Four (and a half) rules to measure Customer and Client Experiences

The good news is, there’s not much we can’t measure these days, whether it’s the mood of the nation or how fast the Universe is expanding.  And so when it comes to measuring Customer and Client experiences we’ve never had it so good.  So much information, right at our fingertips.

But the bad news is that it becomes very easy to over-complicate things.  Without a disciplined focus on measuring customer experiences, we’ll fix the wrong processes and remain blissfully unaware of what’s really important.  In the meantime, our competitors are turning the right experiences into better business while we’re left wondering why, despite an increase in scores, our Customer Experience Management programme isn’t working for the bottom line.

To avoid falling into this trap, there is no shortage of do’s and dont’s.  However, to make things a little easier, I stick to four (and a half) key rules that keep things on the right track.

Rule number one:  Measure the right things.  Sounds obvious, but it’s easy to make an assumption that the answers lie within the wealth of information that already exists.   Satisfaction scores, sentiment values, sales data, complaints analysis, operational metrics, channel performance, customer lifetime value and product margins all play a part and indeed will provide some useful information.  However, it’s real insight we’re after so we need to use tools like forensic customer journey mapping to ask customers the right questions at the right time.

Operational data may be applauded for reducing average call times, but if that touchpoint is the most important thing to your customer base, making them feel rushed and unimportant won’t be helping to create a better business.

Rule number two:  Be prepared to act on the insight. With the right analysis, good qualitative and quantitative information, overlaid with the priorities of the Customer Strategy, will show what to do next.  Rich and perceptive insight into what it’s really like to be a customer is invaluable.  Measurement though, is not the end-game, it is a means to an end.  There must be an appetite, framework and culture that ensures the right information is passed to the right people to make the right changes;  the right governance will then monitor, measure and report on the impact.

Rule number three:  Don’t let measurement drive the wrong behaviours.  That customer experiences are being measured is great news but beware the unintended consequences.  We need to know, for example, how the very mechanics of collecting feedback influence the scores.

Business units salivate at getting their next set of scores but the motivating factor can be more about hitting targets in Balanced Scorecards than improving customer experiences.  True, an increase in advocacy and satisfaction scores is a worthy aspiration.  But, if the interactions being measured and incentivised are just the ones that provide audits of what the operations manual says should happen, employees’ focus will be in the wrong place.

Track the right information to get where you want to

Rule number four:  Understand why the score is what it is.  A score is but a score, whether it’s advocacy, satisfaction or emotionally-based.  Spreadsheets of data, even ones showing improvements, don’t tell the full story.  Ask “Why?”.  Then “Why?” again until you can’t delve any further.

The real gold is in understanding the links between the qualitative feedback from customers and employees to the quantitative results and how they sit in the Customer Strategy.  The answers then give clear direction about what to do next in a way that works both for customers and the business.

Which brings me to the last (half) rule; it’s not a full rule because it’s simply my unbreakable mantra to stop organisations obsessing about the numbers.  It’s this:  Get the experience right first, and the scores will look after themselves.

Here’s to productive measuring!

Jerry Angrave

Jerry Angrave is a Customer Experience Specialist & Consultant.  He helps organisations to be in a better position to offer the right experiences for Customers and Clients that lead to better business.