General

Welcome back to the XI Café Podcast! In order to continue Experience Improvement, the XI Café Podcast was created so that CX program owners around the world could join the conversation and learn from global businesses and industry experts about the latest experience improvement innovations in technology and research services, industry and market expertise, and customer (CX) and employee (EX) engagement best practices.

In the latest episode of the XI Café Podcast, we interviewed Marina Strbac, who leads the Membership Experience Team at the New Zealand Automobile Association (NZAA). Marina is a people-focused, data-informed professional with a passion for customer-centric marketing. 

Here are some of the questions and answers we covered:

Q: What is the structure of the membership experience team at NZAA?

A: Marina leads a small team of four diverse humans from vastly different backgrounds—UX/UI design, math, and marketing all combined together to create optimized experiences for NZAA members. When it came to pitching and embedding an insights-to-action VoC program, the whole team worked together to implement an experience improvement program that would eventually support 1 million+ New Zealanders! 

Q: How did you get the NZAA Voice of Customer Program off the ground and what were the bumps on the way?

A: The team leveraged all their skill sets and adapted as they progressed.

The initiative changed as business circumstances changed. Originally, the team aimed to set up a company-wide VoC program, and eventually, the team pivoted toward a membership-only, journey focused VoC program that was approved by the wider business. Three months later, the program went live! 

Q: You now have a VoC program in place with a large volume of data flowing in. Marketers are somewhat overwhelmed with the vast array of data points already available (website, emails,…) how do you integrate VoC data for marketing purposes?

A: From Marina’s perspective, there’s no need to be overwhelmed by data—instead, ask yourself a few questions. Which insights/data points matter the most? Why do they matter the most? Qualify both of these against your business strategy and business goals. Take your own perception out of it, and instead re-focus on the wider business strategy. 

Once you have the answers, data and insights are pretty straightforward. Measure the baseline of the data points you’re interested in, set up a test and learn matrix, and keep going with reiteration— remove things that don’t work, and keep those that do. Remember that context is important, so do what you can to be data and insight INFORMED, not merely data driven.

In practice, NZAA identified that the “onboarding” member journey was important to track. The team knew engagement was dropping—and with membership retention as a key metric for the business, this was an important challenge to tackle. There were a lot of hypotheses from different people in the business, but ultimately the team needed to understand the “why” behind the onboarding challenge. With that in mind, the team pushed beyond open rates and click through rates, and set key metrics for customer intelligence. NPS, CSAT, and sentiment measures were set and with verbatims on top, understanding the WHY behind engagement drop became easier. Now, the team has the business data overlaid with VoC data, and they can see a fuller picture—they learned it’s a whole lot more complex than the original hypothesis. Through a test-and-learn approach, the membership team is driving optimisations based around justified prioritization.

Q: What was the “aha” moment that made you realise the potential of adding customer data to your marketing decision making process?

A: With 15+ years of experience, and over ten years in direct-to-customer, Marina has always integrated insights into communications and campaigns, and she acknowledges that customer data points at our disposal have evolved. You now need to overlay business data, operational data, and customer insights to get a full picture. The entire business capability needs to be lifted to enable customer centric marketing endeavors. Marketers need propensity models, a well-oiled marketing automation platform, and prioritized test-and-learn matrics just to name a few. As a marketer, you can’t build these alone. 

The aha moments happen when you’re working with other parts of the business, connecting the dots and asking questions like, “is it correlation or causation?” With a focus on customer actions and the passion for creating better experiences, you’ll constantly have those ‘aha’ moments. Curiosity tangents should be encouraged as that is usually where the magic happens.

Q: How are you planning to further grow your VoC program to improve the effectiveness of your marketing?

A: Next up for NZAA is strategic customer journey mapping! The business will identify key pain points and validate these with operational data. Of course, all different business units will have varying opinions, but NZAA will use business and VoC data to validate these. 

Where to Find the XI Café Podcast

You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Podcasts. But, if you are eager to jump right in then you can click the play button below to start listening to this week’s episode!

