Metrics that make a difference
Whether focused on increasing value or on unlocking efficiencies to lower operating costs, it’s impossible to plot a route to future success without first knowing where exactly the contact center currently sits in relation to that journey.
Looking at current Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores and their movement over the last six months serves as the initial benchmarking step.
Do they trend upwards or downwards or are they static, and how do they compare to the wider industry or business sector?
Organizations that partner with an outsourcer as part of their CX delivery strategy will have an advantage in this respect. In addition to proactively tracking NPS, CSAT and the factors directly influencing those scores, top-tier outsourcers can also provide industry-level benchmarking and best practices. They also provide the necessary tools and processes for facilitating continuous improvement. This six-month snapshot provides a lens through which to view other related KPIs, starting with first contact resolution (FCR).
Set a benchmark: Look at NPS and CSAT scores and their movement over the last six months.
How to measure FCR
FCR is the percentage of all incoming customer contacts resolved by an agent without having to transfer to a superior, a different department or having to call back the customer. It’s calculated by dividing the number of contacts resolved in the first interaction by the total number of contacts received.
Alternatively, it can be determined by dividing the number of contacts resolved in the first interaction by the total number of first contacts received. It’s an essential benchmark for understanding if a contact center is both cost-effective and delivering on customer expectations.
Because CSAT and NPS reflect customer sentiment, there will be a relationship between those scores and the contact center’s ability to resolve an issue following a single interaction. Next, to provide further context regarding FCR, widen the view by reviewing average handle time (AHT), average time on hold, speed to answer and the contact abandonment rate.
First Contact Resolution (FCR): The percentage of all incoming customer contacts resolved during the first interaction with an agent.
Understanding AHT
Average handle time (AHT) is key to measuring cost, performance and quality, but only when it is viewed in context.
If a contact center is well managed and properly leveraging the right technologies for reducing contact volumes and automating repetitive tasks related to being an agent, AHT is likely to be high. This is because the remaining interactions are typically important issues that can only be resolved by talking with a live agent. Therefore, view AHT alongside FCR.
Even if AHT appears high, while FCR is also at a good level, there’s still room for improvement. Longer handling times can also be symptomatic of slow or complicated systems and processes or gaps in agent-facing knowledge bases.
The final possibility is that there are gaps in coaching or training that could be negatively impacting agent performance and efficiency.
Understanding CSAT & NPS
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) are focused on gauging how well an organization aligns its customer experience with consumer expectations and their perception of its brand promise.
Together, they help to indicate if an organization is maintaining existing relationships and building loyalty. However, businesses can still make the mistake of thinking that the two are interchangeable. CSAT and NPS do not measure the same thing, nor does an upward trend in one metric necessarily guarantee success with the other.
CSAT measures how customers feel about engaging with a brand, interaction by interaction, while NPS provides a view of how the end-to-end CX is stacking up and whether the experience is good enough that a consumer would be prepared to recommend the brand to someone else.
Mythbuster: CSAT and NPS do not measure the same thing. Unlike CSAT, NPS isn't a real-time metric.
CSAT
A CSAT survey is the simplest way of understanding what customers think about any interaction they have across any channel with an organization while that experience is still fresh in their minds.
Whether it’s speaking to a contact center agent, accessing self-service content or using an automated channel such as a chatbot, a CSAT survey asks customers to rate the experience in question on a three-point, five-point, seven-point or 10-point scale.
The fact that it’s a single-question survey and one that can be answered verbally, by checking a box, typing a single number or selecting an emoji means that it can be sent via any channel.
This potential for providing instant feedback makes CSAT an ideal means for judging and comparing the performance of individual customer journey touchpoints in real time.
However, the term “satisfaction” is subjective and could mean massively different things to different people. For this reason, it’s a good idea to use surveys with smaller three-to-five-point scales to minimize outliers and improve data consistency.
NPS
An NPS survey also asks recipients a single question. But rather than focus on rating an interaction in isolation, NPS asks a customer on a scale of 0-10, how likely they are to recommend an organization to someone they know, based on their experiences to date with a product or service or with the elements of CX related to them. Since it was first popularized in 2003, it has become the most common metric within business for measuring customer loyalty.
- Brand detractors: Customers responding with a score from 0-6 are brand detractors and likely to actively dissuade people they know from doing business with a brand. They are also the most at risk of cutting ties with the organization.
- Passives: Those giving a score of 7 or 8 are considered passive. They won’t dissuade people from doing business with a brand, but they’re unlikely to actively promote it.
- Promoters: That leaves promoters, the customers who rate the brand with a 9 or a 10, and will likely talk positively about you to those they know.
Because there are 10 points of variation in the study, NPS surveys should also include an open-ended question that encourages customers to provide further feedback.
Once all surveys have been completed, the NPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
If used properly, NPS surveys:
- Help segment your customer base by identifying which types of customers are ready to churn and which ones could be nurtured into becoming brand advocates
- Are a good way to capture feedback that could be used to improve products and services
- Provide a valuable way for the C-suite to gauge the wider market and benchmark performance within it
NPS is a metric used across all industries.
NPS Limitations
Because NPS measures a cumulative experience, it’s a survey that should be used sparingly. It’s not realistic to expect a customer to provide an NPS score every month. Therefore, unlike CSAT, NPS isn’t a real-time metric.
Likewise, because it isn’t a timely survey, the recipients most likely to respond will be those who have had memorable experiences. This means there’s a genuine risk that results will be skewed, capturing the feedback of the biggest promotors and biggest detractors. And the fact is that regardless of the brand, most customers live within the passive range of the promoter scale.
The final potential limitation is the depth of insight. NPS can’t tell an organization why customers feel the way they do. Even with a prompt to provide further details, different customers express themselves in different ways. This, in turn, can make it challenging and time-consuming to draw genuine insights from responses.
