Contact centers typically rely on post-call surveys to gather valuable feedback from the customer’s viewpoint. But how do you measure a customer experience that spans multiple touchpoints?
“Keep in mind that customer surveys are not the only way to measure customer experience. Operational metrics can be leading indicators as long as they are tied to your key satisfaction levers,” says Cynthia Grimm, Chief Customer Experience Officer at CX Solutions (formerly TARP Worldwide). “The most important thing is to find the metric that best predicts your customer repurchase and loyalty and stick with it. Stay consistent, and don’t worry about what the metric of the day is.”
Leslie Pagel agrees that companies often rely solely on customer survey feedback as the customer experience metric. “While customer sentiment and perceptions are extremely important, companies must also incorporate customer behaviors into the mix,” she says. Pagel, Vice President of Customer Experience for Walker Information, points to the following three behavioral components that must be considered:
- Product usage, or the way in which the customer uses the products. Product usage metrics include things like product penetration (breadth and depth) and the change over time.
- Involvement, which represents the ways customers interact with the brand—has the customer served as a reference; do they attend user groups; do they follow the brand on social media, etc.
- Finally, and often the most challenging area, companies should seek to understand how the customer engages with the competition. Do they single-source or multisource? What is the share of wallet?
“The way a customer behaves and their feelings toward the brand reflect their experiences,” Pagel says.