More of a visual person? No worries. You can also find the video recordings off the XI Café Podcast on our YouTube channel!

Welcome back to the XI Café Podcast! In order to continue Experience Improvement, the XI Café Podcast was created so that CX program owners around the world could join the conversation and learn from global businesses and industry experts about the latest experience improvement innovations in technology and research services, industry and market expertise, and customer (CX) and employee (EX) engagement best practices.

In this episode of the XI Café Podcast, we’re talking to State Revenue Office Victoria (SRO) Customer Experience Manager, Desmond Strydom. Desmond has over a decade of experience in this field, and in his current role, he has spearheaded and launched the VoC program at SRO. Desmond will talk about the SRO journey of launching a new VoC program, gaining support from leadership, and some of the early success stories the team has seen.

Where to Find the XI Café Podcast

You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Podcasts. But, if you are eager to jump right in then you can click the play button below to start listening to this week’s episode!

We’ve evaluated the pros and cons of primary reporting locations for the customer experience (CX) function and ideal CX leader qualities in previous articles, “Where Should CX Live Within An Organization?” and “Does Who’s Driving the CX Bus Make a Difference?”

It’s now time to discuss the organizational elements that are necessary for CX to thrive in an organization (regardless of the reporting structure your organization chooses or the characteristics of the person leading the CX function).

We utilize a continuous improvement framework with our clients that starts with the principle of “design with the end in mind.” This means achieving one or more of the four key economic pillars: acquiring more customers, keeping more customers (reducing churn), growing lifetime customer value (CLV), or reducing cost to serve.

The Five Stages of the Continuous Improvement Framework:

Stage #1: Design

Clearly design an experience strategy that aligns with overall company goals and brand promise, driving customer outcomes.

Stage #2: Listen

Thoughtfully deploy modern listening strategies and data integrations across the journey to expand and enhance an integrated view and holistic customer understanding.

Stage #3: Understand

Consolidate all data streams and leverage advanced analytics to identify where and how to act (and the anticipated impact on customer outcomes).

Stage #4: Transform

Create & implement dynamic action plans, training, and policies that facilitate organizational change (and promote activities that drive customer outcomes).

Stage #5: Realize

Evaluate and demonstrate results of experience initiatives including (but not limited to) organizational change, improved metrics, and financial impact.

Building the Foundation for A Successful CX Program: Moving Beyond the Continuous Improvement Framework

Beyond those five core stages, though, there are certain foundational and organizational elements that must be present for CX to thrive in your company.

The success of your CX effort is determined not only by where it lives within your organization, but also by who’s heading up the program and driving its goals, actions, and direction within your company.

This job isn’t easy and not for the faint-of-heart; frankly, CX leaders often end up working against what is natural for an organization. Most businesses are organized into silos: marketing, sales, operations, customer care, HR, IT, finance, etc. These silos all have their own priorities, goals, and KPIs. But customer experience is a ribbon that cuts across these silos, and an effective CX program ensures that hand-offs between silos are clean and that no facet of the customer experience falls into the cracks.

More specifically, marketing drives awareness of your products and solutions, and sets the expectations for how they work and what to expect. Sales sells the vision and aligns the products and services against customer needs. Product development and operations have to deliver against those expectations. IT and the digital team have to provide the tools to keep employees and customers informed and educated, while HR has to get the right people in the right roles to deliver the customer experience.

What to Look for in a CX Bus Driver

A CX leader needs to drive cross-functional alignment, build relationships that elicit cooperation, and break down organizational silos to create coordination across the entire customer journey. They must accomplish this task despite not owning most, if not all, of the departments that ultimately deliver that desired experience.

Again; not for the faint-of-heart.

