Without measuring the customer experience, it’s impossible to improve. However, we must know what to measure, when to measure and how to use the data collected to maximize its full potential.
As part of a customer service event recently organized by Les Affaires in Montréal, Francis Pelletier, SOM Research Group‘s VP Customer Experience and Innovation, gave a workshop on how to measure the performance levels of customer experience. Here are the main things to know.
Measurement frequency and KPIs
First, note that there are three types of measurement frequency: continuous, punctual and periodic. Depending on the one you choose, transactional, relational, or both KPIs can be measured.
Transactional metrics can isolate the customer’s perception of a particular transaction, a given interaction—a point of contact—in the customer journey. For example, the quality of the customer experience can be assessed when ordering, paying, or delivering.
Relationship KPIs, on the other hand, measure the state of clients’ relationships with the organization since the beginning of the business relationship, based on the interaction history and the related emotions. They help to assess how clients feel about a brand.
Continuous measurement—the one that offers the most potential for improvement—must be anchored on the customer journey and its moments of truth, the crucial moments in a customer relationship. According to Francis, it is at these precise moments that a transactional and relational measurements gain all their meaning.
The CSAT (Customer SATisfaction) and the CES (Customer Effort Score) are examples of transactional KPIs. These KPIs are intended to qualify/quantify a specific interaction. For example, customers may express their satisfaction with the delivery of an order, the level of attention of the agent who answered their calls, today, at a very specific moment. Similar to a Polaroid, the transactional KPI reflects clients’ appreciation at a specific time, not the overall interaction or all the interactions since clients became patrons of a business.
On the other side, the NPS (Net Promotor Score) is the archetype of the relationship KPI. It measures a client’s propensity to recommend a business to friends and family members as a result of an interaction.
Take the example of a visit to the restaurant. Customers will take into account today’s meal in their evaluations. But they will also consider all the other times they had a meal at the restaurant. Attachment to the establishment and its staff will also count, says Francis. All of these considerations will incite them to recommend (or not!) the restaurant based on all the interactions and the overall emotion that emerges from it.
With continuous measurement, we can combine the transactional and relationship KPIs. This shows, for example, that a customer was satisfied at 5/10 yesterday, while demonstrating a high propensity to recommend a business
Following these two KPIs reveals the effect of one on the other. For example, a decrease in the level of service, which is reflected by the transaction KPI and does not cause a decrease in the relationship KPI is not necessarily a problem for a business—at least not in the short term.
However, a negative fluctuation in the relationship KPI shows that poor service accumulated over time can undermine the likelihood that customers will recommend a business and cause damage to the company’s reputation.
Transactional measurements, by definition, focus only on customers who interact with a company. This is sufficient when there is a high volume of interactions like at Starbucks. However, this is not the case for all companies. Hence the need for relationship measurements at periodic intervals—weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually—to gather additional information and above all, not lose customers who may switch to a competitor.
Let’s take, for example, a company like Videotron, which offers Internet service contracts. The only interaction the business has with customers—if they don’t have any problems—takes place at the time of subscription. This lack of communication for a long period of time makes the transaction KPI insufficient because it excludes the silent clientele. If customers never interact with customer service, establishing the quality of their relationships with the business will be difficult, if not impossible.
Imagine that Internet speed degrades over time and that customers remain silent. Dissatisfaction arises, affecting the likelihood to recommend as well as the level of trust in the provider. All without the latter knowing it. That is the real danger!
We must anchor our measurements to the moments of truth and measure the right KPIs at the right frequency. These KPIs must be linked to the promises made to clients, the type of service offered and the emotions that a company seeks to create.
Now, what do we do with all this data? That’s what I’ll talk about in my next post.
Originally published on Les Affaires blog – © Daniel Lafrenière – All rights reserved