Why you might be wasting your CX metrics (and what to do instead)

This article was informed by an infographic created in partnership with Metrigy featuring results from a 2022 CX study. You can download your copy of the infographic here.

Most organizations have some CX metrics in place — spending up to $1.4 million to collect this data — but only 26% of companies are leveraging it to take action. Why invest money and resources in CX metrics only to ignore them?

Capturing data won’t magically improve the customer experience, nor will it help you achieve your business goals. The magic is in what you do with that data.

In this post, we’ll take a look at the untapped potential of your CX metrics and explore ways to leverage the data to drive meaningful action.

The value of CX metrics

It’s essential to develop a strong CX metrics framework that can help you measure progress and determine what’s working … and what’s not. Most large organizations have 50-200 CX metrics in place, which are owned and managed by different roles throughout the company.

CX metrics like CSAT (Customer Satisfaction), NPS (Net Promoter Score), AHT (Average call Handle Time), and FCR (First Call Resolution) are all commonly measured. Yours may include these or others that impact your customers’ journeys, like time in queue, started vs. completed (or abandoned) transactions, or even eSAT (Employee Satisfaction). No matter what CX metrics you collect, measuring them is only half the story.

Read: Key Customer Support Metrics That Drive Growth

According to Metrigy, companies that actually use CX metrics to take action see:

• Better agent and customer experience
• Technology and operational improvements
• Potential to create competitive advantage

These findings underscore why it’s important to improve both the customer experience and the agent experience. The two are connected: in fact, evidence suggests that when agent turnover rates are less than 15%, there’s a 26% increase in CSAT. That’s no small impact.

Best practices: adopt new KPIs for new channels

The first step to making sure your CX metrics are working hard for you is to ensure you’re tracking the right KPIs. A vast majority of businesses still use the same KPIs regardless of channel.

A better approach involves measuring chats handled simultaneously, using different KPIs entirely, and/or using AI to analyze and categorize open-ended comments. Let’s take a look at each of these strategies.

Measuring chats handled simultaneously: Knowing how many chats your agents are handling at once can give you valuable information. You can identify training opportunities if the number is too low, and see issues with understaffing if the number is too high.

Using different KPIs entirely: Expectations for customer service in a chat are very different from a social media inbox. A 2-hour response time would be unacceptable for most chats, but totally acceptable on say, an Instagram direct message. Assigning appropriate KPIs by channel can give you a better view of the actual customer experience — and more granular levels of insight for actionable improvements across each specific channel.

Using AI to analyze and categorize open-ended comments: Open-ended questions can yield the most honest answers, because customers are able to reflect and use their own words. But a giant pile of comments doesn’t lead to valuable insights. Using AI to analyze and categorize the open-ended comments helps you uncover meaningful trends.

Focus on customer success over agent efficiency

Growing businesses are 21% more likely to prioritize customer success than their stagnant or declining counterparts.

It’s easy to get fixated on agent efficiency, but customer success is a more valuable metric. Happy customers spend more, give good ratings, and refer others. If it takes more time spent in agent interactions to make — and keep — customers happy, why rush them out the door? Put another way: agent efficiency shouldn’t come at the cost of customer happiness. After all, loyal customers are five times more likely to purchase again and four times more likely to refer a friend. Plus, it’s much more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.

A best practice is to correlate agent KPIs and customer feedback with your business goals — even if they don’t end up prioritizing efficient (read: short) customer and agent interactions. This ensures alignment with critical metrics like improved revenue and reduced churn and, in the end, can yield better outcomes for the business.

Use visual engagement to boost CSAT

According to Metrigy, using visual engagement (video, screen-sharing, and co-browsing) is a powerful way to reach your CX goals, and has been shown to:

• Boost CSAT by 15%
• Increase revenue by 16.5%
• Improve agent efficiency by 15.1%
• Reduce costs by 7.8%

Visual engagement tools streamline and personalize customer interactions, which benefits the customer, the agent, and the bottom line.

Read: Mind-blowing ROI Statistics to Make Your Business Case for Cobrowse, Screen Share and Agent Video

Glance’s Guided CX technology delivers engaging, human-to-human guidance when your customers need it most. Our visual engagement tools empower service agents to solve issues faster, for sky-high customer satisfaction that creates new upselling opportunities.

When it comes to the Guided Customer Experience, seeing really is believing. Request a live demo to see the many ways Glance can transform your customer experience. 

Download The Value of CX Metrics infographic

Download your free copy of The Value of CX Metrics infographic that inspired this post. Reference it and share it with your team to help you leverage the power of CX analytics and improve customer satisfaction.