After decades of leading and guiding CX at multiple companies across multiple industries—and learning our fair share of hard-knock lessons along the way—we’ve landed on eight requirements for successful CX leaders:

• Willingness to be a change agent
• Executive presence and sensibility
• Ability to build cross-functional relationships
• Lead by influence and persuasion
• Strong communication skills
• Analytical and data-driven
• Financial acumen
• Results-oriented problem solver

Clearly, these skills are all heavily intertwined, as a CX leader must have strong communication skills to build relationships and influence executive leaders. They must be data-driven with strong financial instinct to convince leadership to change behaviors or to take new actions (building a strong relationship with the CFO and their team is a smart early move).

Looking At The Road Ahead

The success or failure of a CX program depends on many factors: the strategy and goals defined at the onset, the internal commitment to improvements, the executives, the employees, and the foundational and organizational elements that are in place. CX success also hinges upon appointing a leader who is an effective communicator and can sell a vision, create alignment based
on shared business goals, and curate a shared understanding of customer needs, expectations, and journeys.

CX leaders must have the will and influence to drive demonstrable culture change, improvement, and ROI no matter where they report within the company.

Customer experience is a team sport that requires the participation, alignment, and coordination of the entire organization. But the skills and personality of the CX leader and their ability to sell a vision, as well as use data and storytelling to persuade others to change is critical as well. It’s not easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.

Look for the next article on the other organizational elements that need to be present beyond the CX leader and core team. We’ll come full circle on what all you need to ensure Experience Improvement (XI) for your customers, your employees, and your greater marketplace presence.

My name is Ton Luijten, Customer Success Director + Data Science Lead in APAC—and in this post I’ll help you unlock a new take on ROI—through failure demand.

When we manage client programs at Pearl-Plaza, return on investment (ROI) is always top of mind. We strongly believe this should be a top priority for any team trying to improve customer or employee experiences to show that they are positively contributing to the financial outcomes of their business. 

Most people will instinctively believe that by improving experiences we will improve retention, reduce customer churn, and lower business costs, but proving this is the hardest and most important part of proving your experience program is actually moving the needle at your organization. 

Let’s take a look at how considering failure demand can help you prove ROI.

First Up, What Is Failure Demand?

Failure demand is when an organization falls short of servicing customers on the channels they are seeking, which then causes demand for services in other channels. 

A classic example is a customer that wants to find information on a brand’s website, but they fail to find the information they need—this usually ends up with a call to the call center. 

Why Is Failure Demand Such a Fail? 

Failure demand is problematic for brands as it means the customer experience is not optimized and the customer cannot get the service where and when they want it—not to mention, there’s a cost to the organization to service this additional demand. 

By reducing failure demand, brands have an opportunity to both improve the customer experience, but also create positive financial outcomes for the organization. 

Where Do We Start When Reducing Failure Demand? 

To reduce failure demand, we first need to measure it. Ideally you would be able to use operational data for this, but there are a few problems with this method. If we revisit the earlier example—how does the organization measure that the customer visited the website before they called into the call center? If the customer mentioned this on the call, the agent could take a note of this for their file, but we know these notes are typically inconsistent and hard to analyze at scale. 

When I work with clients at Pearl-Plaza, we’ve built custom text analytics sets to analyze call center notes—all with the hopes of understanding what customers are calling about. Then, brands can identify topics that attract large call volumes and work out which ones have the potential to be moved to cheaper channels (most likely online). While this is really exciting work, it does take an investment of time and money.

Another option for monitoring failure demand is to use web intercept technology with session recording to understand which journeys across the website cause the most dissatisfaction. 

However, with this option we’re already going into the space of asking customers for their feedback and not just relying on operational data. It also doesn’t allow us to find out what customers did after the failed journey, so limits our visibility on the impact on other channels.

So, What Can We Do To Reduce Failure Demand? 

I’m proposing an alternative option that’s simpler and leverages a solution that most organizations already have in place—post interaction surveys. These four questions will give you the information you need to measure failure demand and prioritize areas for improvement. 

Here are the questions to ask in your post-interaction survey: 

Question #1: Was Your Issue Resolved?

Most CX professionals won’t be surprised by this question as post interaction surveys typically include something of this nature. It’s particularly important for measuring failure demand because you don’t want to cause repeat calls. Of course, it’s also a poor experience for the customer.

