5 Powerful Ways to Measure Customer Experience
Making assumptions when it comes to measuring customer experience can be really dangerous for your company’s short-term customer satisfaction and long-term growth. According to Time, 80% of surveyed companies say they deliver “superior” service. Yet only 8% of consumers think these same companies deliver “superior” service. This leaves them with a big performance gap that needs some immediate attention. Statistics like this illustrate a common though misguided approach to customer experience, basing it more on feeling and less on data.
Assuming is a thing of the past. Today, we have the technology and means to get real-time feedback from customers, engage them in surveys, and track key components of customer satisfaction. These five customer experience metrics can help you get started.
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Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS is the percentage of customers that would recommend your company, products, or services. This powerful metric focuses on long-term happiness and can even help you predict customer behavior and company growth. A customer survey is the most common avenue to gather this information. Include the question: How likely are you to recommend this business to a friend or colleague? Allow customers to rate you 0-10. Promoters are anyone that rated you 9 or higher. Detractors rate you 6 and under. Subtract your percentage of promoters from your percentage of detractors.
Target NPS varies from industry to industry. Get an idea of your industry’s average with this helpful chart below.
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Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
Customers rate you based on a specific experience they had, like returning a product. CSAT can help you identify root causes of reoccurring issues plaguing your bottom line and loyalty numbers. It’s a great metric to use in conjunction with NPS because it focuses on short-term happiness, giving you a fuller picture of customer satisfaction. Think of NPS as a high level view and CSAT as a means to dig into the finer points of your operations.
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Customer Effort Score (CES)
You know what customers really love? When you make things easy for them. CES helps you understand the effort your customers exert when accomplishing a task, such as finding a product on your website or getting a support request resolved. This metric is flexible, so it can be applied across any process or interaction you have, making it a compelling collector of valuable, specific information. Implementation can be as simple as adding a one-question survey at checkout like, The Company made it easy for me to find the item I was looking for and then ask them to rate from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”
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Customer Churn Rate
The percentage of customers who stop doing business with you, either by not making a repeat purchase or by cancelling their recurring service, is your customer churn rate. Churn is a growth decelerator. Comparing against some of the other metrics above, you can start to understand why you’re losing customers and then develop an informed plan to combat it. Select a period of time, like the previous quarter, and divide the total number of lost customers by the total number of active customers. As you make improvements to your customer engagement process, be sure to revisit your churn rate to see if your changes are working.
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First Call Resolution (FCR)
While FCR can certainly influence many of the metrics above, it’s a powerful customer satisfaction metric in its own right. At the end of a call or chat session, ask the customer, “Have I fully resolved your issue today?” and record the answer in your ticketing system or CRM. Get a snapshot by dividing the total number of calls resolved correctly on the first attempt by the total number of calls in a given period of time.
Make it easy for customers to give you feedback and they will. Gather real data and real suggestions of where to make changes that create the most impact on customer experience and satisfaction. It can be stressful to hear the complaints and pain points, but honest and thoughtful communication with your customers will help you retain more customers and grow your company.