Google Analytics and the customer experience- do you have thr right tools?
Website analysis can generate improved performance, but your focus should be on measuring and analysing perception against expectation in three key linked areas.
The argument as to whether marketing is an art or a science has raged for years. It is interesting that long-term brand appeal is built primarily on emotion not rationality. The great TV ads are primarily emotional in nature; think of Guinness and its sea horses; does it matter how long the wait for the wave actually was, the point is that waiting pays off. Interestingly the same is true of oratory; Winston Churchill did not say how many owed how much to how many less; it was the idea that counted. People buy and recall ideas. Numbers were put to the sword in ’1066 and all that’.
It is clear that people make emotional decisions in the main. They may think that they are making rational ones, or even post rationalise them. I would argue that an emotional decision is the sum of a number of rational trade offs. One example is whether we choose the highest interest rate for our savings or the lowest premium for our insurance.
Customer experience measures
It seems to me that a similar approach is likely to be most helpful in developing analysis of customer experience. Customer experience is also very much about perception. In essence it is a measure of external perceptions against external expectations, not internal measured results against internal standards.
It is not terribly helpful to know that we answered the phone in 8 seconds against a standard of 10. The customer might have expected 10, but perceived to be waiting for 12. Why? Largely because of prior, perhaps negative, experience of the brand, but more likely because the call was unsatisfactory when the connection was made – i.e. the customer did not get what he or she wanted.
The key question then in using analytics to help improve customer experience is to ensure that we analyse the things that matter to customers. Customers will be much influenced by the recency and frequency of their interaction with the brand and these are key members for us. But the focus is on the emotional response to those interactions.
Hence, we argue that the key numbers for analysis are three:
* How did you feel about your interaction with us today?
* How do you feel about us as an organisation?
* Would you recommend us to your family, friends and colleagues?
This is crucial. It is the day to day measurement of perception against expectation, and enables daily tracking of customer experience. Analysis should track both the customer’s previous answers and, in a person to person interaction, the performance of the agent. This data should then be viewed in the context of the operational performance on the day; were systems fully functional, was there a particular call flow issue?
This is a wider concept. How people feel about the organisation as a whole, takes into account not only day to day interactions but the total set of experiences and perceptions of the organisation and its brand. The customer will be influenced not only by his or her experiences but also by the experiences of others. This is because brand associations are a reflection of the individual’s personality. People wish to be seen to have made good choices in the eyes of others.
Whilst customer satisfaction tracking surveys will provide meaningful numbers for analysis, it is likely that qualitative research will be required to better understand customer attitudes and motivations.
We know that customer satisfaction and loyalty are closely linked and that they are correlated through the Net Promoter Score to business performance.
In a separate article we shall analyse in more depth the true relationship between loyalty and business performance across various business and activities. Satisfaction is clearly linked to both longevity and frequency, value, volume of cross sales and repeat purchase. We shall explain the mechanics.
Key to understanding the benefits of customer experience is measuring and analysing recommendation. We know that people only recommend if they are highly satisfied; satisfaction in its own right is not a motivator.
There are two aspects of recommendation which require analysis. Firstly, the characteristics and motivation of the recommendee. In sum, people recommend for altruistic reasons and also to build esteem in their social group. They like to be seen as early adopters. We also want of course to look at the value of our recommendee; there may be a correlation between their value to the organisation and the recommender.
Secondly, we want to understand the value of recommendation to us both in terms to reduce marketing costs and increased customer flows, including the performance of recommended customers compared to those joining by other means.
However, the real value arises from considering the perceptions of customers against their expectations on day to day and long-term horizons, in conjunction with their behaviour vis a vis recommendation.