Question #2: How Many Times Have You Contacted Us to Resolve That Issue?

It’s important to ask this when measuring failure demand because we want to avoid repeat calls and try to close out issues as quickly as we can.

Question #3:  What Channels Did You Use to Resolve This Issue?

This is a multiple choice question, so customers can select all the channels they have used. This is really important as it allows us to understand which channels they used and how many they used. The latter is critical for failure demand.

Question #4: What Is Your Preferred Channel to Resolve This Issue?

The list of answer options is dependent on the selection made at the previous question. By combining this question with the previous one, you can figure out which channels the customer has actually used and which one they would have preferred to use. This insight allows you to prioritise which improvements you need to implement for the different channels and reduce failure demand, as you will be able to resolve customers’ issues via their preferred channel, which means they no longer need to use multiple channels.

Wrapping Up

Of course, these four questions are contingent on the organization understanding what the original issue is. If we don’t have that information, we should also work that question into the post-interaction survey.

By combining all this information, your brand will have the magic formula—you’ll be able to understand the current state of failure demand, identify key areas for improvement to take action, and measure progress over time. 

After you do a study or research, you will probably want to know if the results you got mean anything. More specifically, you want to know if there are statistically significant differences between the groups you studied. After all, statistically significant results help you know that what you studied—the variables you chose—are having an impact on the results. 

For example, let’s say you did research on your customer base, and you wanted to determine if certain age groups bought your product more than others. Once you have your data, you need to determine if there’s any statistically significant difference between the age groups. How do you do that? 

One way to determine if there are statistical differences between groups is to do an analysis of variance also called ANOVA. What is analysis of variance? Read on to learn more about ANOVA tests and how to use them for your own analyses. 

What Is Analysis of Variance? 

Analysis of variance or ANOVA is a statistical test developed by Ronald Fisher in 1918, and it’s been used by statisticians and researchers ever since. The analysis of variance test is a way to compare means from different groups and determine if the differences in those means are statistically significant. If they’re statistically significant, that means the variable for that group is having an impact on what you’re researching. If they’re not statistically significant, then your variables aren’t affecting what you’re studying. 

Let’s revisit the example from earlier. You wanted to determine whether 18–24 years old, 25–35 years old, or 36–45 years old buy your products more. You gather all of your data about how much people are buying based on a random sampling. You determine the mean for each age group on product purchases. ANOVA is then how you can determine if there’s a statistically significant difference between those means. 

An analysis of variance test will take into account the sample size and differences between means to give you an F value. The F value can then be analyzed to give you a probability or P value—or the probability that there’s a statistically significant difference. Let’s say you get a P value of 0.03. That would mean your results are statistically significant, and you can reject the null hypothesis. Most likely, that would mean you can determine that age is a significant variable in who buys your product, and you could consider making marketing decisions based on that. That’s the power of ANOVA. 

How Does ANOVA Help? 

At the core of it all, ANOVA helps you determine what variables have statistical differences and what variables are important to look at in more depth. Even more importantly, ANOVA can give you a glimpse into the motivation behind behavior. What’s driving customers to click on a link? ANOVA might help you determine that. Essentially, ANOVA helps by giving meaning to numbers, direction to actions. 

Types of ANOVA

ANOVA is a broad category for several types of tests. The big two to discuss are one-way and two-way ANOVA tests. A one-way ANOVA test is the simplest form of ANOVA. For this test, you’ll need one independent variable and two or more levels. For example, you could use the months of the year as levels but still only test one variable. Two-way ANOVA or full factorial ANOVA is when you have two or more independent variables to test. Two-way ANOVA measures independent variables against each other and if independent variables affect each other. 

