Sending customer surveys is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to control the experience. The surveys of the customer experience you can capture a lot of data without the added cost of conducting interviews in-person or create discussion groups.
Reasons, why you should measure customer experience through surveys, include:
Accessibility: Online survey platforms make it easy and cost-effective to create and submit opinion polls.
Easy to track: You can see who has opened and completed your survey, as well as send reminders to those who have not completed it.
Reach more people: Interviews and focus groups limit the number of clients who give their opinions. Surveys allow you to reach the majority of your customer base through various survey distribution methods.
Efficient: Creating and submitting surveys through an online platform streamlines the process so you can focus on the data you receive.
Real-time results: See your survey responses as your customers complete it. You will be able to capture and address concerns immediately.
Easy to use: An online survey platform makes it easy to create a custom customer experience survey and analyze the results.
What are the pillars of the customer experience?
The 5 pillars of customer experience are those tools that help you measure your performance at this point.
Once you know how your customers perceive your brand, you can start building a management plan and focus on how to improve the customer experience.
People no longer remember ads, but they do remember experiences.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a question that helps quantify a customer’s brand loyalty. It also identifies your brand advocates.
The question asks respondents to rate the likelihood of recommending a brand to their friends and family. An NPS survey uses a scale of 0-10, where zero is highly unlikely to recommend your brand and 10 is highly likely to recommend it.
Clients are classified depending on their answers. Customers who are likely to recommend your products will rate you a 9 or 10. These customers are known as Promoters.
Those who respond with a 7 or 8 are considered passive customers. Passive customers usually have a good experience, but not enough to actively promote your business.
Finally, the scores between 0-6 come from the Detractors. The naysayers did not have a good experience, and depending on the experience, they may advise family and friends to stay away.
You can submit a NPS Question right after a customer makes a purchase, as it’s a good starting point to help measure brand loyalty and identify your advocates.
Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
Customer satisfaction metrics monitor the overall feeling a customer has of a brand, product, or service.
Most CSAT questions ask a customer to rate their experience after a specific event, such as a transaction. That is why it is considered one of the pillars of the customer experience.
For example, you own a restaurant and you want to know how your serving staff is performing. You send diners a survey right after their visit and ask them to rate their satisfaction with customer service.
Responses to a CSAT question range from extremely dissatisfied to extremely satisfied. This data helps you understand where customers have the best and worst experiences along their journey.
To continue the restaurant example, if your CSAT scores drop when customers are asked about their satisfaction with your serving staff, you can use this information to help build customer service training for their staff.
Customer Effort Indicator (CES)
Like the CSAT, the customer effort indicator measures the satisfaction of your customers, or more specifically the ease of completing a transaction with your brand.
This could include how easy it was to make a purchase, solve a customer service problem, or even navigate your website.
Generally, the more effort a customer has to put into solving a problem, the more likely they are to shop elsewhere next time. However, less effort does not always lead to greater loyalty. This means that you should strive to make transactions easy for your customers, but you will have to go the extra mile to create a customer experience that increases loyalty.
Open text questions
Adding open questions to surveys gives your customers the opportunity to expand their opinions, which is why it is another of the pillars of the customer experience.
Many companies find that an open question after the customer experience rating helps them identify areas for improvement.
In the restaurant example, customers are asked to rate their experience with the waiters. An open-ended follow-up question is then asked, asking them to explain their rating.
By applying an open-ended question, you can learn that many customers feel that the service was not fast enough. Then you can work with your team to improve efficiency while serving customers.
Report creation and distribution
Question types aren’t the only important part of a customer experience survey. You have to be able to analyze the data that you collect.
Choose a survey platform that offers analytical reports and the ability to share reports and data. Sharing reports allows you to communicate with other decision-makers and team members to show the results of your surveys.