2 Expert Insights

When it comes to overall service metrics, research is clear that the value of service metrics like net promoter, customer satisfaction, and customer commitment depend on industry and on what measure of firm performance is being driven. For example, net promoter may do better for a restaurant at predicting likelihood to return, whereas customer satisfaction may do better for an investment service at predicting number of services used.

No matter what the overall service metric, it is important to understand the specific service metrics that drive it. If net promoter is going down, for example, it is important to understand why this is the case. Across multiple industries, our research has shown that a company should have in place service metrics for their business tied to the following areas:

1. treating customers in a fair manner;

2. providing efficient and reliable service;

3. making it easy for the customer to do business with the company;

4. being informative and helping the customer achieve their goals;

5. making the customer and their needs a priority.

In addition, we find consistently that getting the basics right is just half the battle. If a company wants to truly delight the customer - and they want to measure for this - they should have in place a service metric that captures the extent to which they are perceived as going above and beyond what is expected in providing service.

There are number of excellent customer metrics. Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Engagement (CE) are outstanding. NPS enables good comparison against similar industries and does focus if customers might talk about regarding their experience. Customer Engagement measures if customers feel passionate about your brand.

What is critical is regarding customer metrics is ensuring that they connect to business outcomes. Engagement is important, but does that correlate to an uptick in sales, referrals, etc.

In the current business environment, there are two additional important measures.  
1. Are your customers advocates? With all of the competition and choices, the most powerful measure of a customer is how much they talk about your services. I have a friend that tells everyone about the Apple App  Waze. It is a direction and driving app. He has told probably about 100 people about it. Are you measuring if customers are referring your services? Are you incentivizing them to do this through service and value?

2. Can each employee in your organization see and explain the impact they have on gaining/retaining customers? If you aren't sure or you think the answer is no, that is a problem. Everything in an organization should be done with the lens of "How is this going to impact gaining/retaining customers". Regardless if an employee is in sales, auditing, or information technology they should be thinking along these lines. This is a brilliant measure too. Enabling that kind of thinking within a culture encourages employees to be more accountable, thoughtful about their actions/choices and increases their engagement. Powerful stuff.

I'd be excited to show anyone how to leverage these measures in their organization.