There are a couple of other types of ANOVA to consider: 

• Welch’s F Test ANOVA. The Welch’s F Test doesn’t assume the variances between groups are equal, which can be beneficial for some data sets.  This type of unranked ANOVA test works when there are two assumptions that are true about the data: 
  • The sample size is 10 times greater than the calculation group (satisfying the Central Limit Theorem)
  • There are few or not outliers in the data distribution
• Ranked ANOVA. If these assumptions above don’t hold, you can instead use a ranked ANOVA test. Ranked ANOVA tests can hold up against outliers and non-normal distributions because the values are replaced with a rank ordering. 
• Games-Howell Pairwise Test. This ANOVA test doesn’t work with the assumption that variations between distributions are equal, and it’s a test when there’s a higher likelihood of finding statistically significant results. 

ANOVA Terms to Know

There are some important terms to be familiar with to work with an analysis of variance test. Here’s ANOVA terminology that may be important for you: 

• Independent variable. This is the variable that you choose to change, and you’re studying how it will affect the dependent variable. 
• Dependent variable. Variables that don’t change and are instead affected by the independent variable. 
• The null hypothesis. When you do an analysis of variance, you will have a pair of hypotheses. The null hypothesis will be the one that says there is no difference between the groups you’re looking at. If your p value is less than 0.05, you can reject the null. If not, you fail to reject the null hypothesis. 
• The alternative hypothesis. Your other hypothesis is that there is a difference between the groups. 

The Formula for Analysis of Variance

The formula for ANOVA is F = MST/MSE. That may look simple, but it involves a few more numbers. The MST is your total sum of squares (all of your means put through a formula) divided by the population total minus one. That gives you the top value for the ANOVA formula. MSE is your sum of squares with error divided by the number of observations minus one. Once you have both variables, you divide the MST by the MSE, and that gives you the F value. With your F value, you can use an ANOVA chart to determine the p value, which will tell you if you can reject the null hypothesis or if you fail to reject the null hypothesis. 

How to Run an ANOVA

That formula can get tricky when a lot of numbers are involved, so not every statistician, researcher, or analyst does ANOVA by hand—though it can be calculated by hand, thanks to creation before computer programs. Instead, most researchers use computer software and programming to perform the test. R, Stata, SPSS, and Minitab are great choices for running an ANOVA test accurately and quickly. 

Drawbacks to an Analysis of Variance Test

An ANOVA test will tell you that there is a difference between means and if that’s statistically significant. But ANOVA won’t tell you where that difference lies. For example, let’s return to our earlier example. You’re testing three age groups for your product purchases. The ANOVA test will tell you that age is statistically significant, but it won’t tell you which group is the one with the biggest difference. You’ll need to do additional statistical tests to determine which age group is most interested in your product. 

Analysis Is Easy with Pearl-Plaza

Statistical tests can be overwhelming, including ANOVA. While it’s always possible to do an analysis of variance on your own, it’s usually easier and more accurate with some support. Pearl-Plaza is here to help. Whether you’re conducting a survey, research, or analysis of variance, the process just got a lot easier with Pearl-Plaza. Book your demo today and see how you can simplify your processes.

Just discovered Pearl-Plaza? Curious to know a little more about us and our differentiated Experience Improvement (XI)? Well allow us to introduce ourselves! 

Own the Moments That Matter

At Pearl-Plaza, we have this saying: “Own the Moments That Matter.” This is fundamental to our mission, because those moments—packed full of emotions, judgements, learnings, and more—shape the world we live in. And with every moment, there is an opportunity to make a positive impact; to leave a mark.

But when it comes to your business, there are simply some moments that matter more, to your customer, employees, and beyond. 

Our goal is to empower you with the data, technology, and human expertise necessary to identify the moments that matter, understand what’s working (and what might need improvement), take informed action to solve business problems, and ultimately provide a truly differentiated experience for your business. 

Our CEO John Lewis said it best: “Pearl-Plaza’s unique combination of world-class technology and expert service enables clients to integrate growing and disparate customer signals and separate predictive understanding from the noise.” 

What Is Experience Improvement (XI)?

Despite increased investment, experience management programs have plateaued. Why? 

