NPS is flawed for measuring customer experience
“NPS is becoming less prolific for decision making - there are now better measures.”
- Rachel Lane, Director Voice of the Customer Analytics, Verint (Speaking at Customer Experience World, May 20th to 21st 2015)
We all live in an increasingly complex digital and omni-channel world. And businesses are under pressure to deliver a seamless and connected experience to their customers.
At the NOA’s 2016 Symposium (before the GSA rebrand), I talked about how outsourcing and technology providers could approach working with digital partners to deliver great customer experiences. One of the key factors is measurement - if you don’t know what’s underperforming, how do you where to invest for the biggest return?
This question of ROI is particularly valid to ambitious businesses because there is clear evidence that better CX positively impacts revenue. Gartner research suggests 86% of customers would for pay more for better customer experience, and Forrester has 5+ years of data showing that CX leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards.
So what’s wrong with using NPS to measure CX? One way to illustrate this is using a true story from my office that happened last week.
My colleague Phil found and ordered a birthday gift for his friend, from an independent seller on Amazon. Having taken responsibility for fulfilment, Amazon informed him 40 minutes before delivery that it would be 24 hours late - missing the party. He was rightly very annoyed and engaged Amazon’s customer service team to arrange compensation.
The day after this all happened, Amazon emailed Phil asking him to rate the seller on a scale of 1 to 5. Phil scored them a 1 - which seems fair, given the item never arrived. However, this one-off score only serves to indicate how Phil was feeling about the whole experience, when asked.
It was not an accurate reflection of Amazon’s intuitive search functionality; or the great content created by the seller that answered Phil’s questions; or the seamless way he was able to add the product to his basket and then check out.
And that’s the problem with NPS - when you base your feedback on a single question you fail to take into account the growing number of functional aspects associated with great customer experience.
It’s great if you want to take a snapshot of brand perception. But to measure the real complexities of digital customer experience? It’s still too simplistic and emotionally-focussed. What we always believed was needed was a performance indicator fit for 2017 and beyond. That’s why we created CX Score.
CX Score is our measurement product here at Engine, and is designed to have three views - one for each of the three key factors of customer experience.
● A data view compiled from select web analytics metrics
● A user view gathered through experience lab testing with hand-picked customers
● An expert view based on the heuristic analysis of our CX team
We apply a weighted scoring algorithm to the metrics that underpin these views, and produce a single score for your brand. The detail behind each view, and the ultimate rolled-up CX Score, can be viewed in a custom dashboard.
So, CX Score does work in a similar way to NPS in that it is able to report a single figure to the business on a regular basis. However, with 50+ metrics contributing to the score and our in-depth analysis of your digital touch-points we’re able to make strong recommendations based on current under-performance.
Although CX Score works alongside existing marketing initiatives, we know it won’t be right for everyone. Which is fine because ultimately what we care about is increasing the quality of digital customer experiences, whether they’ve been improved by us or someone else. As long as the changes enhance people’s lives, we’re happy.
Which is why we’re hosting an event dedicated to CX and in association with the GSA, titled Excellence in Customer Experience.
It takes place on the afternoon of Thursday 16th February 2017 at The Engine Group’s offices on Gt Portland St in Central London.
What we’ll cover on the day
● Presentation of highlights from The Engine Group’s UK retail ecommerce report - and learnings for the outsourcing community
● A case study illustrating how improving CX can have a direct effect on revenue
● Interactive Working Groups that will review and score the CX of well-known British and international brands
● An expert panel discussion on the new technologies driving the real improvements to customer experience
● Networking drinks reception with peers across the UK’s customer experience industry
● FREE copy of The Engine Group’s UK retail ecommerce report
We’d love to see you there and to continue the conversation further.
There should be a really good mix people attending - from independent thought leaders and Engine clients through to CX practitioners, research analysts and data scientists. Book your place today!