The pandemic deprived many of engaging in physical experiences for too long, driving a heightened need for customers to connect with live people and physical experiences. However, this hunger highlighted the importance of brands in delivering a high level of service and overall positive customer expectations. A key challenge in meeting these needs is the growing labor shortage and the recent disruption in the supply chain, forcing brands to rethink their brand experiences.
However, with such a significant impact on a brand’s performance, it’s surprising that most organizations do not have a unified and well-measured view of the customer experience based on our own return on experience study. Our research identified numerous roadblocks as a result of siloed corporate structures, a lack of skills and capabilities, and competing priorities. When these factors are combined with inconsistencies in measurement tools and misaligned metrics focused on ROI versus ROX, leaders face significant challenges in ensuring their organization measures the progress they are making in driving customer and employee loyalty.
The evaluation process must also go beyond traditional NPS thinking. According to a Statista study, the Net Promotor Score is the most popular metric for measuring customer experience, with 89 percent of respondents using this metric. We have outlined an assessment process supported by a worksheet to ensure organizations are measuring and developing customer and employee experiences that drive top-line and bottom-line growth, leveraging the many studies and assignments in driving transformation customer and employee experience change.
Five Steps To Assessing Your CX (Customer And Employee Experience) Program
The steps that follow may appear intuitive and common sense, but they are frequently overlooked or partially implemented due to decision biases or a lack of executive alignment.
Aligning The Right Team
Customers and employees do not distinguish between good and bad experiences based on whether they were driven by operations, human resources, marketing, or the organization’s leadership. Experiences are assessed based on how well all of these business units deliver on the brand promise and meet end-user expectations. As a result, any initiative to assess and track the performance of CX must include a cross-functional team representing all departments that have a direct impact on the experience.
The initiative must adhere to the same procedure as any other company-wide transformational initiative. A project charter and assigned leader must be formalized, with key department representatives from across the organization included. Once the critical team members have been identified, creating a formal project charter is critical to ensuring alignment, as well as C-Level support and approval.
Choosing The Right Data And Metrics
With the CX team in place, it’s time to investigate all available data, including those that aren’t being tracked, such as customer sentiment analysis, which is new to the measurement game. The worksheet provides a broader list of what should be included in your CX assessment in order of priority, and we have provided the following high-level summary leveraging our levers of change model:
- Structure: Do the channel, operational, and staffing systems, as well as their integration into the experience, meet the needs of customers and employees? This includes both physical and digital assets that help to create value for customers and employees. The structure also investigates the impact of new products, services, or methods of interacting with customers, such as the metaverse. Metrics in this category include utilization, customer growth segments, loyalty, ROI, operating cost, and more.
- Process: Does the experience have the right strategies in place to eliminate friction points in delivering value to customers and employees? Process metrics encompass not only physical assets but also all banking channels, from assisted and mobile to online. This stage of the measurement process includes metrics for retention, visitation, loyalty, basket size, frequency, channel usage, transaction margins, and more.
- Message: Are the brand’s positioning, marketing, and communication efforts reaching the key target group and driving market differentiation? Are the right messages aligned with the customer journey and key moments of truth that deliver the most value to the key target group and employees? This section evaluates brand awareness, recognition, and intent, as well as message recall and intent to expand the number of products and services. These metrics go far beyond traditional advertising and social media metrics and include employees who live up to the brand promise.
Identifying The Current Points Of Friction
Following the identification of a list of metrics across the three change levers by the working group, the next step is to determine which are readily available and which will necessitate new measurement processes. Identifying industry benchmarks that allow a more in-depth understanding of how the organization’s experience compares to competitors and other industries is also an important factor in measuring CEX.
The organization should conduct a benchmark CX study as the foundation of the organization’s current state, as well as a reference point as these measurements are implemented. Online studies, as well as new emerging sentiment smartwatch research platforms, are excellent resources for gaining deep insights into the cognitive and emotional states of the customer and employee experience. The study should also be part of a quarterly study that will eventually lead to a yearly analysis.
Map Out The Existing Customer Journey
Through the Attract, Transact, and Retain stages of building brand loyalty, this process should identify potential friction points in the customer experience. This process is described in greater detail in our white paper on customer journey mapping. The exercise must investigate both front and back-of-house processes, as well as the roles of humans, technology, and physical experience. This stage would conclude with a detailed view of the customer journey, the metrics used to evaluate the experience at each point of truth, and the friction point that the metrics must measure.
Scaling The Right Tools And Capabilities
Following the completion of the previous stage, the working team must gain internal support for the implementation of the various measurement tools across the entire customer and employee experience. This will include working on socializing the program, metrics, and why they are used. If these metrics are not adequately measured, key insights from phase two benchmarks and the gap analysis will help frame the organization’s risks.
Furthermore, when key performance indicators do not meet the benchmark or indicate vulnerability, this stage must implement an action plan. Monthly review meetings should be initiated to ensure that the assessment process remains high on the priority list and is included in the quarterly and yearly business reviews. Creating this assessment of CX tools and processes will ensure the organization remains nimble and agile, adjusting its brand experience as new insights emerge. We recommend creating a field guide to ensure the program’s value and consistency, regardless of changes within the project team.
Conclusion
The key to monitoring and evaluating a brand’s experience is to ensure consistency, as well as strategies for aligning performance against key areas of opportunity. Customers are no longer judging a brand based on its competitors, but rather on previous positive or negative experiences, so organizations must monitor how their CX is performing. Our free guide to seamless CX helps put your company in a position to evaluate the steps to move toward a seamless customer experience.
