Key metrics to include in your CX strategy

What are the metrics for customer-centric programs?

Originally posted on qualtrics.com

Customer experience metrics reveal what customers actually think of the experiences your business provides. This transparency empowers businesses to adapt so CX efforts are optimized and charged for success. 

Here Qualtrics explores the key elements to track when measuring the success of a customer experience program.

Here is what you will learn in this article:

• What is NPS?
• What is CSAT?
• What is CES?
• What are the other metrics?

What is Net Promoter Score (NPS®)?

You will want to know how loyal your customers are: how likely they are to recommend you and buy goods or services from you in future. The Net Promoter Score measures customer loyalty based on one simple survey question: ‘How likely is it that you would recommend [Organization X/Product Y/Service Z] to a friend or colleague?’

Respondents give a rating between 0 (not at all likely) and 10 (extremely likely). You then remove the neutral responses and subtracts the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters to give an NPS score.

NPS is the most common customer experience metric – it is easy to understand, quick to complete and gives a big-picture customer loyalty gauge.

Learn about Qualtrics NPS Software

What is Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)?

You will also want to know how satisfied your customers are with your products or services. CSAT measures customer satisfaction based on a question: ‘How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the [goods/service] you received?’ Respondents use a ratings scale between 1 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).

The two highest ratings (4 and 5 on the scale) are used to calculate a percentage score: 100 per cent being total customer satisfaction and 0 per cent total customer dissatisfaction. CSAT evolved from market research surveys and is easy to understand, simple to use, as well as being rich in insight.

What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?

To boost customer loyalty you will need to ensure that customers can interact with you as effortlessly as possible. CES measures this by asking a question along the lines of: ‘How easy was it to deal with our company today?’ giving simple options: easy, neither or difficult. Subtract the percentage of ‘difficult’ respondents from the ‘easy’ ones to give the CES.

CES is relatively new as less common that NPS or CSAT, but, similar to the other metrics, CES is simple to understand and use, and supplies actionable data so customer experience programs can be adapted quickly.

Learn about Qualtrics Customer Analytics Software

What are the other metrics

NPS, CSAT and CES are overall measures of satisfaction, sentiment and ease, but defining other metrics allows you to dive deep into the areas that matter most for your business or where you can have the biggest impact. You might choose metrics and questions such as:

• Retention loyalty – how likely are you to remain with us?
• Purchase loyalty – how likely are you to continue buying from us?
• Meeting expectation – how much better (or worse) was your experience compared with your initial expectation?

The choice of metric is not as important as you think – companies will not succeed or fail based on a metric. Driving improvement is important – the metrics you choose are simply that, a score you can track to monitor your improvements.

The most valuable metrics are actionable ones. For example, if you measure average response time, you can take action by improving staffing levels or software resources in your contact center, revising your ticketing system or offering better training to your people.

Your CX metrics should form part of a system of action, pointing the way towards the steps you will take to improve CX in your business. And when you do take action, make sure your customers are aware that the improvements you make came from their experiences and their feedback. That is where real customer relationships and lasting loyalty are built.

To explore more content from Qualtrics, visit Qualtrics' customer experience content hub.