Because experiences don’t need to be managed or measured, they need to be improved.

The truth is that monitoring services and D.I.Y. approaches aren’t enough for today’s businesses; they cause program stagnation and make meaningful return on investment (ROI) impossible. Instead, what’s required for success is a new approach: an Experience Improvement (XI) initiative that solves the biggest business challenges, like retention, growth, and cost savings. 

The Moments That Matter

Improving experiences begins with sifting out the noise from experience data and identifying the moments that matter: where customer, employee, and business needs meet. This allows businesses to prioritize their focus on high-emotion, high-impact areas and connect with their most valued customers. Additionally, businesses can empower their employees to recognize and take action in these moments, ultimately culminating in organization-wide transformation from the boardroom to the break room. 

Data, Technology, and Human Expertise

Experience Improvement is made possible through our industry-leading Experience Intelligence XI technology and our in-house Experience Improvement (XI) services teams. With our ability to collect and gather data from anywhere and in any form with our Integrated CX approach, industry-leading technology, and decades of experience in key industries, Pearl-Plaza can help you craft an experience initiative that truly meets the unique needs of your business. We are dedicated to being more than just a vendor to our clients—instead we take the role of a dedicated partner committed to a businesses’ short- and long-term success.

The Intersection of Value

Our mission is to help our clients improve experiences at the intersection of value—where customer, employee, and business needs come together.  Ultimately, our clients are able to move the needle and go beyond managing their experience to actually improving it. With the right intelligence, businesses can empower the right people to take transformative, informed action in the most effective ways and drive value across four key areas: acquisition, retention, cross-sell & upsell, and cost reduction. In other words, better results for the business and better experiences for their customers and employees.

The Continuous Improvement Framework

The key to taking an experience program beyond metrics is to move beyond monitoring customer feedback and stories and focus on the formation of actionable plans for changes informed by them. Customer narratives contain meaning that companies can use to diagnose both superficial and deep-seated problems, define remedies to those problems, positively impact the bottom line, and create more meaningful experiences. We help our clients  achieve all of this by sticking to a simple, five-step framework that we call the Continuous Improvement Framework: define, listen, understand, transform, realize. (You can read all about it here!)

What Third Party Analysts & Customers Say About Pearl-Plaza

And don’t just take it from us—Pearl-Plaza has received third-party validation from multiple third-party research firms. We have been named Leaders in the Forrester Text Analytics Wave, Forrester Customer Feedback Wave, the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Voice of the Customer, and more! 

Forrester Text Analytics Wave

Pearl-Plaza received the highest possible score and was named Leader in the Text Analytics Wave report. The Forrester Wave says, “Pearl-Plaza XI is a solid choice for customers who want a platform with a well-balanced mix of knowledge and ML-based AI, the ability to deploy OOTB solutions quickly, and deep custom application development capabilities.” As mentioned in the report, “Pearl-Plaza’s people-oriented text analytics capabilities…enable it to address all relevant use cases beyond just VOC or CX analytics.” 

Forrester Customer Feedback Wave

Pearl-Plaza was also named a Leader in Forrester’s Customer Feedback Wave Report. The Forrester Wave  says, “Pearl-Plaza is a good fit for organizations looking for a ROI-focused technology and services partner.” As mentioned in the report, “reference customers say they selected Pearl-Plaza for its technology capabilities and value citing the vendor’s pricing as reasonable and transparent. They also praise the vendor’s partnership and focus on delivering outcomes. References appreciate that not everything is “tool driven;” instead, the vendor  provides strategic guidance, helping them innovate their approach to surveys or embrace new forms of feedback. 

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Voice of the Customer

Furthermore, Pearl-Plaza was named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Voice of the Customer. The report says,  “Pearl-Plaza is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. The company’s Experience Improvement (XI) Platform combines a broad set of VoC technologies as part of an  integrated offering that focuses on blending services and  software to help fulfill its clients’ evolving CX ambitions.  The company has established operations around the world,  with a notable presence in Asia/Pacific.” Continuously, the report mentions,”Pearl-Plaza is investing in intelligent self-service and workflow automation to help simplify the user experience (UX), while  furthering its vision to support four tailored XI clouds for  CX, employee experience (EX), product product experience  (PX) and market experience (MX).”  

