Providing the optimal customer experience is key to the success of your business, but such a broad concept can often be difficult to break down into measurable, trackable elements. We’re often faced with the question, “what exactly do we need to measure?” So we’ve complied a list of the most important things you should be tracking to optimize your customer experience.
What is the customer experience?
This diagram shows that the customer experience is a complex, multifaceted concept. While this might be potentially daunting, it also means that there’s a huge opportunity to impact the whole experience in many ways. It’s simply a case of breaking it down into specific metrics.
1. Conversion Rate
This is the percentage of interactions made by customers that result in completed sales or transactions. Basically a conversion is when your customer or user takes an action you want them to take.
Why should you measure this?
Conversions go a step further than simply being an indication that your users or customers like your product or service. It’s arguably one of the most important metrics in business to determine the effectiveness of your customer experience. The higher your conversion rate, the more likely it is that your customers find your offer appealing, and the more likely they’ll come back to you.
How can you measure this?
Depending on your business, you should first define the goals that you’d consider conversions. Conversion rate is the total number of completed transactions/sales divided by the total number of transactions (total completed transactions / total number of interactions). You can calculate this by using a third party tool such as Google Analytics, Piwik, Clicky, or other web analytics tools.
2. Customer Churn Rate
Though this metric is more relevant to SaaS companies, it’s still key in analyzing your customer’s lifetime value. It’s loosely defined as your ‘customer turnover’ and refers to the percentage of your customers that don’t remain loyal to your company.
Why is measuring this important?
Your customer churn rate is a good indication of whether your product or service meets customer expectations. It’s ideal to have renewed contracts or continuous purchases as it increases the value of each customer and potentially reduces your acquisition costs.
How can you measure this?
Presumably you’ve got a CRM system that collects and stores all your customer data. You can calculate your customer churn rate by dividing the number of lost customers by the total number of active customers over a certain period of time ([Lost customers/total active customers] / time).
3. Net Promoter Score
This is the score that indicates your customers’ willingness to share your product/brand with others.
Why is measuring this important?
Though it’s only a single question, it’s a simple and effective way to gain insight into your customers’ opinion of your product or service – and identify your potential brand advocates. NPS give you insight into customer loyalty and whether or not they’d want to be openly associated with your brand.
How can you measure this?
The best way to measure NPS is using customer surveys. The survey typically includes only one question: “how likely are you to recommend (your product name) to a friend or colleague?” This question is then answered using a scale from 0-10.
Your NPS score is a result of the percentage of promoters subtracted by the percentage of detractors and will be between -100 and +100. This means that if your customers rate their experience as 9 out of 10, your score will still be +100. And if they rate you between 0 and 6 your NPS would be -100.
4. Customer Effort Score (CES)
This metric determines the relative effort that it takes for a user or customer to work through a specific action.
Why is measuring this important?
Generally, your customers want to achieve their goals without having to work too hard to do so. So depending on the amount of effort it takes for your customer to complete an action, there’s always the possibility that they’ll drop-off if it takes too long. The less effort required, the more likely the action will be completed – and the more likely your users will have a positive experience.
How can you measure this?
The most effective way to measure your CES is by using a post-interaction survey. In this survey you would ask your customers how much effort it required for them to complete an action and whether they felt it was worth completing in the end. The qualitative feedback you receive will help you make changes to improve the customer experience.
5. Customer Satisfaction Score
This is the average satisfaction score given to you by your customers for a particular experience.
Why is measuring this important?
By analyzing your customer satisfaction, you’ll get the insights needed to optimize and improve your product or service. In doing so, you’ll be able to adjust your offer to meet the needs of your customers and, therefore, increase the chances of repeat business.
How can you measure this?
You can measure customer satisfaction through a survey that asks your customers to rate their overall level of satisfaction on an emotional scale. For example, a scale that rates your product or service from ‘hate’ to ‘love’ would be an ideal way to do this. Certain companies prefer to make it more personal, and instead opt for smileys to reflect a particular feeling. With a solution like Usabilla you can gather passive or active feedback from your customers. This can either be on specific content, your products and services, or their overall experience.
Conclusion
There are many other metrics you can look at when optimizing your customer experience but this selection is a great place to start. By creating an experience driven by your customers’ feedback and opinions you’ll be able to directly improve the positioning of your service or product. Above all this qualitative data will make clear which elements you need to improve to provide a positive customer experience.
Are there any other metrics you use to optimize your CX? Share them in the comments section below or tweet us @usabilla.
The post Which Metrics Are Most Important for Optimizing CX? appeared first on Usabilla Blog.
