CX Metrics: Bridging the Gap Between Customers and Brands!

Expectations, one word with a lot of weightage. While the customer expects best-in-class products and services and a company expects the customer to promote their products and services in a laymen’s language “Word of mouth.” This indeed is a fair expectation from both parties. what plays an important role here is “Experience”

Ensuring a great experience is more than just delivering the products or services. How can companies even gain customers’ trust if they aren't happy with the user’s experiences? In the current time, CX metrics have become an important parameter for companies in developing real-time results for an excellent customer experience. 

Value of CX

Customer experience is often considered as the emotional response that customers give, which can be either negative, neutral, or positive for the delivered products or services. It has the potential to boost the overall business response. A good customer experience signifies the proper delivery of the promises made by the brand. The brand's promises are fulfilled through the consumer experience. Here are the top benefits of investing in good CX. 

•  It boosts brand value among customers by providing them with 100% reliability.

•  A reasonable consumer experience increases the possibilities for retaining customers.

•  As per research, 300% of revenue rises with loyal customers.

•  Gain a competitive advantage and differentiate themselves from competitors. Better CX will ensure that the competitors do not poach loyal customers.

•  Organizations with higher CX have 1.5 times more engaged employees, which automatically influences a better customer experience.

•  Good CX assists in brand advocacy and marketing in the community as customers praise the company on multiple social media platforms.

But what if the customer experience goes into a reverse mode? Research confirms that customers are likelier to share positive customer experiences with nine people, while they express negative opinions to 16 people. Therefore, building touch points with real people on online or offline interactions helps the organic conversion of the brand's growth.  

With the introduction of CX metrics, companies have been relieved in quantifying the customer experience accurately. Today organizations can easily track genuine customer feedback with the help of measuring tools.  

Role of CX metrics in organizational success          

The key objective of CX metrics is to ensure the customers are satisfied, creating a connection with the products and further recommending the products. CX metrics are helpful for a successful journey of the business. Today CX metrics are internationally acclaimed by the topmost customer-centric companies. As per the research, almost two-thirds of companies generate customer-driven data through different CX programs. Nowadays, 65% of companies are efficiently collecting and calculating the cx metrics but less than 20% of companies are good with analytics for predicting future changes. Even small-scale businesses are expanding their growth through the application of these tools. Companies track customer experience by metrics like NPS, CSAT, CES, Churn rate, CLV, etc. Every CX metric is designed to focus on a specific area of measurement, which is why the company should use the metric per its KPIs. These different metrics assist the organizations by:

•  Quickly discovering the pain points of the consumers and course correction by service recovery

•  Selecting a section of high-value customers and preparing data-driven experiences to reward and boost their loyalty

•  Consistent monitoring to spot patterns and trends over time

•  Identifying the churn patterns which helps to comprehend the CX issues 

•  Allowing access to know the effectiveness of marketing strategy (i.e., the conversion rate)

•  Calculating the timeline to reach the final resolution to a customer service issue

By evaluating all these pointers, organizations can stay on top of their operational game, further assisting them in delivering maximum customer satisfaction.

Rise of CX tools in the post-pandemic economy 

The pandemic has impacted overall customer behaviors across all industries and businesses globally. It has transformed the delivery experience's whole system, leading to a dominance of digital presence to analyze CX. In this growing modern economy, 57% of customers don't recommend a business with a bad virtual/remote experience, no matter how well the brand is. Throughout this time, consumers have globally interacted with chatbots, voice bots, and self-service tools. Market analysis has predicted that businesses with outstanding actionable CX have a 17% greater chance of constantly growing every year than others. Due to such reasons, companies are shifting to advance CX tools, especially after the COVID. 

For example, NPS targets to measure loyalty among the sellers and customers by working on emotions and expressions of the transactional aspects. This evaluation helps to understand different groups of consumers based on their spending and satisfaction level. NPS is most frequently used as an organization's core CX metric, followed by customer satisfaction and customer effort.

