When it comes to measuring Customer Experience, you’ll find a lot of companies use one metric throughout the whole customer journey. This could be NPS, C-Sat or another CX metric.
But there can be a problem with a single-metric approach: the metric isn’t always relevant to each touchpoint a customer has with your brand.
Here’s an example. Imagine you’ve called into a Contact Centre to get an update on a delivery. You speak to an agent, who confirms the due date. Then, before you end the call, you’re asked whether or not you’d promote the company.
This type of feedback isn’t necessarily the most appropriate way to measure this customer touchpoint.
You’ve not yet received your delivery. You don’t have any experience of the product. As a customer, you still have other stages to go through before the process is complete.
So if you can’t rely on one metric to measure all customer experience touchpoints, what can you do instead?
A great starting point is to map out a complete customer journey. Go into as much detail as possible and include all the touchpoints they have with you. Then start to evaluate these touchpoints to decide which metrics would be the most appropriate measurement. Consider, as well, that different customer groups may follow different paths, so you might need to accommodate this as you finalise your customer journey map.
CX Rebels Tip: When was the last time you asked your customers how they would describe their journey? Invite a group of your customers to assess the journey you’ve mapped out. Listen to them explain their own experience. By validating your customer journey map with your actual customers, you’ll unlock parts of the journey that you would never consider as an insider looking out. This process will also help you to uncover the touchpoints that are most important from their perspective.
Once you have mapped out all the touchpoints you have with your customers, you can then choose the metrics you use based on how well they suit each touchpoint.
For instance, NPS typically works well at the end of a process, such as finalising a contract renewal, whereas measuring Customer Effort is a good fit for touchpoints that are designed to be easy for the customer to use, like online FAQs.
The key here is to be agnostic and not fixated. Choose the metric that is genuinely the best for the touchpoint, as this will give you clearer insights and help you to uncover what your customers really think and feel.
Reveal the true power of NPS
For many people, feedback is synonymous with complaints and satisfaction. But, actually, it’s equally about Ravers. It’s about empowering the people who love your brand to go out into the world and share their positive experiences.
How many of your customers are telling you they want to promote you? Are you doing everything you can to allow them to do so or are their recommendations falling on deaf ears? By enabling your promoters to promote, you can leverage their social networks and use the power of their reach to grow your own brand. It also proves to them that you’re listening.
“Advocates will do your marketing for you if you mobilise them, listen to them and engage them.”
Marketing Professor Philip Kotler
It doesn’t have to be a complicated system or process. In fact something as simple as providing social media links, allowing them to share their experiences online, can be very effective.
Tap into the hidden gem that is Customer Effort – it’s the new kid on the block
Customer Effort Score is about helping customers to solve their problems quickly and easily. In fact, some people think about Customer Effort in terms of easiness instead of effort.
It’s often measured on a 7-point scale from very low effort (1) to very high effort (7). There’s also the Net Easy scoring mechanism, which measures a ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ response. The real benefit of Net Easy is that it gives clarity and is easy for the customer because it’s a black and white question.
“When it comes to measuring Customer Experience, brands need to concern themselves less with traditional metrics like NPS and C-Sat scores and focus more on making it ‘easy’ to be a customer, in other words reducing the amount of effort it takes for a customer to do business with them. The Customer Effort score measures a customer’s perception of the amount of time and energy that he/she has to spend in an encounter with an organisation. Studies show* that the Customer Effort score outperforms both NPS and C-Sat metrics in predicting behaviour (*reference Help or Hype report). Customers that churn tend to be those customers who have had difficulty in dealing with a brand.”
Professor Moira Clark, Customer Management Director, Henley Centre
Customer Effort can sit alongside other metrics, like NPS or C-Sat, so it doesn’t have to be a choice between one metric or the other. Again, it’s about looking at the customer journey and thinking about the best way to measure the touchpoints.
Read more on this subject, here.
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