At the end of the Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo Americas, analysts highlighted that supply chains need to consider customer experience together with their internal metrics. Beth Coppinger, Senior Director Analyst with Gartner Supply Chain practice, believes that it is crucial to measure service as the customer does to drive excellence in customer experience.
Coppinger further explains if a customer is more interested in having an item delivered on the requested day and time than having it shipped on time. So, the first step is to define and measure success using the same metrics as their customer does.
However, benchmarking for customer satisfaction (CSAT) is easier said than done. Some businesses use the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) through questions and surveys sent to consumers about goods and services to manage how successful their improvements are in correlation to customer satisfaction. These, however, are not standardized.
It can take an average of five years for a company to climb just 1 percent and 2 percent a decade for smaller businesses. Plus, making a comparison between corporations more significant than a flat-out increase in score. In 2019, Gartner surveyed leaders of customer experience in which more than 60 percent reported that their top priority was to establish metrics that they could use to assess customer satisfaction.
Although some of these already exist, such as CSAT, Customer Effort Score (CES), a framework designed to calculate how simple it is for clients to do business with organizations, is another. So, this can vary from over-the-phone handling of requests, returns, administration of delays, and postal monitoring. For companies to manage where to put their efforts best, this knowledge is crucial.
“Investments in customer experience can take a couple of years to pay off in terms of increased customer loyalty. To help build the business case, look at metrics such as cost of service or compensation costs. These can help to justify the move to more customer-centric practices,” Coppinger said.
In the e-commerce market, customer service has always been a significant factor, and in some cases, it is fair to see a dip in 2020. But, with internal metrics playing a more critical role in high-level decisions, customer experience professionals will see more customer satisfaction rivalry than ever before.
