Why Do We Rely So Heavily On The NPS To Measure CX?
I was looking over the “State of Digital Customer Experience Report – 2020,” published by CMSWire.com and Simpler Media Group, and many of my suspicions and observations were confirmed when it comes to the current efforts to improve CX using today’s most popular technologies. They fall short, typically making decisions based on treating symptoms and not the root cause of CX issues – friction in the digital customer journey.
The report states,
When asked which one metric was most useful for them, organizations named the Net Promoter Score (NPS) the most popular, potentially due to its ubiquity. Given the lack of diversity in measurements, this can also be a cause for concern as NPS lacks specifics and cannot identify where improvements are needed. The lack of consensus on other useful metrics also shows how different organizations rely on different reporting and hints at the different preferences and systems that make this a potentially complex area.”
Popularity may mean that everyone uses the NPS as the key factor in creating better CX, but certainly doesn’t mean it is the best method. I totally agree with the fact that the NPS “lacks specifics and cannot identify where improvements are needed.” The NPS is an after-the-fact process that tries to provide insight into customer experiences and customer satisfaction based on a survey-type interaction. More often than not, these surveys are completed by either extremely happy customers or extremely dissatisfied customers. The idea that the CX can be improved using these data points is weak at best, and absurd in reality.
The biggest question the NPS does not answer is the “why” a customer reacts the way they do while journeying through an online process or application. ‘Why’ is the most important question when it comes to improving CX. Without knowing the ‘why,’ what a customer did, regardless of NPS, is immaterial.
The report further states, “The battle to truly understand the behavior of customers to improve services, retention, sales and drive competitive advantage is a critical area.” The NPS is not helpful in determining these factors either.
The best way to improve CX is to determine the root causes of customer frustration, hesitation, abandonment, etc., or on the other hand, their satisfaction, confidence and positive experience. The best method to determine these is by measuring the friction that each customer experiences…while interacting with a site.
Through baselining in-session behavior, at an applicant and aggregate-level, Neuro-ID’s Friction Index® dashboard measures, monitors and explains the friction between you and your customer on a daily basis. By doing this, Neuro-ID is able to provide the most predictive and pointed indicators of Digital CX and friction, eliminating the guesswork to improve both CX and conversion. This behavioral layer and question-level analysis provides a peerless level of detailed data for dramatically improved insight into the “why” your customers are acting the way they do during their journey.
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