“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” said Peter Drucker, a well-known management consultant, and educator who delved into the nucleus of businesses for them to operate optimally.
When thinking of optimal business practices— and therefore, success— you may initially consider things like amazing products, friendly employees, and value-driven sales. Do any of those things matter if you can’t measure the continual changes in the experience customers have with your company?
Here are four items that customer experience and satisfaction measurement can help with:
- More Sales
- Defined Priorities
- Engaged Employees
- Improved Customer Satisfaction
Why Customer Experience Measurement is so Important
Measuring the customer experience with customer satisfaction surveys, onboarding surveys, net promoter surveys, and churn surveys is one of the most important initiatives a company can undertake. That’s because when it’s appropriately collected and acted upon, feedback can be used to improve your products and services, refine your marketing message, inform your sales strategy, and more.
However, measuring the customer experience can come with considerable risk. Making decisions with bad data, frustrating customers with too many surveys, sending surveys that are not well designed, or failing to act on the feedback collected can all undermine the very relationships you intend to improve.
With that said, if your company isn’t inviting customers to formally provide feedback, you will be missing out on a goldmine of valuable information that can inform all areas of your business.
Let’s look at three areas that benefit greatly from measuring the customer experience:
Measuring Customer Experience Drives Sales
Companies often overlook the impact their customer experience program has on new customer acquisition. But what our clients find is that the data and insight we uncover are key ingredients in the sales process. Here’s why.
When you’re dedicated to cultivating strong customer relationships, customer satisfaction, and loyalty increase. As a result, existing customers become more willing to serve as references for new sales opportunities and these loyal advocates begin sharing their experiences with their peers. Ultimately, this equals shorter sales cycles and higher close rates.
Another benefit of measuring the customer experience is the competitive intelligence you’ll uncover. Take, for example, the responses to your open-ended survey questions. When we’re analyzing verbatim feedback, we often read comments that highlight competitive advantages or gaps identified by customers. We also discover insights into how our clients are perceived in the market compared with alternatives. This knowledge is then transferred to your sales team who can use it to refine their sales pitches.
Put simply, as you increase the percentage of loyal, happy customers, your sales will see increased benefits because of your company’s improved reputation.
Measuring Customer Experiences Helps Define Priorities
Every day, your senior leaders are making decisions about how to run the business. Is customer input helping to guide decision-making?
Many times, companies tackle perceived problems based on anecdotal evidence when they really should be turning to reliable, measurable data to determine the improvement opportunities that will offer them the greatest ROI.
Relying on customer feedback to guide your strategic initiatives takes the guesswork out of doing what’s best for your business. For example, will you soon be launching a new product? Gathering customer feedback will ensure time and money are not wasted on features and functionality customers don’t value.
Here’s another tip – form a voice of the customer championship team. This cross-functional group of employees is tasked with digging deep into the feedback captured from your voice of the customer programs to identify the root cause of customer pain points. The team then shares their recommendations on how to tackle certain initiatives to maximize the impact. This leads us to the next point…
Measuring the Customer Experience Produces More Engaged Employees
People gravitate toward and become more loyal to things when they feel invested in the growth and improvement of that mission.
The same is true with positive customer experiences: creating them, and receiving affirming feedback, creates space for employees to feel good about your company’s mission and their part in achieving those goals.
Think about it. Employees naturally prefer to work with happy customers, not angry ones. And, employees prefer to work for companies that are well-regarded in the industries they serve.
The bottom line is that it all comes full circle— happy employees lead to happy customers.
Give Customers a Good Experience
Positive customer experiences are the lifeline of your company, keeping it fueled and thriving.
It’s not enough to stop there, though. You must continually seek out and measure the customer experience in order to build a culture committed to continuous improvement.
How effective is your company’s customer experience program? Contact us today for a complimentary consultation.