We live in the age of big data. There is a massive amount of customer and user data available to you, and it can be difficult to decide what to track and what to set aside. Let’s look into the metrics that actually represent your customers’ experience.
Deciding What Customer Experience Metrics Matter
You cannot measure positive and negative customer experience until you have a baseline for what the typical experience for your customers looks like across the board. One of the most efficient ways to find this is to develop a customer experience map. This map should outline all the different points at which a customer comes into contact with your brand.
A complete experience map could include factors such as a visit to your company website, a face-to-face conversation at a tradeshow, receiving a promotional email, or getting a piece of direct mail. What your experience map looks like will be different for every business. Each point on your map represents a chance to change your company’s customer experience. With proper planning, implementing those changes will give you opportunities to improve your bottom line.
Still confused about what the customer experience is? Take a look at part 1 of this blog series.
Creating your first experience map will likely take some trial and error. There are templates and tools available online to help you get started. Once you’ve got a reliable experience map in place, you will be able to visualize how and when customers start to develop or alter their opinion of your company. Before you set a course for continually improving your customer experience strategy, you have to break down which points on your map are the most important.
Finding the Valuable Touchpoints of the Customer Journey
Armed with your map, you then need to figure which points on the map are worth your time. Quantifying customer engagement across the experience map will help tell you which of the points on the map will be the most valuable for your business to target. It’s likely you won’t have the time or resources to focus on improving all of your touchpoints, so you have to pick your battles.
Start Building Your Net Promoter Scores
One of the most popular ways to start measuring customer experience and satisfaction is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). You can start building your NPS by asking customers how likely they are to recommend your products and services to a friend or colleague. This technique is an excellent way to start gauging the user experience and customer expectations, but it is only one part of the puzzle.
Track Your Customer Support Response Times
When a customer reaches out to your contact center, they are likely calling because they have a problem or are looking for your help. This is a critical juncture in customer service and the overall customer journey. There are many tools available to help you track contact center response times and customer satisfaction following an interaction.
Create Surveys for the Overall Experience
It is a smart strategy to start sending our in-depth surveys to customers who purchase from you regularly and those who have not purchased from you in some time. You can begin to track what keeps them around or what has kept them away.
Be careful in staging these surveys. You need to make them convenient for the customer and simple to complete. Getting these surveys together and waiting for responses can take time, but the results will be worth it. The payoff will be twofold if you can use the customer feedback to confirm your most valuable touchpoints on the experience map.
Start Building Successful Customer Experiences
Once you have surveyed your customer base and identified opportunities for improvement based on the data you’ve gathered, it’s time to start improving that customer experience. With the right strategy and information, you can transform a lackluster base into engaged customers who want to recommend your business to their peers. To learn about getting started on improving the customer experience, check back in with the Affiliated Communications blog soon.
