Get closer than ever to your customers. – Steve Jobs
Long gone are the days of a customer picking up the phone to ask a question or getting help from an organization. Now customers are given a chance to chat, email, create a support ticket or send a tweet. However, has our effort to simplify customer support only created a greater exertion of effort from our customers? Steve Jobs believed in being as close as possible to your customers. Anticipating what the client wants before they even know it.
KPI’s are a great way to measure how customers feel about their journey with an organization. The Customer Effort Score (CES) and Retention Rate are the best KPI’s to find any snags in the client’s journey with your organization.
1. Customer Effort Score (CES) is a survey metric used to measure the level of customer satisfaction using a single question with a view to induce customer loyalty by reducing customer efforts. CES measures service experiences within an organization. Below are two examples of a CES Survey:
The goal is for the organization to require little effort on the consumers part. The more effort required by consumers, the less likely they are to recommend an organization or remain with them. Compare your organization’s CSI to the national average by reviewing the ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index). ACSI gives the national average for each industry and company.
2. Retention Rate is the percentage of customers you keep relative to the number you had at the start of the period. Organizations need to measure Retention Rate to find if they have an issue causing a hiccup for customers in their journey. Below is the formula to calculate Retention Rate:
Customer Retention Rate = ((E-N)/S)*100
Number of customer at the end of a period (E), Number of new customers acquired during that period (N), and Number of customers at the start of that period (S). We want the number of customers remaining at the end of the period without counting the number of new customers acquired. Remaining customers can be calculated by subtracting N from E. To calculate the percentage, we divide that number by the total number of customers at the start and multiply by 100.
The goal of all organizations needs to be providing customers with the best overall experience and limiting customer effort starting with the initial contact. Start coloring outside the lines and let’s test your organizations customer journey today!