15th April 2019
Customer Experience Measurement - going beyond the basics
At 56 Degree Insight we bring a passion and expertise developed over many years working with clients across a range of sectors and areas of expertise. As we approach our launch in June, we will be sharing some details on our offer, our points of view and our recent experiences working in each of these areas. Today, we look at an area where we have a great deal of past experience across many industries – the measurement of customer experience…
For many years, companies paid lip service to trying to understand the levels of satisfaction of their customers. Success was measured by performance in the market, turnover and profit margins. But as businesses and their customers became more sophisticated and the competition became tougher, more and more organisations realised that if they were to gain share and get a competitive edge, they needed to listen more to the views of their customers and seek their feedback on the experience.
Now, almost every organisation undertakes some form of customer satisfaction research – however, bluntly, most customer satisfaction surveys are a complete waste of money! Why is that? Well, research has shown that 95% of all businesses collect some form of customer feedback but only 10% actually act upon it! This is because so many studies contain some broad metrics to measure top level satisfaction but with little linkage to what it means or what actions need to be taken to improve things for customers. This programme is just a measure for the boardroom.
At 56 Degree Insight, we believe that the best customer experience programmes incorporate three characteristics which not only ensure buy-in within the organisation, but make the programme completely indispensable for the business:
Ensure the customer experience programme is bespoke for the business - don’t base the whole programme around a single, off-the-shelf metric or model. Measures such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) are useful and can provide competitive context given all of the benchmark data, but the best programmes are developed from the ground up, ensuring customers are asked about the elements of that business that really matter (e.g. simplicity, trust, preference).
Include emotive measures of how the customer feels within the programme – connecting with your customers on an emotional level is a hallmark of the best performing businesses. By asking your customers how they feel at different points of the customer journey, this identifies and opens up the ‘pain points’ which need to be addressed which will really make a difference.
Don’t look at customer experience in isolation. Link it to your brand and communication messages and to the operational data you have within your business. All elements are interlinked. Too often, the customer department undertakes the customer experience study, and the marketing department conducts a brand evaluation – and never the twain shall meet. Interlinking these different measures, unleashes a power to gain a more complete view of your customers, what they think of your organisation and what you need to do to grow the business.
To find out more about how we can help you to better understand your customers – and grow your business – please just get in touch