“Pearl-Plaza has an impressive ability to deliver business value through its consulting-led methods and programs.” – Gartner Magic Quadrant for Voice of the Customer

Industry Dominance

Not only have we been recognized by multiple market research firms, but our success is also shown in our reach across multiple industries. Pearl-Plaza is currently improving experiences with: 

• 90% of the world’s leading automotive brands
• 8/10 of leading banks
• 4/5 of the top insurers

And one more thing. 100% of our clients would recommend us. 

Recognized as a leader and innovator in our sector, we collaborate with the world’s leading brands to attract, engage and retain their customers. We are fiercely proud that our clients continually tell us they love the experience of working with our company, as we constantly stretch to exceed their expectations. 

Our Experience Improvement (not management) approach provides context to feedback at the intersection of value—identifying what’s important to customers, employees, and the business. Our expertise enables brands to align their CX and EX programs with business goals, prioritize actions, determine and monitor impact of change, address issues, and celebrate successes—all leading to true Experience Improvement.

Does this Experience Improvement (XI) mission align with your vision? You can learn more here!

A CSAT score is a commonly used customer experience (CX) metric that helps a company build a relationship of trust and understanding with its customers. A successful organization knows that a key element of success is a loyal foundation built within its customer base.

On paper, it may seem simple, but in reality, many companies struggle with building a customer-centric foundation within loyal customer relationships. One way to build and maintain solid relationships is to establish a channel for customers to communicate experience feedback to the company. 

The goal of a successful organization is to fully grasp what customers value—as well as dislike—regarding their experience with a business. A proven channel to understand customer sentiment is by implementing customer satisfaction surveys.

What Is a Customer Satisfaction or CSAT Score?

CSAT is short for customer satisfaction score. It’s a commonly used measurement tool that acts as a key performance indicator for customer service and product quality. CSAT is a general term understood, recognized by, and beneficial to a wide variety of industries. 

While customer satisfaction as an idea is a general one, CSAT is a more defined and specific metric that is expressed as a percentage. These more defined metrics can present as any of the four types of CSAT surveys:

#1: Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

#2:  Net Promoter Score (NPS®)

#3:  Customer Effort Score (CES)

#4:  Milestone Surveys

In this blog, the spotlight stays on what CSAT is, but it’s beneficial to have at least a brief understanding of the three other types of CSAT surveys to have a full grasp of the entire concept and how customer satisfaction can play a major role in organizational decision-making processes.  

Net Promoter Score:

Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is a metric that indicates the willingness of customers to promote a company’s product or services and separates customers into promoters, detractors, and passives. While NPS is a valuable indicator of customer satisfaction, it also can surface pain points that can lead a company to revise, shift or fix friction points in the customer journey to encourage positive customer experience that leads to customer promotion. 

Customer Effort Score:

Customer Effort Score, or CES, is a specific customer experience survey metric that enables companies to track the ease of or effort required within the customer interaction with a product or service within the duration of the customer relationship with the company. In measuring CES, organizations gain insights and data that enable business improvements in and around the customer experience to uncover laborious friction points that act as roadblocks to customer interactions.

A Milestone Survey: 

A Milestone Survey is a questionnaire sent out at specific moments throughout the customer journey to help organizations better understand the customer experience over time. A milestone can either be triggered by time (after 30 days) or by experience (after onboarding).

What Types of Questions Would a Customer Satisfaction Survey Include?

When drafting a CSAT survey, it is wise to consider including a variety of questions that explore the different aspects and relationships surrounding the customer’s journey with a product or service. 

