How do you measure customer experience?

Competition is stronger than ever and customer expectations are higher than ever. If you want to be successful, you need a convincing Customer experience-strategy. Every customer interaction is important. What the customer experiences with the company has a significant influence on their repurchase and recommendation intentions. Customers will not forgive a company for a mediocre or fluctuating quality of customer experience.

It is therefore of central importance for business development to know how customers experience their journey in order to understand where there is potential for optimization. Gaining insights from customer experiences is therefore a key task. In order to know at all times how satisfied customers were with an interaction, continuous Real-time surveys across all relevant customer contact points. This allows trends and potential in the customer experience to be uncovered at an early stage for proactive, immediate optimization. 

What sounds obvious is currently only a reality for a few companies. According to Forrester's CX Index 2019, 72% of participating companies stated that customer experience (CX) was one of their top priorities. However, barely 1 percent of companies were able to provide a comprehensive picture of their customer experience, let alone in real time. 

Regardless of whether companies, products or services are similar, every customer is different. This is why different customer experiences are created along the customer journey, which nevertheless have the same aspects and dimensions of experience. This includes, for example, satisfaction with the product, ease of use of the service or willingness to recommend the company to others.

Which key figures can be used to measure customer experience?

It is important to know the level of satisfaction with all aspects of your product or service that are relevant to the customer.
For this reason, the customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is very important. For example, if the customer service team is well trained and solution- and customer-oriented, this will be reflected in positive reviews following a customer interaction with your customer service.

The customer ratings are highly informative if the survey is conducted immediately after the customer service received, i.e. event-oriented and transactional, as the memory of the experience is still fresh and vivid. 

How is the CSAT calculated?

The CSAT score is calculated from the average rating of the answer to a question with a rating scale ranging from "not at all satisfied" to "very satisfied". The customer's perception of the service received is assigned the values 1 - 5. 4 stands for a "satisfied customer", 5 stands for a "very satisfied customer". 

The equation below gives you a better understanding of the percentage of overall satisfied customers. If your overall rating is 4 or 5, this correlates with a correspondingly higher customer retention rate.

Many providers are fighting for consumers' favor with innovative products and exceptional services. According to recent studies, the market player that succeeds in retaining customers is the one that guarantees the greatest possible convenience and simplicity in handling the product. What this means: Customers do not want to make any effort to use a product - they do not want to make any effort to complete a task for which the product was designed. The Customer Effort Score measures how much effort a customer had to put in to complete a particular task and identifies areas where a company needs to improve. 

How is the CES reported?  

Send a survey immediately after a shopping experience, service or support received to get a rating. For example: "Did you find the product you were looking for easily?" The answer scale ranges from "not easy at all" to "very easy". Or: "Did it take you a lot of effort to assemble the furniture?" The rating scale from "a lot of effort" to "no effort at all" indicates how much effort the customer had to make before they were able to use the piece of furniture.

To calculate the CES, divide the sum of all customer effort values by the number of customers who took part in the survey. The higher the score, the better. 

The Willingness for Recommendation Score is an alternative to the Net Promoter Score and shows the willingness of your customers to recommend your company, products or services to friends or colleagues. All online platforms (Tripadvisor, Netflix, Amazon, Uber, etc.) use the WRS with the well-known 5-star rating of offers and services. 

How does a company measure the WRS? 

This metric can be easily determined with a survey. The question "On a scale of 1 to 5, how likely is it that you would recommend our product to a friend or colleague?" aims to identify satisfied and loyal customers. Customers whose expectations you have completely and consistently fulfilled will indicate a high scale value. Customers whose expectations you have not met or only partially met will give you a correspondingly lower rating. 

Business flourishes if the company has repeat customers or if they continue to pay for subscription-based services. The customer churn rate refers to customers who do not return or cancel a recurring service. 

How do you measure the customer churn rate?

A company determines the customer churn rate by dividing the total number of lost customers by the total number of active customers:

Providing a positive customer experience at customer contact points, which is measured using CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) and CES (Customer Effort), for example, is a field of action that enables a company to differentiate itself from its competitors. It is able to build sustainable customer loyalty, which is measured by the WRS (Willingness for Recommendation). The CCR (Customer Churn Rate) shows how well a company succeeds in retaining customers - it is frequently used in the telecommunications industry in particular. 

Against the backdrop of falling loyalty rates and an increasing willingness to switch, Customer Experience increasingly important. To offer your customers an excellent customer experience across the entire customer journey, you need relevant real-time data from Transactional surveys. With the customer insights gained, you are able to continuously improve the customer experience.