Many companies using traditional methods have switched to modern metrics due to the increased number of digitally savvy consumers. As per the factual data, around 4% of companies don't have a core CX metric, and just 2% report using none of the CX elements. The remaining companies are also expected to join the digital race by upgrading to CX metrics in the upcoming years. 

Surveys for better customer insights              

CX surveys are a great method to collect real-time customer feedback on the brand, products, and services. The research surveys are easy to understand, with information on the latest trends. Hence it is crucial to design an effective survey method. 

For a customer feedback survey, what is the minimum acceptable response rate: 1%, 15%, or 50%? According to some industry data, a good survey response rate is one that is higher than the norm, which is anything greater than 25%.  Companies opt for the waterfall approach wherein a 100% base can be reached out digitally using email, WhatsApp, SMS, and chat platforms. Further, non-respondent can be out-called using IVR or human interface to increase the response rate. Due to the clear and straightforward definition of steps, the waterfall method can deliver the end goal quickly. 

There are more ways to boost the response rate over surveys, such as

1. Offering incentives to the participants like discounts, gift cards, or raffles. 

2. Giving the customers a gentle nudge

3. Picking up the right time to survey the customers

4. Making the customers feel extraordinary by expressing appreciation.

5. Keeping the survey in a relevant context.

6. Offer the surveys on multiple channels.

For a better user experience, the surveys should be quick and to the point relating to the most critical questions. Otherwise, customers may drop out or randomly answer the questions just to finish them. The more accurate the responses are, the better results the company derives. With an increasing number of people coming from multiple cultural backgrounds, surveys of ethnic minorities are becoming common. Therefore, using different languages helps measure cx in multiple ethnocultural groups.

Top management's perspective on CX metrics         

A survey conducted by QDegrees with several industry specialists/senior management personnel concluded with useful insights and suggestions to enhance CX metrics.

• As per the report, maximum industry leaders use the CX tools to get accurate data related to customer experience. 

• At the same time, some said that it must include more interactive surveys with a simple interface. 

• Few mentioned deriving more data from the rural segments, and data clarification to be available in a safe and protected format. 

• Some others stated the improvement in cost-effectiveness, development of the auxiliary app, and quick calculations. 

On asking about the features, 

• They enjoyed the most on the platform, and a significant number of participants praised the automatic and hassle-free workings. 

• The centralized ticket system has been appreciated by many personnel. They confirmed that the best platform for the digital survey is one with the features of security, scalability, adaptability, and dynamic nature.

• Industry specialists also confirmed these metrics as the best platform for conducting digital surveys as it boost the security, scalability, adaptability, and dynamism of the company. 

• Others praised the Google Cloud, ease of navigation, and features of discussion forums are the best parts of the platform. 

• Industry experts recommend better personalization in the tool with an advanced level of technology. A significant section of the participants further added for real-time response and quick workload speed.

By monitoring the metrics, management can access their brands efficiently with the customers. But the quantitative figures don't serve the customers in the long term. 

One common thing that came out from the survey is that all the participants are sure of increased reliance on these metrics in the future due to digitalization and awareness among customers.

Conclusion

Today companies have easy access to a wide array of data, transactions, and profiles with third-party data sets. Companies are boosting their data and analytics capabilities to harness predictive insights for prospects. Business leaders have implemented these data-driven CX systems that lead to reduced churn rates, increased revenue, and low service costs. The upcoming CX programs in the future will be holistic, predictive, and precise to get the desired business outcomes.

Now the question arises should a company measure the CX through all the metrics? The answer is no, and the company should measure according to the business type. Additionally, the company shouldn't go for customer feedback unless and until they don't know how to go further. On average, companies measure 2.5 CX-related KPIs. Hence it is essential to find the metric aligned with your business, don't go for those with extra complexities. Instead, choosing a simple survey design helps the organization to focus better on fixing issues and improving the results. In simple words, the real-time CX metrics provide the company with accurate data and insights with an actionable showcase of the customer-centric brand.

Source: QDegrees, Qualtrics, Pointillist