as research shows that where customer effort is low, customers are more loyal to your company, are much more likely to re-purchase and spend more with you.
On the flip-side, high customer effort results in customer dis-loyalty. Customers are less likely to re-purchase and are much more likely to spread negative word-of-mouth about their experience and your brand. Understanding more about the drivers of high customer effort allows you the opportunity to improve your customer experience and at the same time lower your operating costs.
3. Net Promoter Score or NPS
The third metric is Net Promoter Score or NPS, measures your customer experience to find out out who is happy and who isn’t, by asking a single question…
“Based on your recent experience with this company, please indicate how likely is it that you would recommend our company to a family member, friend or colleague?”
On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all likely to and 10 is extremely likely.
If you survey your customers immediately after a recent interaction with your company, say in the last 24 hours, this is called Transactional NPS, whereas if you survey your customers only once or twice a year to gauge their pulse, then this is called Relationship NPS.
The quantitative scale used in measuring Net Promoter Score is an 11-point Likert scale (0 to 10), where 0 is not at all likely to recommend and 10 is extremely likely to recommend your brand to others.
NPS then breaks down your customers, based on their answer, into one of three categories.
The first category is customers who scored the NPS question a 9 or 10, these are called Promoters. They are your most loyal customers and the most likely to recommend you to others.
The second category is customers who scored the NPS question a 7 or 8, these are called Passives. They are satisfied with your service but not happy enough to recommend you. And are, as such, vulnerable to competitive offers.
Customers who scored you 0 to 6 are called Detractors and are unhappy customers. They’re unlikely to buy from you again and may even discourage others to do so. Detractors are also very open to competitive offers.
Speaking from experience, Net Promoter Score is a very powerful measurement tool. And when adopted as a learning and improvement system by your company, it becomes a driver of positive customer experience change. If you can increase promoters and reduce detractors it will mean higher customer acquisition, greater customer loyalty, all while reducing your operating cost to serve.
Final Thoughts…
By using a combination of the Top 3 Customer Experience Metrics Most Used in Business Today, you can start to predict your customer’s future behaviour, such as are your customers more likely to recommend you to others, repurchase from you or spread negative word-of-mouth about you based on their overall customer experience. How satisfied are they with your products and services, supports and people, and how much effort they had to exert to be and stay a customer of yours. Or it is just easier for your customer to switch to your competitor?
Remember it is true to say…
‘It’s just cheaper and better for your company to serve customers when they are happier, more willing to recommend you and when you make it easy for them to do business with you’.
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