How do customers experience your company when they interact with customer service, stores or employees in a branch? Not only large companies should regularly measure their customer experience in order to find out in which areas processes can be optimized and where customers are already satisfied with you.
"Our customers love us!" is a popular motto for companies of all sizes. SMEs in particular often rely on positive feedback from regular customers. At the same time, you are surprised when negative reviews suddenly appear after launching a Google My Business Page on Google Maps or an online store. However, it is even worse when sales drop and the reviews are completely absent. In this case, it can be assumed in many cases that even previous customers were dissatisfied with the customer experience.
Many companies do not realize that the shopping and interaction experience can be measured. Specialized marketing agencies use various key figures to measure the customer experience. However, with a little effort, these figures can also be collected and evaluated within the company.
The customer experience (also abbreviated to "CX") can be optimized by analyzing this data, both online and offline.
The brand image also benefits from an improved customer experience.
According to a survey by the Temkin Group, 86% of all customers who were satisfied with the customer experience would buy from the company again.
Only if your customers are satisfied with the service, product and communication will they become brand ambassadors who naturally recommend you to their friends, family or colleagues.
In order to measure the customer experience, very different metrics systems have been developed in recent decades. They can provide companies with a certain amount of information about a specific sub-problem.
These include, among others:
Some of these metrics may not be suitable for every business , as not all companies operate an online store. If you operate in the service sector, for example, other key figures relating to incoming orders may be more important. However, you should always collect the following four key figures to measure the customer experience.
The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is one of the most important KPIs when it comes to CX. To measure it, customers are asked to rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 5 after every purchase and interaction, with only scores of 4 and 5 being considered positive. The CSAT is then calculated as follows:
(number of ratings of 4 and 5 / number of participants) x 100 = CSAT
Satisfaction is expressed as a percentage of all participants. By collecting the CSAT for different areas such as chat support, purchasing, complaints, etc., you can identify areas with particularly low values.
WRS (Willingness-to-Recommend Score) and Net Promoter Score® (NPS) measure similar things. To be able to measure the customer experience with the first value, check how many customers leave a review after a purchase.
Number of reviews : Purchases with review request = WRS
Although online reviews are not absolutely representative, as it is often mainly disappointed customers who leave a review, active prompts help to collect more reviews. For the NPS (R), simply ask your customers whether they would recommend the product or service to others.
The more actively you solicit reviews without violating the distributor's rules and promising rewards for positive reviews, for example, the more active your customers' review behavior will be.
The customer churn rate (CCR) indicates how many customers have churned in the last financial year. It is very easy to calculate. All you need are figures on how many customers you had at the beginning and end of a financial year or measurement period and how many at the end.
Customers lost in the last period / new customers in the same period = churn rate in percent
A low churn rate is ideal. You should target poor values with new incentives to buy again and special campaigns for inactive accounts.
The Customer Effort Score (CES) is particularly important where innovative products and services can quickly overwhelm and frustrate customers. A poorly structured website or a product that is difficult to use can quickly turn potential buyers or users into dissatisfied ones. The worst-case scenario would be that they don't come back afterwards.
Sum of all stars awarded / number of participants = CES
To determine the CES, actively ask your customers how satisfied they are with a particular aspect. "Did our service help you?" "Did the advice bot suit your taste?" "Are you satisfied with the handling of the product?" All these questions can be rated with numbers from 1 to 5.
A high CES ensures that your customers were satisfied with this aspect of the customer experience.
Only satisfied customers will keep coming back for more inquiries, services or purchases. As a company, you should therefore measure the customer experience and keep an eye on at least some of the various stages of interaction. Further training for employees in the service area, restructuring in the online store or redesigning existing products can not only improve scores, but also multiply your regular customers.