If your spouse or partner sat you down and told you they feel like you tune them out and don’t care about them, you’d know that your relationship was in imminent danger if you didn’t adjust your behavior. That’s the situation many entrepreneurs are currently in with their clients.
More than half (62 percent) of consumers believe businesses should care about them more, and 63 percent say companies could stand to improve in terms of listening to feedback, according to the 2022 Global Consumer Trends study conducted by Qualtrics XM Institute.
It’s clear that businesses must focus on delivering a better customer experience (CX). However, if you’re just starting your CX enhancement efforts, you might not know how to assess your current performance and identify areas for improvement. After all, how do you quantify an experience?
Key Performance Indicators to Track
There are various kinds of CX metrics you can assess and track to get an idea of whether you’re succeeding at delivering the types of experiences that lead to sales and lasting customer loyalty. Here are a few key performance indicators that industry experts recommend keeping an eye on to see where you stand and how you can do better.
1. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT): Your customer satisfaction scores can come from client surveys or other forms of feedback like reviews and mystery shopping evaluations, according to the Gartner article, “How to Measure Customer Experience.”
2. Net promoter score (NPS): This measurement reflects how likely your clients are to recommend you to others, according to the HubSpot blog, “How to Measure Customer Experience and 6 Metrics to Help You Do It.” To calculate your NPS, send out a survey asking customers if they’d suggest that a friend utilize your products or services on a scale of 1 to 10. Scores from 0 to 6 count as detractors, while 7 to 8 is neutral, and respondents selecting 9 or 10 are your promoters. Subtract your percentage of detractors from your percentage of promoters to determine your NPS.
3. Churn rate: Your customer churn rate reflects how many cancel their subscriptions or contracts within a set period, HubSpot explains. To calculate it, count the number of clients who “churned” during a certain amount of time (e.g., a quarter) and divide that by the total amount of customers you had at the start of that period.
4. Wait times: In addition to surveying clients to see how they feel after engaging with your company, you should also analyze performance indicators that offer insights into what occurs during those interactions, according to the Forrester blog, “Measure Three Types Of Customer Experience Metrics.” Long call wait times aren’t typically associated with good experiences and signal issues with call or contact center operations.
5. Customer retention rate: This is essentially the opposite of churn rate: It’s the percentage of clients that still engage with your business at the end of a certain period.
6. Support ticket handling time: How long does it take your team to respond to and resolve support tickets? Assessing this metric will contribute to the big picture of CX for your clients, according to HubSpot. You can also analyze your tickets to see if the same issues show up repeatedly and then take steps to address those common pain points.
7. Employee engagement: Good customer experiences start with happy employees. Subsequently, employee engagement (often determined by regular surveys) can be an essential part of the puzzle when measuring CX, according to Gartner.
Author Lori Leonardo is marketing director at Stratosphere Networks. Read more contributed blogs from Stratosphere Networks here.
