What is the ideal customer experience and when do you know you got it right? What should you measure and how should you act? In short: read the comments! As a bonus: do an e-NPS.
The real growth power of NPS is all in the follow-up
Chad Keck
At Maximize Chicago Stephan McPhee from MilliporeSigma and Coen Jeukens from ServiceMax engaged in a discussion with service leaders on the topic of CSAT, CES and NPS. In varying degrees, we all measure customer experience. Though the different metrics may cause confusion in what you actually measure and should do.
What is the ideal customer experience?
If we briefly put aside the metric and look at what (end) customers really want, two things really stand out.
- Get what you Expect
- Walk the Talk
The former means a customer is getting the value it has been promised, the latter ensures the delivery is done consistently and setup for repetition.
Different methods of measuring
To measure customer satisfaction three different metrics are in use. Each catering to a different aspect of satisfaction.
- NPS: will you recommend my brand?
- CSAT: are you happy with the transaction I just performed?
- CES: how easy is it to do business with me?
At present the most popular metric is NPS. Aly Pinder from IDC Manufacturing Insights shared his observation that more and more organisations are leaning towards Customer Effort Score as it addresses the action to remove friction, alias dissatisfaction.
Perhaps what you measure is what you get. More likely, what you measure is all you’ll get. What you don’t (or can’t) measure is lost.
H. Thomas Johnson
Read the comments
Ultimately the actionable result of any satisfaction metric is the most important piece of the process. Throughout the discussion at Maximize the same phrase came back over and over again: “read the comments”.
The numerical value of a satisfaction measurement is single dimensional: it tells you “what” your score is and how it changes over time. The comments to the score tell you about the “why”. Often the comments contain “free advice” on how to remedy dissatisfiers.
In progressive organisations we see an embedded process to review the comments on a periodical basis, linked to their continuous improvement programme.
e-NPS
While most organisations have embedded customer satisfaction measurements in their modus operandi, a growing number of organisations is mirroring the NPS philosophy to their own employees.
Your own employees hold an invaluable wealth of improvement opportunities. Ideas to improve their own work and to be better equipped when dealing with customers. If you find a way to tap into this potential, you will see that happy employees indeed make happy customers.
Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders, in that order
Simon Sinek (leadership expert)
If you want to receive more insights into how ServiceMax embeds satisfaction measurements into every aspect of Service Execution, do contact us.
This article is published in ServiceMax Field Service Digital on November 14th, 2019