Tracking metrics is an integral component of any company’s quest to maximize a company’s profitable growth and the overall customer experience. The real trick is in understanding the relationship between these two things.
Important for businesses is to have the necessary knowhow, discipline and skill to track and improve their business metrics. The metrics your company will want to focus on are the figures that indicate financial success, as well as those that energize and enable your employees to improve the customer experience (CX).
Some companies make the crucial mistake of measuring company-centric metrics without paying due regard to the metrics which are more customer-focused. Ideally, analyzing your metrics will provide you with sufficient insight into the progress your CX strategies have been achieving to date, as well as determining the shortfalls and identifying the areas that require greater refinement.
First and foremost, your initial business metrics should focus on how well the company is performing for its customers. After all, your customer base serves as the primary promoter for the growth of your business. You will want to track and measure business metrics that hone in on these three key indicators: overall customer satisfaction, communication preferences, and most importantly, customer retention.
You cannot improve what you do not measure, including customer experience.
Essentially, these three metrics comprise what we refer to us as “predictive analytics.” These metrics provide the indicators that enable your company to anticipate future customer behavior, meet their needs accordingly, and improve their user experience along the way.
By actively tracking these metrics, your organization will be in a position to focus more on the most important outcomes that are most relevant to the customer. Start by defining your key performance indicators, areas of improvements that matter the most for your business model to hone in on. Typically, this effort would involve analyzing a number of the following (under the umbrella of the three core areas noted above): net promoter score (NPS); sales; customer loyalty; customer retention; customer effort score; customer lifetime value; customer satisfaction; churn rate; and referral rate.
Most commonly, companies analyze their conversion rates by testing user behaviors and comparing outcomes with methods such as A/B split and multivariate testing. Customer communication management (CCM) software helps your enterprise use these same strategies to enhance your CX at any touchpoint along the customer journey.
Good CCM solutions help your business move its business metrics and progress in the right direction both directly and indirectly. CCM software can generate the core data for your team to analyze, or it can be triggered by systems to carry out that analysis for you. Typically, these systems can identify the most appropriate course of action to take, which could be as simple or beneficial as a communication sent by the CCM solution.
For example, as detailed in our blog previously, Topdown has been working closely with a UK-based health insurer to enhance its communication. In this particular scenario, a health insurer would likely focus more on health literacy and readability of its content. Should customers discover that the insurer’s communications are unappealing or difficult to read or understand, the customers may take their business elsewhere. A health insurance company that can provide its information promptly would also fare much better than another that promises a follow up within 3-5 days. For the customer, that communication may come too late.
Businesses don’t purchase (or rent for that matter) software without a business justification that encapsulates the overall aim of helping the business make, or save money. By using CCM to track and move business metrics along, a company should be able to do both.
Topdown’s Strategy and KPIs eBook can help you strategize and identify the key business metrics that will guide your organization towards progress and your stated aims. Fill out the form and receive your free e-copy today.
Photo by Luke Peters on Unsplash