The five most beneficial and key question types that provide a wide and valuable range of insight that will likely benefit any organization are:

• Product Usage Questions
• Demographics Questions
• Psychographics Questions
• Satisfaction Scale Questions
• Open Ended Text Questions

Product Usage Questions:

Product Usage Questions explore when and how, and why customers are interacting with your product; they will be critical in identifying customer expectations and needs that lead to product engagement. Product usage questions point to the value or lack thereof that a product provides. Listening to the voice of the customer regarding our product will provide clarity and insight beyond what controlled studies can provide. With product usage data, companies can get a more complete picture regarding functionality and value its product provides. 

Demographic Questions:

Demographic Questions can help you determine a variety of components within a population’s characteristics that may influence a customer’s decisions surrounding your product. It’s common within demographic questions to gather information about customers’ income level, marital status, gender,  identity, and geographical location. With product usage segmented data, companies are better informed to make wise business decisions on how to target a specific demographic by utilizing the data from their customer feedback. This data-based information may help you develop products and or services that relate more specifically to customers.

Psychographic Questions: 

Psychographic Questions will give valuable insight into the customer lifecycle by providing you with information about unique customer specifics. Psychographics describe human traits that could include: hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes, goals, values, lifestyle, or physiological tendencies. Psychographic survey questions may help measure the personality traits and tendencies of a customer’s preferences regarding a company’s products and services.

Satisfaction Scale Questions:

Satisfaction Scale Questions may promote feedback and curb survey fatigue as the structure of the question can be an easy way for customers to give an overall sentiment of their experience with the company or product using a single click. The satisfaction scale asks, on a scale of 1-5, or 1-10, how satisfied a customer is. This scale can be as general or specific as the feedback a company would like to receive and can provide companies direction on who their promoter and detractor customers are and allow them to target them according to their overall satisfaction sentiments. 

Open-Text Questions:

Open-Text Questions allow customers more freedom to share and expound upon unique experiences and assist in gathering highly valuable responses not available in other forms of questioning. Open-text questions are relatively harder to analyze as data sets and require text analysis, but they help capture subjective and individualized experiences regarding the customer journey better than other forms of questioning. 

How Do You Calculate and Measure a CSAT Score?

CSAT score is a customer feedback metric measured via one or more variations of this question: “How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the products or service you received?” Respondents use the following or similar 1 to 5 scale:

1. Very Unsatisfied: ( Where a customer would be considered a detractor)
2. Unsatisfied: (Where a customer would be considered at risk of churn)
3. Neutral: (Where a customer would be considered a slight risk of churn)
4. Satisfied: ( Where a customer would be considered a promoter)
5. Very Satisfied: ( Where a customer would be considered a promoter)

CSAT scores are usually developed into a percentage scale, with 100 percent representing complete customer satisfaction. The results of a CSAT survey can be averaged out to give a Composite Customer Satisfaction Score by taking the number of satisfied customers and dividing them by the number of surveys received. CSAT Surveys remain the most successful way to elicit customer feedback and come in a variety of forms and templates. Customers may be accustomed to a traditional questionnaire or website form, but more and more, the less traditional format, such as a popup, an app, via text message, or other unconventional methods, are being adopted as users can easily navigate these methods within the comfort of their touchscreen devices.  

Why Are Customer Satisfaction Surveys Important?

When customers feel their voice is being heard, they are more likely to communicate their unique and personal experiences with a product or service. In the event of negative experience feedback, customers are more likely to stay if they can see their experience remedied. Unsatisfied customers have the potential to become loyal promoters after being retained from negative feedback, and a well-timed customer satisfaction survey can hone the customer journey and improve satisfaction, retention, loyalty, and likelihood to repurchase.

Moving Forward with CSAT Surveys

Occasionally customer satisfaction feedback will provide a descriptive experience, especially if open-ended questions are included, but most customer feedback will be brief, concise, and to the point. Whatever form the feedback takes, the notion that any feedback is better than none remains, and the CSAT score is the best way to receive,  sort, and take data-based action to improve. 

Utilizing CSAT scores and insights wisely can lead to a positive influx of new customers and contribute to well-maintained relationships with existing ones. 

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