Customer satisfaction has somewhat turned into a buzzword, but the online environment makes it a core of most success stories. Company reviews are not just public. Typically, they are put front and center to prove services’ quality through star or number rating systems, testimonials, all the way to full-blown customer studies.
Since mistakes are unavoidable, customers pay attention not only to them but how companies choose to put out the fires. Hence, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about making up for the mistake and being transparent and respectful about it.
Still, from a technical and organizational standpoint, how do we keep track of customer satisfaction in e-commerce environments? Well, the answer is KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), specific analytics based on acquired data that indicate the real state of things over time, sometimes updated in real-time.
We’re going to go through the most commonly used KPIs to determine why they are essential and how they change your perspective on things. By conducting research safely and effectively, companies can reshape their strategies and find areas for improvement. However, each business needs to evaluate its monitoring strategies and ensure a security-first focus. If a clean-cut strategy is employed, KPIs will surely offer a variety of benefits.
1. FCR – First Contact Resolution
This number shows the percentage of contacts that were resolved on the first try. It means that the customer encountered an issue, got in touch through whatever means they saw most fitting, got a response, and the case was closed.
The things that make this number drop include escalated and call-back cases, suggesting that the issue was too complicated for the first contact agent to resolve or needed more time to fix it. It is a great way to track agent efficiency and holes in your knowledge base.
2. NPS – Net Promoter Score
The most common question that customer satisfaction agents prompt customers with is: “How likely are you to recommend our brand to friends or family?” The usual approach is to give customers rating options on a scale from one to ten, where the higher the number indicates a better score.
Customers that give a score between one and six are called detractors, seven and eight are passives, while nine and ten are promoters. We get our score by subtracting the detractor score from the promoter score. High scores indicate good customer relationship management, while low scores indicate that you need to investigate and make some changes.
3. CSAT Score – Customer Satisfaction Score
The term is also called “Happy Customer KPI” and is the most general measure of customer satisfaction. It is based on answering the simplest and the most general question, “How would you rate your satisfaction with our brand?”.
You don’t get a lot of depth here but what you do get is the general state of things and a better, more straightforward response rate as most people can give a realistic rating based on feeling alone.
Again, we have a percentage-based scoring system. There are five levels of satisfaction where only the top two tiers are calculated as successes.
4. Active & Resolved Issues
Issues, inquiries, reports, and whatever you choose to call them are the main focus of any helpdesk.
We have two problem-solving KPIs to go through, but there are more practices that businesses could choose. The first is Active Issues, which indicates the current number of issues that have been reported but not yet resolved.
A low number here indicates that there are now critical issues and that your helpdesk is managing to resolve issues at this tempo. A high number indicates a need for further investigation.
The second KPI is the Resolved Issues number, which is tracked over specific periods. It is best used in conjunction with other KPIs to determine weak spots either in general service or product design, or the lack of capabilities in some aspect of customer support.
5. Escalation Rate
Escalation rate is another KPI that focuses on the first contact metric but takes it in another direction. Escalation Rate gives me insight into how many issues had to be taken beyond the first line of support and given to a specialist to resolve.
A high score here is a good indicator that there is something wrong with a product or service and that you need to find what stands at the root of the problem.
6. ART – Average Resolution Time
If you want to improve your customer satisfaction, this is the KPI to track. It indicates how much time an agent spends resolving an issue on average. That’s important because it shows you how efficient your support is, and this also tells you how much time customers lose talking to your support.
Customers prefer things to be resolved quickly. Hence, companies need to pay special attention to this number. Sometimes even a successfully resolved issue may cause dissatisfaction if it drags on.
Conclusion
Gathering customer data, which you will do if you want to use KPIs, is a tricky business. For the sake of keeping their data safe, consumers might refuse to cooperate. They might not be willing to give away information that could be linked to them. Additionally, people could use a personal VPN to make their visits anonymous. A VPN is a tool responsible for encrypting web traffic. It is mostly used to fight surveillance, tracking, censorship, and geo-blocks. Since many consumers lose trust in companies, businesses need to establish trust and transparency to keep their clients well-informed.
You need to make sure that data is used only internally and follows your privacy policy. The overall process could rely on surveys, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, automated machine data accumulation, and so on. However, do not measure these KPIs in a vacuum. Define a target or benchmark for each analysis you choose. Then, you can make clear performance goals based on the mentioned metrics.
If you keep track of these KPIs and use them as a basis for improvement, you will surely reach high levels of customer satisfaction. Without diving deeper into responses from your customers, you risk losing them. So, never take clients for granted, and reassure them that they have the best experience possible.
