A central component of the customer experience in many organizations is the monitoring of the user experience as well as customer satisfaction and its drivers. Set up either as ad hoc studies, periodic tracking studies, or continuous transaction-based surveys, this type of research requires in-depth knowledge of the client organization and customer touchpoints.
We work with our clients to accurately capture all variables that have an impact on the customer experience and the business operation. Our goal is to provide insights to help develop customer acquisition and retention programs.
More than ever, we are living in an experience economy. As technology helps to commoditize many products and services, and competing on price can lead revenue and profits to a spiral downward, companies need to find differentiation in the experience they offer their customers.
Customers, in turn, are exposed to diverse experiences across many different product and service categories. These become conscious or unconscious benchmarks for their expectations. The customer experience is often the result of internal comparisons of expectations against perceptions in the context of the emotions triggered during the experience. Consequently, relying on data analytics to monitor customer behavior through transactional data is not enough.
Data analytics will show what customers do, but not why they do it. In order to correct direction and improve the customer experience, companies need to monitor different satisfaction metrics by talking directly with their customers, using both qualitative and quantitative research.
A common metric many companies use is the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which was “the metric” to measure for quite a while. Fortunately, many organizations are realizing that the NPS doesn’t tell the complete story. When it comes to customer satisfaction and retention, we need to look at the customer from different perspectives along their customer journey.
Ideally, customer satisfaction research should be conducted with a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods.
We can use qualitative research to explore needs, perceptions, and expectations. This type of research can enable us to investigate the key drivers of satisfaction, the likelihood for a customer to recommend a product/service and the prospect to buy again.
Alternatively, quantitative research using survey methodology is used to validate and identify the key drivers, and related satisfaction and retention metrics. These are customized for each client’s business structure, internal KPIs and customer journey(s).
In most cases, we recommend including a sample of customers and non-customers in the research to help us glean valuable insights into the different phases of the customer acquisition and retention cycle:
Qualitative research is conducted as needed to identify and/or get a deeper understanding of key drivers. Among the qualitative methods we use are:
Relevant Insights can recruit qualified B2C and B2B participants through our sample provider partners for both qualitative and quantitative research. With your permission, Relevant Insights can also recruit participants from your customer database. If we decide to include your customers or clients, we will implement procedures to protect their identifiable personal information.
Another option is for you to recruit directly from your own customer database if data privacy restrictions don’t allow for customer data sharing. In this case, we provide the necessary data collection tools or work with your data collection tools (i.e. survey tools) if the data is required to remain in the account.
After discussions with your team, we determine the sample parameters and assist with developing screeners. We also manage participant incentives.
Different multivariate statistical techniques are used to identify key drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, usage and recommendation (Net Promoter Score – NPS), which can be used as key metrics, monitored in scorecards.
Four to six weeks. If a preceding qualitative phase is included, add three to four weeks.
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