NB The article is originally produced in Danish
We often meet organizations that explain that they already use NPS as part of an existing customer survey or an annual questionnaire. There is basically nothing wrong with that. But a long questionnaire is often difficult for the recipient to answer and difficult to follow up on. And then it is also difficult to do operationally. As an organization, it is worth considering how customer surveys should be used in the future in order for them to create value both for the company and for the customer.
An operational CX program with NPS
An example of making Customer Experience more operational is going from large, annual questionnaires sent out to all customers, to ongoing surveys on segmented customer groups. A simple change can make the processes around the measurements more streamlined, the analyzes more affordable and the ability to act on the answers much better.
If you only use one scale at a time in your measurements, it will also be much easier to be able to compare feedback across the company – and it will be easier for your customers to give their feedback. That is why we recommend the NPS method, as it is simple, effective and can easily be used to measure experiences, loyalty, general satisfaction and “customer effort”.
For inspiration, we have gathered our best tips for a more operational CX program.
Ask fewer questions and gain more insight
Break the long questionnaires into smaller chunks, and inquire into the contact points themselves. This makes the questions more relevant to the customer as you meet them where they are in the customer journey and it becomes easier for you to make relevant follow-up. And it’s getting easier to automate.
Categorize customer responses
Build a routine of categorizing your customers’ answers so you easily can get an overview, especially when the answers reach a certain volume. Did the customer write something about the price, was it the service, or something completely third? The categories make it easy to see where you need to take action. At the same time, you can follow developments over time as you try to accommodate customer feedback.
Start small and expand the program continuously
If customer experience measurement is new to your business, you can start with a relationship measurement, which is the overall NPS score that gives you a benchmark. Then you are on your way. You can start relationship measurements where you see upcoming challenges. Then you can start measuring after a completed call in customer service, expand to measurement at sales meetings and then measurement on the website under the main blog posts. In this way, you expand the program continuously at a pace that you and the organization can keep up with and where you can select the relevant target points yourself.
Use one scale across the entire customer journey
Simplify your program by using only one scale for measurement. When you measure with different scales, you increase the complexity of your own program, and at the same time you make it confusing for the customer.
Instead of using 5 stars in customer service, 0-10 scores for relationships, and giving 7 choices in your “Customer Effort Score”, you can work much more operationally by using one scale across all contact points. This allows you to easily compare answers across the customer journey, it becomes easier for the individual employee to decode the relationship, and you can easily automate the measurements.
Get data into your IT systems
Make data available to your employees by integrating customer feedback into your existing IT system. Then they do not have to jump between systems, but always have the latest answer at hand. With data from your customer surveys in your IT systems, customer feedback becomes visible to others than those who sit and analyze them. One of the reasons why NPS is so effective is that it is easy to read once the basic theory is in place. The value of visible data is one of the reasons why we at nps.today work continuously to get our data in and live in as many systems as possible, for example with our own Outlook integration.
Automate your measurements
Once you have started the measurements across several contact points and have categorized and uploaded your data to various IT systems, it will be a great advantage to automate parts of the program. Identify the contact points where your systems can create a trigger and use them as a foundation for automation. This can be when a sale is made, when an event has been held, or when a customer has called customer service. Building automations around a trigger makes automations easier. Then set up alarms that automatically notify the responsible employees if there is something they have to deal with. Then they do not have to keep an eye on it themselves, but can react quickly when needed.
Your radar for customer experiences
Use the tips above to work on improving customer experiences. With an NPS-based loyalty program, it is possible to reap input from customers. Good and bad experiences can be identified across a “customer life cycle”. We see it as your customer experience radar, which keeps an eye on experiences throughout the customer journey, and where you can start with both individual action and transformation.
It does not have to be rocket science to create an operational loyalty program. If you have questions about the individual points or want further inspiration, you can always book a non-binding inspiration meeting with one of our NPS advisors.
