Best advise for operational CX with NPS
Best advice for a more operational NPS and CX program
We often meet organizations who explain that they already use NPS as part of an existing customer survey or annual questionnaire. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with that. However, a large questionnaire is usually difficult for the recipient to answer, and it is difficult for the company to follow up. And then it’s difficult to conduct operationally. As an organization, it is worth considering how customer surveys should be used going forward in order for them to create value both for the company and for the customer.
An operational CX-programme with NPS
An example of making CX more operational is to go from large, annual questionnaires to all customers, to on-going measurements, on segmented customer groups. A simple change which makes the processes around the measurements more streamlined, the analyses more affordable and the ability to follow up on the answers much greater.
If you can stick to one scale at a time in your measurements, you also make it much easier for yourself to compare feedback across the company, and it also becomes easier for your customers. Therefore, we recommend the NPS method, as it is both simple and effective, and can easily be used to measure both experiences, loyalty, general satisfaction and customer effort.
Fewer questions for greater insight
Have you considered replacing the long and difficult questionnaires, and instead break it down into smaller bites, where you ask about the touchpoints? This simple change makes both the questions more relevant to the customer, as they are asked in the immediate situation, and it becomes easier for you to make relevant follow-up. If one day you have to automate your measurements, it is much easier if you have few questions, distributed across the customer journey.
Imagine that, instead of large questionnaires where you ask comprehensively, you break your questions down into smaller chunks, and ask in the touchpoint itself. The questions thus become more relevant to the customer because they are in the middle of the situation which the question revolves around. It will be easier for you to do relevant follow-up. And it’s going to be easier to automate.
Categorize customers' responses
Integrate a routine of categorizing customers’ responses. Once the answers reach a certain volume, the categorization creates the necessary overview. Did the customer write anything about the price, was it the service, or something completely different? The categories make it easier to identify problem areas. At the same time, you can follow developments over time as you try to accommodate customer feedback.
Start small and expand the program as you go
If you’ve never measured your customer experiences, you can start with a relational measurement. A relational measurement is the overall NPS Score which gives you a benchmark to get you started. You can start relational measurements where you identify problem/focus areas. Start, for example, by measuring after an ended call to customer service. Then you can expand to measuring at sales meetings, followed by a measurement on the homepage under the main blog posts. By doing so, you continuously expand the program at a pace that you and your organization can keep up with. You will be able to select the relevant touchpoints yourself.
Use one scale across the entire customer journey
When you measure with more than one scale, you increase both the complexity of your own program, and at the same time you also make it unnecessarily confusing for the customer. Instead of using 5 stars in customer service, 0-10 when measuring relationships, and 7 options in your “Customer Effort Score”, you can work much more operationally by using a scale across all touchpoints. This makes it easier to compare responses across the customer journey, easier for the individual employee to decode the relationship, and makes it easier for yourself if you want to automate the measurements.
Get data into your IT systems
One of the reasons NPS is so effective is that it is easy to decode once the basic theory is in place. By receiving data from your customer measurements into your IT systems, customer feedback becomes visible to people other than those who sit and analyze it. The value of visible data is one of the reasons why we in nps.today work continuously to get our data to live in as many systems as possible, for example with our Outlook integration.
Automate your measurements
Once you have started the measurements across several touchpoints and have categorized and uploaded your data to various IT systems, it becomes necessary to automate parts of the program. Identify the touchpoints where your systems can create a trigger. This can be when a sale is made, when an event has been held or when the customer has called customer service. By building automation around a trigger, it becomes easier to automate. Then set up alerts for the responsible employees so that they are automatically notified when there is something they need to deal with.
Your customer experience radar
The above tips are a great tool for improving customer experiences. Because with an NPS-based loyalty program, it is thus possible to collect input from customers. Good and bad experiences can be identified across the customer life cycle. We see it as your customer experience radar, which keeps an eye on experiences across the customer journey and lets you know when and where to take action.
It doesn’t 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 here.