Customer Experience Analytics Playbook for 2023

Celia Cerdeira at Talkdesk explains why customer experience (CX) might be one of the most important business priorities in today’s market.

To win new customers as well as retain existing ones, your organization needs to provide a great experience that delights customers and goes above and beyond their expectations.

But, how do you do this? It turns out that measuring customer experience analytics and acting upon your findings is one of the best ways to start.

These metrics provide a view of your company’s current state of CX, which can, in turn, give your organization a clear path forward toward better customer service, more retention, and more business growth.

What is Customer Experience Analytics?

Customer experience analytics measure your customers’ experiences, needs, and overall perception of your brand. To gather CX analytics, teams look at various forms of customer engagement.

They can look at direct feedback, like reviews and survey responses, to gauge what customers think of their experiences.

Customer experience analytics are also collected through indirect feedback, such as how well your organization’s contact centre is meeting your customers’ needs, along with other types of general business success metrics.

What Does Customer Analytics Use to Measure CX?

Direct and indirect feedback are the two main types of feedback that measure customer analytics. To collect direct feedback, organizations send out surveys, asking customers questions about their satisfaction with the brand, how likely they are to promote the company to a friend, and other direct questions.

To collect indirect feedback, organizations measure their business performance, as it relates to customer retention. They often measure retention and churn rates, along with examining contact center interactions for signs of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Direct Feedback.

Direct feedback can be a great way to determine the success of your customer experiences. It means that you are directly going to your customers and asking for their opinions through surveys or interviews.

Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Net Promoter Score is one of the most commonly-used CX metrics. It uses questions such as “how likely are you to recommend this product/service to a friend or family member?”

Knowing whether or not your customers are interested in promoting your brand by word-of-mouth, you can determine if your customer experience is excellent, or if it needs improvements.

After all, we are all more likely to tell others about a product/service that solved our problems, provided personalized customer service, and brought us delight.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT).

Customer satisfaction, another common CX metric, measures a customer’s perception of a specific interaction with the brand.

Businesses usually collect CSAT measurements directly after a brand interaction, such as a product/service purchase or a conversation with the organization’s contact centre.

They send out a one-question survey, asking the customer about their experience. This question might be “were you satisfied with ___?” (Yes/No), “on a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with ___?”, or something similar.

CSAT is a great way to measure the quality of your customer service efforts and the overall perception of your brand.

While it can’t predict retention (as a customer could be satisfied with a product/service but decide to never buy from you again), it is a good indication of churn. If CSAT is high, then it usually follows that the churn rate will be low.

Customer Effort Score (CES).

Customer effort score measures how much effort it takes to perform a task with your brand, such as contacting your call centre agents or making a purchase.

If this process is complicated or confusing and as a result your CES is low, then this is a strong indication of a poor customer experience. CES is usually collected by asking customers to rank their interaction with your brand on a scale from “very difficult” to “very easy”.

Voice of the Customer (VOC).

Voice of the customer generally refers to the metrics that are used to capture what customers are saying about the brand.

A few examples of how to collect VOC metrics include pen-text comments in the customer feedback surveys you send, as well as customer comments on social media and on review sites and forums. Sometimes, a business will also measure VOC by conducting one-on-one interviews with customers.

Indirect Feedback.

Indirect feedback, by contrast, looks for indications of good or poor CX based on related metrics from across the company.

For example, businesses might look at general contact centre metrics or measurements of spend, churn, and customer lifetime value to determine whether their CX is effective.

Average Handle Time (AHT).

Average handle time is a metric used within call centres, specifically. AHT indicates the average length of customer interaction.

A low AHT can be a sign of a good CX because it means that agents are solving problems adequately and efficiently, with a minimal number of call escalations. As a result, the customer on the other end has a better experience because they spent less time solving their problem.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

Customer lifetime value is a great way to understand your business’s customer experience quality. CLV is calculated by:

1. Specifying which touchpoints throughout the customer journey add tangible business value.
2. Facilitating well-integrated records to measure revenue at each of these touchpoints.
3. Adding up the revenue at each of these touchpoints, across a customer’s full history with the business.

Average Customer Spend.

If a customer finds their experiences with your company to be satisfactory, then they are likely to spend more money with your brand.

This is why average spending is another indirect metric to add to your CX analytics toolbox. Average spend is calculated by multiplying your customers’ annual average spend per purchase by your brand’s overall yearly purchase frequency.

Customer Churn Rate.

Customer churn rate indicates your company’s level of attrition during a specified period of time. If you have a high rate, this could mean that your company is not providing a good customer experience, simply because customers are leaving your brand and searching for a better experience elsewhere.

Customer Renewal Rate.

Customer renewal rate, on the other hand, measures the number of returning customers during a specified period of time.

A high renewal rate is a strong indication of excellent CX because it means that customers are satisfied with your overall brand experience and want to return to it.

Voice and Chat Metadata, Transcripts, and Analysis.

Data from voice and chat can be a good way to measure the success of your CX program as well. For instance, if your company sorts through the transcripts and finds that customers are consistently bringing up complaints about a specific aspect of your product, then that is a good way to determine that the CX around that product needs to be improved.

Social Listening.

Social listening means keeping an eye on social media channels to find customer feedback or direct mentions of your brand.

It goes beyond simply monitoring your own channels and requires you to look at your competitor’s channels as well. These mentions can bring valuable insights into the success of your brand’s customer experience.

Customer Review Monitoring.

Customer review monitoring means watching out for customer reviews posted to third-party websites, and using what you find to help you improve your customer’s experiences.

Why is Customer Experience Analytics Important?

Customer experience analytics enable your company to truly understand the status of your overall customer experience, along with how it can be improved.

By seeing trends and patterns across both direct and indirect feedback, then acting on what you find, you’ll build out a better customer journey and create a more positive experience with your brand as a whole.

How to Use Customer Experience Analytics?

Customer experience analytics can be used for several different purposes like improving customer experience, reducing churn rates, and boosting business success and quality of products and services in general.

Improve Customer Experience.

CX analytics are intended to help businesses improve their customer experience. By taking the time to deeply understand if customers are hitting roadblocks at any point of their journey, companies can figure out where their customer experience needs improvement and determine a specific plan for doing so.

Reduce Customer Churn.

An excellent customer experience can directly contribute to reducing the churn rate. If people are enjoying the product or service as well as the customer support that they receive from a brand, they are more likely to stay loyal to it.

Increase ROI.

Customer experience analytics can provide a roadmap for companies to understand where to invest their time and resources.

These metrics give direction on what aspect of the brand experience can be improved. Because CX analytics provide more precise direction on how a company can grow and improve, they end up increasing the company’s overall ROI.

For more information about Talkdesk - visit the Talkdesk Website

About Talkdesk

Talkdesk is a global customer experience leader for customer-obsessed companies. Our contact center solution provides a better way for businesses and customers to engage with one another.

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Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.

Author: Talkdesk