3 VoC Metrics You Should Be Measuring
If your company is looking to generate feedback through a customer satisfaction survey, you’re not alone. In fact, 84 percent of companies report that they actively seek regular input from their consumers, and 89 percent of companies compete directly with other businesses based on the customer experience alone. This data emphasizes the importance of an effective Voice of the Customer program, but unfortunately, many organizations are not using VoC programs to their full potential. Far too many businesses collect the feedback then forget about it during the decision-making process, and all of that rich, relevant data about the consumer experience is wasted.
In order to measure the success of your VoC campaign, you will need to monitor the following metrics:
Net Promoter Score, or NPS
The NPS is perhaps the most important metric when measuring the success of your VoC program. It is simple, yet powerful, and can provide excellent insight into your overall customer satisfaction rating. To determine your NPS, your business simply needs to send out a customer satisfaction survey that includes the question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our business to a friend?” The respondent must answer on a scale of 0 to 10. When the responses are back, the scores are sorted into the number of detractors, passives and promoters. The NPS is calculated simply by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
The Net Promoter Score ranges from -100 to +100, and generally any business that has a score about 0 is thought to have a positive experience with their customers. A score that is higher than +50 is considered elite by industry standards.
One of the best things about this metric is it is widely used across businesses of all industries, so it is an easy metric to use for comparisons and growth.
Overall Satisfaction, or OSAT
The OSAT metric was previously used by businesses as the most important metric in any customer feedback survey. However, now, most industry professionals use it as one of several metrics to measure the success of a VoC campaign. The OSAT metric can be determined by asking a consumer the following question: “What was your overall satisfaction with the experience?” and asking them to rate their entire experience on a scale of 0–10.
There is some debate as to where the OSAT question should be placed in a customer satisfaction survey. Some businesses prefer to place it first, because it increases the number of responses to this important question. Others, conversely, prefer to use it as the last question in a survey, because it wraps up their feelings after they have gone through different aspects of the experience in their responses. There is no right or wrong place to put it, but it’s important to note that the OSAT question placement can have an impact on the results of this metric.
Customer Effort Score
This metric is a critical part of any customer feedback survey, but it’s particularly important for businesses that offer customer service resolutions on a regular basis. Ultimately, this metric seeks to define the amount of effort the consumer had to expel in order to get a resolution to the issue at hand. The lower the score, the better it is for the business. However, given the nature of this question, it can be difficult to compare this metric to the results from other metrics being studied as part of the Voice of the Customer campaign.
As you study these metrics, you can improve your Voice of the Customer strategy in order to make it more efficient and effective. The goal is to reach out and receive feedback from as many people as possible within your target audience. Your VoC campaign needs to extend beyond the basic demographics and reach a diverse range of customers. Ultimately, you’ll be able to use these metrics to create a customer satisfaction survey that will allow you to improve your business and deliver better results for your consumers.
